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Monday, March 3rd, 2008Today’s DomPost 5-minute quiz: 5. Victoria University academic Steven Price is an authority in which field of law? (Quick correction: I’m a barrister rather than an academic these days.)
Fact-checkNg
Monday, March 3rd, 2008A welcome new addition to the NZ Herald: Keith Ng’s new column “Just the facts”, which seeks to ferret out the truth behind factual and statistical claims made by politicians (… and the media?). I think we need more of this kind of journalism. Keith Ng, you may remember, famously exposed the misuse of statistics […]
NZ and Aussie Press Councils to co-host public forum
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008It’s called “The Press and the Right to Know Under Seige”, and will feature a key-note address from Media Law Guru John Burrows QC, and presentations from the chairs of the NZ and Australian Press Councils, Barry Paterson QC and Prof Ken McKinnon respectively. It will be chaired by Justice Randerson. It will be held […]
Police raid TV3
Friday, February 22nd, 2008It’s being reported that police are executing a search warrant in TV3’s premises. As I’ve noted, given the case law, I’m not surprised that the police were able to obtain a warrant. An important factor for a judge in deciding whether to grant the warrant is the cogency of the evidence. Here it seems likely that TV3 have information about the identity of a confessed criminal. (NB […]
NZLS media law seminar
Thursday, February 14th, 2008TVNZ lawyer Willy Akel, Fairfax lawyer Robert Stewart and I are presenting a law society seminar on media law in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in April. Sign up now! Watch Willy and I slug it out over the laws of privacy and qualified privilege! He’s bigger than I am, but I’m nippy. Actually, it will mostly be […]
Press Council ducks interesting issue
Sunday, February 10th, 2008If you talk to a journalist on the basis that what you say is “not for publication” and the journalist publishes your remarks anyway, has the journalist behaved unethically? I think most people would think so. In the past, the Press Council has leaned this way, too: … if the conditions under which the [source] agreed […]
Tribute to John Burrows
Thursday, February 7th, 2008The University of Canterbury’s law school held a conference in honour of John Burrows last weekend. It was called “Law, Liberty and Legislation” and covered the broad sweep of issues that Professor Burrows has expertise in – from statute and contract law to media law (he’s written the leading texts in all three). On the […]
New Yorker cartoon
Thursday, February 7th, 2008One dog to another: “I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking.”
Canada moves toward expanded libel defence
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Canada is finally jumping on the US, UK, Australian, South African and NZ bandwagon and providing protection to political (and other public-interest) speech against defamation actions. The Ontario Court of Appeal has created a Reynolds-type privilege for “responsible journalism”. (It’s all obiter, though, and the Canadian Supreme Court has yet to confirm the new direction). […]
A prediction about the Electoral Finance Act
Monday, January 14th, 2008I don’t want to say too much about the Electoral Finance Act. Some of you will know that I have been the spokesperson for the Coalition for Open Government, which generally supported the new law, arguing that it’s much better than the system we used to have, serves important democratic ends, and is much less […]
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