{"id":93397,"date":"2011-11-01T15:22:19","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=6542"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:28:50","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:28:50","slug":"injunctions-lull-is-an-outbreak-of-sanity-editors-tell-joint-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93397","title":{"rendered":"Injunctions lull is an "outbreak of sanity", editors tell Joint Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The celebrity trend of taking out injunctions to prevent publication has calmed<\/a>, according to some of Britain\u2019s top editors. Giving evidence at the joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions yesterday Alan Rusbridger, Guardian<\/a> editor; Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye<\/a>; John Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times<\/a> and Jonathan Grun from the Press Association<\/a>, explained that he felt the balance between freedom of expression and privacy has been restored.<\/p>\n

Speaking\u00a0at the committee<\/a>, Hislop called the lull in injunctions an \u201coutbreak of sanity,\u201d whilst John Witherow said superinjunctions had been \u201cscattered around like confetti,\u201d and added that the mood now seems to have changed. Hislop attributed the decline to a number of \u201cspectacular own goals\u201d and said the “worrying” trend had caused a \u201creal chilling effect\u201d on free speech. Witherow agreed, and cited the recent case of Jeremy Clarkson as a deterrent.<\/p>\n

Following the recent press scandals, Grun explained: \u00a0\u201cAll of the furore we\u2019ve had with super injunctions and phone hacking has created a distorted lens on the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grun added: “It does misrepresent the day-to-day activities of hundreds of newsrooms across the country. In newsrooms across the country journalists take decisions beneath the radar but those decisions tend to guard the privacy of what you would describe as ordinary people.”<\/p>\n

When asked if declining sales was the reason behind the publication of sensationalist articles, all of the editors disagreed. Hislop said \u201cprinting the truth is the way to sell papers,\u201d whilst Grun advised that \u201caccuracy underpins everything we do at PA.\u201d\u00a0Rusbridger added that using “commercial consideration” when deciding whether to run a story is dangerous.<\/p>\n

He explained: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to lessen standards or become lax because you think that\u2019s a route to better sales, it\u2019s a slippery slope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, the editors all agreed that defining the public interest for editorial decisions was clear, with Hislop adding that it comes down to “common sense.”<\/p>\n

Ian Hislop suggested that “the libel business dried up, and privacy became the next avenue,” whilst Rusbridger named the breach of confidence as his biggest issue as a newspaper editor, describing it as an “ever present threat” which can hit you, commenting “I\u2019m much more worried about confidence.”<\/p>\n

But the editors added that it was unclear how many injunctions<\/a> still stood. Witherow said: \u00a0\u201cWe may never know how many stories have not been covered, or how many people who have been up to no good will sleep a little easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, \u00a0Joshua Rozenberg, a legal commentator and journalist; Professor Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at Westminster University and Professor Brian Cathcart, founder of the\u00a0Hacked Off<\/a>\u00a0campaign\u00a0and professor of Journalism at Kingston University, also gave their evidence to the committee.<\/p>\n

Alice Purkiss is an editorial assistant at Index on Censorship<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alice Purkiss<\/strong>: Injunctions lull is an “outbreak of sanity”, editors tell Joint Committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3815,1],"tags":[1094,14271,5672,3488,14297,269],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109321,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93397\/revisions\/109321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}