This House believes in the right to reply

[i]The right of reply goes a long way in balancing the playing field – especially for private citizens who may not be able to afford recourse to the law. It is also simpler and quicker than protracted arguments in court. Finally it respects the readership as a group accepting that they are capable of making a decision over whose version of events is more likely to be accurate – the journalist or the respondent.

It’s a grownup approach to publishing, it acknowledges that newspapers don’t get everything right and embraces the idea that the goal is to convey accurate information – admittedly belatedly.

It’s inevitable that mistakes will be made in a world where newspapers are endlessly running up against deadlines and it is only possible to check so much as a result.

Instead of entering into protracted disputes or ignoring the rights of the injured party this allows for the readership to make the final decision[ii]. This can be true of either private individuals or public figures[iii] where, all too often, the issue is not the legal minutiae or exact phraseology of the article but the more general verdict of the court of public opinion.

[i] There is also a legally enforced right of reply in Korea, the Philippines, Finland and Brazil among others. By way of example, the full text of the Brazilian law (translated into English) is given here.

[ii] Journalism.co.uk. Matthew Gooding. Newspapers should print an obligatory right of reply says Max Mosley. 22 January 2010.

[iii] A good example of a case that became so complicated the original offence was lost in the haze would be this one. It is far from atypical.

Prop correctly identifies conveying information as a key role of the media – there are others; informed and impartial comment and, critically, a relevant news agenda. It is hard to see how chasing a story off the front page to make room for the right of reply fulfills these other requirements. Equally, where there is dispute, surely the courts are best placed to resolve it – driving the middle path between two inaccuracies is a pretty poor route to truth.

In many countries corrections or clarifications in newspapers are buried away in the depths of the middle pages and are unlikely to be spotted by anyone other than the most ardent reader. Not only does this defy natural justice but having the correction prominent hits a newspaper for making mistakes as it loses space for a story that would attract both readers and advertisers.

It’s not unreasonable to expect journalists to get the information right first time – that is, after all, their job. Building an entire case on the basis of a misunderstanding, as the Daily Telegraph did recently on the basis of misinterpreting data for fish stocks,[i] can be incredibly misleading and when the correction to it is impossible to find, that misunderstanding remains in the mind of the readers. Once that is multiplied by blog entries comments to others and so on, the retraction would need to be a sizable news story in its own right to correct the misunderstanding.

Where mistakes are made and repeated from wire services or promoted as gospel in local – often poorly resourced – newspapers, the impact on someone’s reputation can be considerable. It’s only fair that their megaphone correcting it should be just as large as that used in the first place.

[i] BBC Website (commenting on a Daily Telegraph article). Hannah Barnes and Richard Knight. North Sea Cod: Is it true there are only 100 left? 30 September 2012.

It seems unlikely that there would be a rush to offer corrections where it was to the advantage of an individual or organisation, so let us not pretend this is the noble pursuit of truth at any cost. Where a major mistake is made by a news outlet, its competitors are usually only too happy to point the fact out, vastly magnifying the redress compared to the original mistake, as shown by the example cited by the proposition with the BBC attacking inaccuracies in a Daily Telegraph article[i]. Where it is a minor error, it’s questionable as to whether a right to reply actually helps or simply fuels speculation on the basis that the aggrieved party seems to be squabbling over the details. Alternatively, where a mistake is genuinely defamatory then it is a criminal matter and should be settled in the courts rather than in a grubby fix-up between the parties.

[i] The examiner.com. Ryan Witt. Fox News makes three large factual, graphical errors over the last week (Video). 15 December 2011.

In response to an ever faster news agenda, produced by ever more pressured journalists, sloppiness may be seen as inevitable[i]. As a result, anything that is unlikely to result in legal action may be given a bye. In most situations, that sets the bar way too high. The mere mention of a private citizen in a negative light in a local paper may not be the stuff of national press attention and is unlikely to get far in the courts but can affect that persons standing in their community and with their neighbours in a profound way.

Anything that pushes reporters and editors to go that extra step to check their facts before they go to print seems like a sensible preventative measure[ii]. This could help prevent newspapers citing ‘experts’ who are not actually expert, a Forbes columnist found that he could portray himself as expert on all sorts of things and get his comments in articles for even very reputable media organisations such as the New York Times without even the most basic of background checks.[iii] The knowledge that they may lose both space and credibility in the next edition would seem to be a rather neat way of achieving that goal.

[i] The Huffington Post. Jeff Sorensen. 24 Hour News Killed Journalism 20 August 2012.

[ii] Article 19. Right of Reply.

[iii] Forbes. David Their. How this guy lied his way into MSNBC, ABC News, the New York Times and more. 18 July 2012.

The issue of credibility is an important one. If a story that was broadly true can be picked to death by the PR and Legal departments of companies, then it places a real burden on the future of investigative and campaigning journalism. One minor mistake, plastered across the front page, will inevitably encourage readers to question the story more generally as it appears to suggest that both points of view have equal merit. A broadly true story of an industrial giant polluting the environment or a bank indulging in corruption is not negated by getting a single fact wrong. The company, of course, will use any detail to challenge the whole story, risking the reputation of the publication in the process. This may ultimately mean that journalists are simply much more cautious and so will not publish any stories that will likely bring about a response in the form of a reply from the target of the article.

[i]The right of reply goes a long way in balancing the playing field – especially for private citizens who may not be able to afford recourse to the law. It is also simpler and quicker than protracted arguments in court. Finally it respects the readership as a group accepting that they are capable of making a decision over whose version of events is more likely to be accurate – the journalist or the respondent.

