Steven Price

Guide to NZ Media Law

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Veitch material un-juncted

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

Not surprisingly, it seems that Tony Veitch has withdrawn his injunction proceedings. That still leaves interesting questions about the police’s unusual willingness to release so much information here.

Veitch injunction

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Who would have guessed it? (Not me). The injunction barring the media from publishing the information released by the police under the Official Information Act, seems to be based on breach of confidence. The Veitch team (headed up by heavyweight litigator Jack Hodder SC) argued that Veitch was not consulted on the release; he had […]

Nouveau niche

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Those interviewed in Ruth Laugesen’s Listener feature about the future of mainstream journalism in New Zealand were bullish. But between the lines, I think three extracts tell a striking story about the journalism we can expect in another decade: [Martin Simons, APN group publishing chief executive]: “Margins are still very healthy. Perhaps in years to […]

Times held in contempt for interviewing jurors

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

The Times of London has been convicted of contempt for quoting the foreman of a jury criticising the result of a baby death case. (It was a 10-2 majority verdict; he was in the minority). His point: the jury was overwhelmed by expert evidence, which at the end of the day could only be speculative. He said: […]

Campbell in the soup?

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

You’ve probably heard that the police have asked the judge in the Waiouru Army medals case to order John Campbell and Ingrid Leary to answer questions that may disclose the identity of their source. (That source being, of course, one of the thieves, with whom Campbell famously performed his Clayton’s interview.) The journalists have promised not […]

Time to turn the lights on in Parliament

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

The MPs’ expenses scandal rages on in Britain. MPs have expenses, you understand. Quite rightly, they can recover those that are “wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the performance of a Member’s parliamentary duties.” And what MP could effectively and conscientiously perform his or her duties without spending 2000 pounds to replace a leaking pipe […]

Normal service resumes

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

I’ve been off on holiday and doing some marking and some barristering. Meanwhile, media law issues have been piling up. I’ll tackle some over the next few days.

Prostating himself

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Veteran journo and journalism teacher Jim Tucker has a blog about his experiences battling prostate cancer. It’s in a good cause: encouraging blokes to get their doctors to poke them up the bum from time to time to check for cancer. It’s an interesting and worthy use of a blog (he’s got a more conventional […]

Disappointing commentary

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

When a batsman gets out, I think most of us can figure out how he’s feeling. Do we really need to be told, almost every single time, “he’ll be disappointed with that”? Oh, and when did “average” and “ordinary” become synonyms for “awful”?

“Stop the romp”

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

The beautiful and talented Claudia Geiringer debuts in the blogosphere with a plea to the Nats to take seriously their own Attorney-General’s legal advice about Bill of Rights problems with their legislation – and not railroad their dodgy bills through Parliament without allowing a decent chance to debate them. [Update: Dean Knight weighs in here, […]

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