CST120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Qualified Privilege, Joe Hockey, Hulk Hogan
BCM 113- WEEK 3 –Defamation
Warming up: hulk Hogan vs gawker
Defamation/defending defamation
What is defamation
- Statement or information that injures a person’s reputation
- Must be published to a third persons
- Publication identifies the hurt persons
“the wrong of injuring another’s reputation without good reason or justification”
when is material defamatory
- If meanings that come from the material explore a victim to hatred, or ridicule
- Tend to lower the affected person’s reputation in the estimation of right minded
observers or maker others shun or avoid the persons
- No distinction between libel and slander
- Libel- permanently published material
- “Slander”- words that are spoken
Standards
- Court judge this form what they see as viewpoint of ordinary reasonable people in
community and by looking at contemporary standards
- They expect audiences to engage in a certain amount of loose thinking to read
between the lines and to assume that where there’s smoke there’s fire
Consider these, e.g
- footballer is talentless turd”
- the prime minister is a corrupt bastard who only cares about lining in his own pocket
civil remedies
- with rare exceptions defamation is regarded as a civil worn g
- courts award monetary amounts as damages to remedy the injury done to a person’s
reputation
- record payout in Aus was awarded to rebel Wilson – 4.5 million in damages from
Bauer media (though company is currently appealing this)
Criminal defamation
- such prosecutions are rare, but are said to involve publications that the publisher knew
to be false and were intended to cause serious harm or were reckless about whether
such harm would be caused
who can sue
- legal changes in aus 2006 meat close to uniform defamation laws in the country
- companies can sue if they employ fewer than 10 people and not related to another
corporation
- they can also sue if they are non-profit
- reason: the miclibel case
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- in order to be able to sue- persons must be named or clear description.
government and other bodies
- local government bodies and public authorities cannot sure but their offices can take
defamation action is they can prove their reputation was injured as individuals
- dead people cannot be defamed expect in Tasmania but be careful not to defame the
living via a report on the dead.
Plaintiff must be identifiable
- a person must be named or
- if no one has been named there must be a clear description of defame persons or
- a small group of people must be described or
- a fictious person has been named that bears the clear resemblance if defamed persons
or
- the wrong persons has been named or depicted
defamation and the court process
- the plantiff has to establish the defamatory publication has taken place
- if that is done the publisher must prove that a defence applies to a publication
- Pearson says publishers must prove their statements are true rather than plaintiffs
needing to prove they were false
justification
- an alternative term used to describe tructh defence to defamation
- accountability mechanism held to account for what you say and publish
- evolved over time to protect individuals standing in the community
- covers all citizens including the media
- exists in varies forms in most countries
Truth
- is a complete defence for defamation?
- it is said that publishing the truth about someone does not lower their reputation but
places at its proper level
- publishers of material claimed to be defamatory must not just prove the truth of a
statement. They must prove the meaning taken from it are substantially true
contextual truth
- publishers can argue that an allegedly defamatory publication carried other meaning
that were substantially true
- if so it might be said that the defamatory meanings did not further harm the reputation
person suing
- sufficient evidence is needed to show a report is substantially true but is good practice
for journalists to aim for 100 per cent accuracy
- Pearson argues that truth alone is often used as a defamation defence hard to prove
and cares where it is easy to establish don’t often get to trail
Qualified privilege
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Statement or information that injures a person"s reputation. Must be published to a third persons. The wrong of injuring another"s reputation without good reason or justification when is material defamatory. If meanings that come from the material explore a victim to hatred, or ridicule. Tend to lower the affected person"s reputation in the estimation of right minded observers or maker others shun or avoid the persons. Court judge this form what they see as viewpoint of ordinary reasonable people in community and by looking at contemporary standards. They expect audiences to engage in a certain amount of loose thinking to read between the lines and to assume that where there"s smoke there"s fire. Consider these, e. g footballer is talentless turd the prime minister is a corrupt bastard who only cares about lining in his own pocket civil remedies. Bauer media (though company is currently appealing this)
