A Very Slight Case of Libel

April 21, 2010

whisperers

Seventeen years ago A Slight Case of Libel, by the journalist Alan Watkins, was published. The book recounted events surrounding the alleged libel of Michael Meacher MP by Donald Trelford in The Observer. At the time, Meacher was a serious contender for a leadership position in the Labour Party. However, his libel action foundered. History did not subsequently catapult him to political glory.

Today, we are able to ponder an even slighter case of libel – and a cautionary tale about misuse of the blogosphere. It transpires that the wife of a top historian has admitted attacking her husband’s literary rivals in anonymously posted reviews on Amazon. So far, so (sadly) predictable. So many Amazon reviews are posted by an author’s friends, either at his behest or because sycophantic urges get the better of them, that the discerning would do better to avoid them altogether. But where our present story gets interesting is in its crossover with the law of libel.

It is recounted admirably here, but was raised initially in the august pages of the Times Literary Supplement, only for the journal to find itself threatened with legal action. The TLS cited the investigations of writer and Russia expert Rachel Polonsky, who went online recently to see how her new tome, Molotov’s Magic Lantern, was faring with readers, only to find that the book had been lambasted by a reviewer by the name of ‘orlando-birkbeck’. Polonsky’s research suggested that ‘orlando-birkbeck’ was either Orlando Figes, the historian and author, or someone closely connected with him. The TLS’s back-page Notebook, written by ‘JC’ (James Campbell), repeated the suggestion – only for Figes’ lawyer (David Price) to fire off a letter threatening libel. Another Russianist, Professor Robert Service, was apparently also threatened with legal action after he condemned the turn of events in a letter to fellow academics.

But then Stephanie Palmer – Figes’ wife and a Cambridge law lecturer – confessed. “My client’s wife wrote the reviews,” said Figes’s lawyer’s statement. “My client has only just found out about this, this evening. Both he and his wife are taking steps to make the position clear.” Figes’ wife added: “I can confirm that statement.”

Extraordinary, you will agree. But given that Figes had no knowledge of his wife’s posting of online reviews vilifying his rivals, how did she, as a lecturer in law, feel that it was acceptable to see her husband instruct Price to fire off threatening letters? One wonders what she teaches putative legal eagles when it comes to ethics. Or perhaps she didn’t know that he was consulting a well-known libel lawyer, still less that a letter before action was wending its way to the TLS?

If so much is shrouded in mystery, one thing is clear: Amazon reviews are a haven for charlatans. That this is so is as salient and worrying as the misuse of the law of libel in this very sorry, and mercifully very slight, case of libel.

Pictured: The Whisperers, by Orlando Figes. Nine out of 10 randomly selected PR advisors doubted that its title was, in any way, self-referential.

 

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If you’re Joey Barton, attack is not the best form of defence

May 17, 2012

Interesting times, these, in the life of Joey Barton.

If the violence displayed by the QPR captain at Manchester City last Sunday was remarkable, his subsequent conduct on Twitter has been astonishing. Barton appears to have radically reinterpreted the notion that attack is the best form of defence, lashing out at all and sundry via a series of tweets whose ultimate effect is entirely self-destructive.

In the past 24 hours, Barton has accepted one charge of violent conduct at the Etihad Stadium but denied another. The FA seems set to throw the book at him, and his club has declared that it will deal with the matter after the result of the FA investigation. Conspiracy theorists might conclude that QPR’s management team and board hope that the FA ban Barton for so long a period (four months and more) that their reported desire to rip up his contract can only be bolstered.

What, then, should Barton do? Should he:

(a) Keep his head down and say nothing, or

(b) Issue a sensible statement in which he acknowledges that both his conduct at the Etihad and subsequent tweets have brought QPR into disrepute, and

(c) Add an apology to said statement, or

(d) Go to Portugal, log onto Twitter and tweet that the world is against him but that he doesn’t care because everyone is a moron and he’s worked really hard to get where he is and if anyone is nasty to him again he is going to expose their secrets.

The answer is not (d).

The moral of the story is that if you’re a loose cannon, when you turn attack into defence there is a danger that you will blow yourself up.

Gunning foglessly for clarity

May 15, 2012

A fine piece, this, on Winston Churchill’s gift for language and the obscurantism that goes with so much corporate communication.

But wait, what’s this? Could this injunction have been phrased rather more successfully:

Be concrete, not abstract. Use metaphors to get your message across.

Metaphors are, by definition, not exactly concrete. But be that as it may: there is a lot of sound advice in Clare Lynch’s piece and a revelation, too. We had never heard of the Gunning Fog Index.  But it exists, and reveals the age at which someone would have to leave full-time education to understand given text.

We’re pleased to display our own Gunning Fog rating for the above words. That of the Churchill speech cited by Ms Lynch was 9.698.

The Gunning Fog index is 9.585

Spin at the Leveson Inquiry

May 9, 2012
Leveson witch hunt

The idea that Lord Justice Leveson and his Inquiry’s QC, Robert Jay, are in need of PR advice is intriguing.

Surely their respective tasks ought to be immune from spin? Then again, perhaps the way in which they execute them is deserving of some communications advice. Either way, times have changed. A similar inquiry from yesteryear (and such do exist) would surely not have been accompanied, albeit informally, by communications advice.

Pictured courtesy of this Flickr user: a portrait of the Leveson Inquiry.