What is Defamation?
''the action of
damaging the good reputation of someone; slander or libel''
This takes place all the time in the media- companies get sued behind closed doors!
This takes place all the time in the media- companies get sued behind closed doors!
One case I looked at is the Peter Cruddas VS The Sunday Times:
Mr Cruddas who is Chief Executive of CMC Markets and
former Treasurer of the Conservative Party had filed a
claim against the Sunday Times as he felt that
journalists Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake were "untruthful,
misleading, vindictive and malicious in its reporting of a meeting"
The scandal that took place involved 2 journalists
pretending to be international finances, who recoded and filmed the
whole meeting hoping to get something negative out of
it- ruining Mr Cruddas' reputation. On 25 March 2012, The Sunday
Times published an article ‘Tory treasurer charges £250,000 to meet PM’ which
was on the front headlines of their newspapers, including an extra 3 articles
published inside that made negative accusations, suggesting that he was
unreliable and the system in which he's working in is corrupt as
its workers were supposedly willing to breech UK laws.
Peter Cruddas, said, “The dark cloud that has hung over
me and my family since The Sunday Times published its malicious lies about me
16 months ago has finally been lifted and justice has been done. My world was
turned upside-down when that article was published. I remember vividly having
to walk into my offices the day after the article was published and face 500 of
my staff, many of whom had a clip of the Sunday Times interview on their video
screens. It was humiliating. I was also embarrassed to accept invites to events
which meant that my charities suffered".
The Sunday Times were charged and had to pay a staggering of £500,000 in legal costs in compensation to the personal
humiliation and distress felt by Mr Cruddas. This case is known to be the
highest libel awards in recent years which indicates its level of both
seriousness and the personal damage caused.
Article published on 31st July 2013.
Whilst conducting this research I have found that when collecting my news story I must make sure that all my information is verified also all that I say about a group of people/person is true. Also, I must not appear biased and present specific (likely hard news) negatively as this my cause hysteria among a group of people/person.
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