The footballer had taken out an injunction to prevent the publication of a 'kiss-and-tell' story. The court had ruled that he was not to be named. But on the BBC's "Celebdaq" website (in which participants are allowed to play a kind of game involving the celebrity status of different stars), one of the participants published the name.
The Corporation could now be landed in court facing a contempt of court action.
The accidental publication happened because the BBC does not check the contributions on the sites chatrooms until after they have been published, Now, highups at the BBC are demanding rather more stringent controls. Read the whole sorry saga at the Media Guardian. The moral is - it's very easy to commit libel, and you may end up facing the consequences.
The Law
Slander and libel laws are notoriously complex and vary from country to country. They are a minefield for broadcasters - particularly ones who produce programmes which are aired in a number of different markets. For instance, in the United States you can say quite a lot about someone before a court would decide that you had committed a libel against them. On the other hand, in the UK, you can say hardly anything before someone can slap an injunction on you. Sometimes, British journalists pursuing a relevant and legitimate line of inquiry find they are stymied when the object of their interest takes out an injunction against them. I wonder how many stories have been squashed before ever reaching the air because the broadcaster's lawyers fear a long and expensive libel suit.
Because that's the irony. The laws were set up to protect the individual against the power of the media. But they can be used by the unscrupulous to prevent investigative journalists telling the truth. Even if you know that what you have broadcast in a story is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, do you have the cold, hard cash to stand up for yourself in court. Because even if you win, you'll still have to pay through the nose for a lawyer. If you want to get a glimpse of how seriously lawyers take this kind of thing, check out the good folks at the Blackfriars Group, who offer insurance to the media against libel claims. Judging by the length of the forms, they want to make sure they don't get caught out just as much as you do.
