Think twice when the letter begins with ‘Daddy’

Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, is litigious – multiple simultaneous actions against media attest to that. Her latest ‘win’, however, is a useful wake-up call for all journalists.

A pre-trial judgment against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday in  the UK has provided an unequivocal marker on how editors should treat private correspondence that falls into their hands.

Sir Mark Warby last week allowed a strike out claim and found in favour of the Duchess in an action she brought against Associated Newspapers over publication  of the contents of a hand-written letter she sent to her father. Mr Justice Warby was in absolutely no doubt about the contents of her deeply personal letter being revealed in a WORLD EXCLUSIVE in the London tabloid. “Taken as a whole,” the judge said, “the disclosures were manifestly excessive and hence unlawful”.

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The piper was paid

We need to talk about ethics.

Let’s begin with disclosure.

Last Tuesday, the Dominion Post carried a page 3 brief in which it stated that two opinion columns published by the newspaper last year had been removed from its website after it found they had been paid for by a third party.

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They don’t give a Stuff about New Zealand

The New Zealand High Court has confirmed what was long suspected. An Australian media company was within days of closing vital sections of our news media – an action it would never have dared to take on its home turf.

The release of redacted material in a judgement over the Nine Entertainment Company’s sale of Stuff is further proof of the fact that foreign ownership of news media is contrary to the public interest.

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Oh look…the wheels are falling off

I’m not one to rubberneck at traffic accidents, but I am fascinated watching the wheels fall off social media.

First Facebook and Twitter scored an own-goal by banning Donald Trump in acts that demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt what everyone (except Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey) knew already – they are publishers. We’ll return to the implications of that shortly.

Then Google strong-armed the Australian government over impending legislation and, by threatening to turn off its search engine, acknowledged what everyone (except Larry Page and Sergey Brin) knew already – it is a monopoly. We’ll come back to that, too.

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