Marc Lewis – 21st May 2011
Footballer sues Twitter. Football can fix this mess.
I can’t claim to know many celebrities, but the synthesis of my conversations with the few people labelled as having public profile all share a common meme. This revelation suggests that the injunction and super-injunction brouhaha is just a silly sideshow. A footnote in the history of our ridiculously opulent media culture.
The most common frustration expressed by my small sample of very minor celebs are the lies told simply to sell papers. Sometimes it’s the silly, small lie that can break the camel’s back. I have heard, read and seen horror stories caused by newspapers telling other sorts of lies. Not pretty.
To be fair, there is a system for retribution when a newspaper tells a porky. It has never been easier for victims to get legal aid, and judges now have plenty of precedent from previous cases to help them balance the fine line between the freedom of the media, the freedom of speech and the freedom to privacy when they make their judgements. The problem is that judges have not been given the right tools to cure this disease in our media. Football can fix this mess.
There are two main levers used to correct wrongs done by media; damages and retractions. Retractions are usually one or two paragraphs tucked away on page 72. Damages are a part of the business model of most tabloid newspapers. With their circulations dwindling, media barons know that a good story will sell papers. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
The simple cure to our media disease is so simple. Give judges a third lever to use when they are considering how to bring a fair resolution to a case – yellow cards when a newspaper is caught lying. When a newspaper receives too many yellow cards (I propose three yellow cards over three months), then they receive a red card. Red cards mean that the newspaper is prohibited from printing any paper copies or publishing digital content for a day. Repeat offenders or instances of media lies that cause significant harm to individuals or to groups of people might incur a longer ban.
Supporters of the media may argue that handing courts power to ban newspapers is the start of a slippery slope towards the erosion of a free press, but anyone with common sense knows that technology has ensured free press and free speech even in the most tyrannical climate.
Yellow cards to the red tops when they misbehave. You know it makes sense.
Read the Dean’s previous SCAB post here, or return to more SCAB posts from our students here.
