Journal article
The future of “responsible journalism”: Defamation law, public debate and news production
AT Kenyon, T Marjoribanks
Journalism Practice | ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD | Published : 2008
Abstract
If the future of newspapers includes online and transnational platforms, the influence of defamation law on journalism deserves close investigation. A key concern for international publishers remains being sued in defamation in the United Kingdom or in other countries following its legal tradition. However, UK law has developed in recent years so that it now protects “responsible journalism” and many other commonwealth countries have seen similar developments. These changes offer real potential to support wider public debate, but they also contain challenges for law to understand and evaluate journalistic practices. This paper draws on a three-year study of news production and defamation law..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the research support of the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project DP0343258) and thank interview participants for willingly giving of their time, ideas and insights. Many thanks for research assistance to Chris Dent (CMCL, University of Melbourne)-who also conducted three out of the larger set of interviews-and Jason Bosland (CMCL, University of Melbourne). We also thank the editors and reviewers of Journalism Practice. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at The Future of Newspapers Conference, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, University of Cardiff, 12-13 September 2007, The Australian Sociological Association Conference, University of Auckland, 4-7 December 2007 and The Australian Sociological Association Conference, La Trobe University, 8-11 December 2004. Thanks to conference participants for their feedback.