Are our libel laws silencing enough outspoken journalism?
Nick writes:
I found Nick Davies's assault on my newspaper, the Observer, hugely unconvincing. He presented as fact allegations I knew weren't true, and, I later discovered he knew weren't true.
really? I would have thought that an accusation as important as this (which is surely defamatory if not true) might rate a somewhat more substantial venue than a joke item on the Standpoint blog.
I note that Nick presented as fact lots of statements from Ahmed Chalabi which weren't true. I don't know if he knew they weren't true, but David Rose, who printed a lot of similar material at the Observer, later said that he felt "nauseated, angry and ashamed" about his journalism during the period covered by "Flat Earth News" and seriously considered quitting the profession.
I found Nick Davies's assault on my newspaper, the Observer, hugely unconvincing. He presented as fact allegations I knew weren't true, and, I later discovered he knew weren't true.
really? I would have thought that an accusation as important as this (which is surely defamatory if not true) might rate a somewhat more substantial venue than a joke item on the Standpoint blog.
I note that Nick presented as fact lots of statements from Ahmed Chalabi which weren't true. I don't know if he knew they weren't true, but David Rose, who printed a lot of similar material at the Observer, later said that he felt "nauseated, angry and ashamed" about his journalism during the period covered by "Flat Earth News" and seriously considered quitting the profession.
posted by The Rioja Kid at 8/12/2009 04:53:00 PM
8 Comments:
Is that the bit where Davies alleged that the WMD didn't exist, or the bit where he alleged that the govt giddily oversold the Iraw threat, or the bit where he alleged that Observer published these false claims on its front page?
Has Nick stopped reading Harry's Place? They got that Onion link the day before him. (Both just link to Max Dunbar's site rather than the specific post.)
Nick seriously seems to think that blog posts are like Tweets but with a slacker character count. Would it kill him to back up his claims? Apparently yes. (Please don't tell me that he's hoping for a libel suit so his evidence can come out in court.) Has he mentioned the Quentin Letts/Alan Sugar thing yet? I do believe that's a libel action which will go to the journalist.
So Nick says "He presented as fact allegations I knew weren't true, and, I later discovered he knew weren't true" - ie that Nick Davies wilfully published things he knew to be untrue as if they where true . A pretty serious accusation. Obviously Nick cannot mean the stuff about David Rose printing a load of INC rubbish in the Observer because US and British intelligence officers encouraged him to believe these lies: Because David Rose has confirmed it. So Nick must mean the story that an incompetent Kamal Ahmad and politically weak David Alton relied on Alistair Campbell to steer them to rubbish stories about WMD: Nick is presumably arguing they printed these rubbishy lies about WMD because that is the kind of thing you would expect, just as you would expect a weather channel to broadcast weather reports. They didn't need Campbell's help to publish lies. I hope Nick Davies takes the time to respond.
Nick must still be reading HP Sauce because that's where he discovered The Indelicates.
I think that Nick still doesn't really understand what a blog is. In fact I'm not sure any of the Decent journalists who have blogs understand them, really. I mean, Cohen won't allow any non-complimenatary comments on his site, and neither will martin bright, and they'll only respond in comments to compliments, too. Hardly free speech evangelism in action.
Do you think that Nick tried to get the Eye not to run the bits about the Obs when they serialised Flat Earth News? The eye are, after all, ferociously spinning the Obs line on the 'Obs to shut' stuff, to the detriment (again) of analysis...
Every journo I know despises Nick Davies, btw, because he exposed all this stuff... and that's non-Observer journos. Can only imagine the hate they must have for him in Obs towers.
I've left a comment on the Standpoint blog asking for Nick to specificy which of Davies' allegations were untrue (and known to be untrue).
Guano
I think that Nick still doesn't really understand what a blog is. In fact I'm not sure any of the Decent journalists who have blogs understand them, really. I mean, Cohen won't allow any non-complimenatary comments on his site, and neither will martin bright, and they'll only respond in comments to compliments, too. Hardly free speech evangelism in action.
This is right. See also Nick's often bizarre contributions to HP and other blog comment threads, in which he appears to lack a basic comprehension of how online discussion works. He has no interest in blogs beyond their being a source of material for his colums, thus avoiding the need for any primary research.
The Nick Davies allegation definitely needs pursuing with Nick Davies.
I've written to Nick D - he's getting clarification from Nick C
I think Nick has a different definition of the word "true" than we do on Earth. He seems to think it means "something which is true, or a false statement made in the name of a righteous cause". This is, after all, someone who has acknowledged that he believes the statement "Blair lied" is on a moral par with Holocaust denial.
Should be interesting to see what Davies makes of this.
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