Fintan O'Toole - Libel action should be an absolute last resort

In December 2010 The Sunday Times carried a long, anonymous profile of Irish Times columnist Fintan O'Toole and included the assertion that he drove home from an Irish Congress of Trade Unions rally in a BMW 5 Series. As Fintan O'Toole said, the story "was pure invention and almost every “fact” that followed was wildly and demonstrably wrong." He could have sued, but choose not to. He explained:

"The “profile” was, in other words, a gold mine. I had hit the libel jackpot. The Sunday Times couldn’t possibly go into court to defend an article that was so sloppily written and badly researched. Even the most aggressive lawyer would tell them to stuff my mouth with gold and make the whole thing go away fast."

Christopher Hitchens left England in part, because of the Libel Laws

We have a great tradition in this country. It goes back a long way; the classic statements of which are in John  Milton's Areopagitica, and in John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty where it is said (Christopher Hitchens paraphrases):

"However discredited an opinion may be, to ban it would still be a huge mistake; because otherwise there would be no way of finding out if you yourself had made a correct point. If you had no opponent; if you silenced them there would be no opponent. There would be no measure of your own articulacy or your own willingness to argue."                                             (At 56 minutes 40 seconds of video above)

Hitchens adds his take:

"Thus, it must always be the case that any opinion, no matter how unpopular must be at the front and centre of the argument."

Christopher Hitchens then said that Rosa Luxemburg put it even better:

"Freedom of speech is meaningless unless it's for the person who thinks differently."

Member of the audience then asked: "do you believe in the laws of libel and slander?"

Christopher Hitchens replied:

"No. I left England partly because of the laws of libel. It makes journalism almost impossible. Because again, it's a matter of her feelings (lady beside him). The person bringing a law suit in Britain (many of them tried it on me when I was here) has only to prove that their reputation has been damaged or that their feelings have been hurt. They don't have to prove what I say is not true."

He then added a real shock and awe statement which if you think about it, does kind of ring true. Hitch said:

"There you have it again: it's a secular form of a blasphemy law."                                                 (At 57 minutes 25 seconds of the video above)

Powerful stuff. YouTube video in full here.

My previous posts on Hitchens on Northern Ireland here, on segregated schools here, on Vaclav Havel here, on Northern Ireland's "barbaric, sectarian leaders" here, on the US First Amendment here, on the US as an empire and clas-based society here, and on how to succeed here.

Press Regulation - Prior restraint and self-censorship

The problem with the libel and speech/press-control laws is not necessarily the active litigating against journalists and bloggers but the fear of litigation. A journalist or citizen-blogger may want to pursue a line of inquiry but exercise prior restraint and self-censorship against the self in the fear that they themselves could be pursued for legal damages. The Sunday Times editorial of November 2013 said of this:

"When a reporter drops a particular line of inquiry, or decides not to risk writing about certain establishment figures, press freedom shrinks - and with it what the public is allowed to know." 

The editorial continued: "It is the job of the press to keep the politicians honest. It is not the job if politicians to decide what the press can print."