Newspaper Watch: Defamation action still a privilege of the rich

Michael McDowell's simultaneous presentation of a new defamation bill and a new privacy bill was greeted with mixed reactions by the newspaper industry.

Although the reforms to our current "oppressive libel law" embodied in the defamation bill were broadly welcomed by publishers and journalists alike, the privacy bill was almost uniformly opposed as a threat to the media's freedom of speech. An editorial in the Irish Independent described it as "a shockingly bad piece of legislation", while Andrew O'Rourke, senior defamation advisor to the Irish Times, called it "disproportionate and unneccessary". Seamus Dooley, Irish Secretary of the NUJ, warned that it would "seriously damage" press freedom.

Much of the media's criticism of our current libel laws arises from the fact that they are often used by the powerful to stifle exposure of facts. Defamation cases are notoriously expensive to pursue and the financial penalty for losing is such that many newspapers will back down when threatened with libel actions by individuals with deep pockets, even in cases where they are confident of their story's accuracy. The defamation bill introduces a range of measures which should make spurious cases more difficult to pursue and less expensive to defend. However, the privacy bill essentially negates this reform by providing a range of alternative legal measures by which the powerful can prevent the investigation and publication of material about them.

A problem with our libel laws which has received far less attention is that they offer little or no protection to most people. Public servants are the only group whose defamation actions are funded by the State; legal aid is not available to ordinary citizens. According to an article by Michael Foley, published by the Committee to Protect Journalists in 1996, amongst the records of libel cases "you will find few names of people belonging to the lower middle classes, the working classes, or the unemployed, because in Ireland suing the media for defamation is an establishment pursuit". The reforms to the defamation law do nothing to address this inequality; indeed they make it even more risky for ordinary people to sue for defamation.

The press council proposed in the defamation bill is unlikely to provide much remedy. It would deal with non-defamatory grievances and its code of conduct should be broadly similar to that of the UK Press Complaints Commission. The narrowness of the UK code's remit, which is mostly limited to cases concerning specific individuals, has done little to prevent the development of an insidious tabloid culture there. Furthermore, McDowell's council, made up of five representatives of newspaper publishers and seven members appointed to represent "civil society", is certain to be dominated by elite groups.

Sensationalism, spin, scaremongering, dubious evidence, anonymous sources and demonisation of marginal groups will continue to fill our newspapers under the council's watch. The media debate which will coincide with the bills' passage through the Oireachtas looks likely to be little more than a rhetorical façade to the bargaining match between the media barons and the rest of elite society about how much protection from public scrutiny their wealth and power can buy. Still, to look on the bright side, this column shouldn't be running out of material any time soon. p