It’s a grownup approach to publishing, it acknowledges that newspapers don’t get everything right and embraces the idea that the goal is to convey accurate information – admittedly belatedly.

It’s inevitable that mistakes will be made in a world where newspapers are endlessly running up against deadlines and it is only possible to check so much as a result.

Instead of entering into protracted disputes or ignoring the rights of the injured party this allows for the readership to make the final decision[ii]. This can be true of either private individuals or public figures[iii] where, all too often, the issue is not the legal minutiae or exact phraseology of the article but the more general verdict of the court of public opinion.

[i] There is also a legally enforced right of reply in Korea, the Philippines, Finland and Brazil among others. By way of example, the full text of the Brazilian law (translated into English) is given here.

[ii] Journalism.co.uk. Matthew Gooding. Newspapers should print an obligatory right of reply says Max Mosley. 22 January 2010.

[iii] A good example of a case that became so complicated the original offence was lost in the haze would be this one. It is far from atypical.

Prop correctly identifies conveying information as a key role of the media – there are others; informed and impartial comment and, critically, a relevant news agenda. It is hard to see how chasing a story off the front page to make room for the right of reply fulfills these other requirements. Equally, where there is dispute, surely the courts are best placed to resolve it – driving the middle path between two inaccuracies is a pretty poor route to truth.

In many countries corrections or clarifications in newspapers are buried away in the depths of the middle pages and are unlikely to be spotted by anyone other than the most ardent reader. Not only does this defy natural justice but having the correction prominent hits a newspaper for making mistakes as it loses space for a story that would attract both readers and advertisers.

It’s not unreasonable to expect journalists to get the information right first time – that is, after all, their job. Building an entire case on the basis of a misunderstanding, as the Daily Telegraph did recently on the basis of misinterpreting data for fish stocks,[i] can be incredibly misleading and when the correction to it is impossible to find, that misunderstanding remains in the mind of the readers. Once that is multiplied by blog entries comments to others and so on, the retraction would need to be a sizable news story in its own right to correct the misunderstanding.

Where mistakes are made and repeated from wire services or promoted as gospel in local – often poorly resourced – newspapers, the impact on someone’s reputation can be considerable. It’s only fair that their megaphone correcting it should be just as large as that used in the first place.

[i] BBC Website (commenting on a Daily Telegraph article). Hannah Barnes and Richard Knight. North Sea Cod: Is it true there are only 100 left? 30 September 2012.

It seems unlikely that there would be a rush to offer corrections where it was to the advantage of an individual or organisation, so let us not pretend this is the noble pursuit of truth at any cost. Where a major mistake is made by a news outlet, its competitors are usually only too happy to point the fact out, vastly magnifying the redress compared to the original mistake, as shown by the example cited by the proposition with the BBC attacking inaccuracies in a Daily Telegraph article[i]. Where it is a minor error, it’s questionable as to whether a right to reply actually helps or simply fuels speculation on the basis that the aggrieved party seems to be squabbling over the details. Alternatively, where a mistake is genuinely defamatory then it is a criminal matter and should be settled in the courts rather than in a grubby fix-up between the parties.

[i] The examiner.com. Ryan Witt. Fox News makes three large factual, graphical errors over the last week (Video). 15 December 2011.

In response to an ever faster news agenda, produced by ever more pressured journalists, sloppiness may be seen as inevitable[i]. As a result, anything that is unlikely to result in legal action may be given a bye. In most situations, that sets the bar way too high. The mere mention of a private citizen in a negative light in a local paper may not be the stuff of national press attention and is unlikely to get far in the courts but can affect that persons standing in their community and with their neighbours in a profound way.

Anything that pushes reporters and editors to go that extra step to check their facts before they go to print seems like a sensible preventative measure[ii]. This could help prevent newspapers citing ‘experts’ who are not actually expert, a Forbes columnist found that he could portray himself as expert on all sorts of things and get his comments in articles for even very reputable media organisations such as the New York Times without even the most basic of background checks.[iii] The knowledge that they may lose both space and credibility in the next edition would seem to be a rather neat way of achieving that goal.

[i] The Huffington Post. Jeff Sorensen. 24 Hour News Killed Journalism 20 August 2012.

[ii] Article 19. Right of Reply.

[iii] Forbes. David Their. How this guy lied his way into MSNBC, ABC News, the New York Times and more. 18 July 2012.

The issue of credibility is an important one. If a story that was broadly true can be picked to death by the PR and Legal departments of companies, then it places a real burden on the future of investigative and campaigning journalism. One minor mistake, plastered across the front page, will inevitably encourage readers to question the story more generally as it appears to suggest that both points of view have equal merit. A broadly true story of an industrial giant polluting the environment or a bank indulging in corruption is not negated by getting a single fact wrong. The company, of course, will use any detail to challenge the whole story, risking the reputation of the publication in the process. This may ultimately mean that journalists are simply much more cautious and so will not publish any stories that will likely bring about a response in the form of a reply from the target of the article.

The line between factual inaccuracy and opinion is pretty slim. What about “Far right politician” statement or comment? The difficulty is that most publications work on the basis that there is a narrative that is already understood in order to function. It’s simply impossible to give the full backstory to everything that goes into print[i].

The only way to avoid newspapers being constantly full of replies to irrelevant data would be to give a far broader right of reply to the opinions presented or the conclusions draw – the actions where journalism really has its power. Many newspapers already do this out of professional courteousy and respect for the truth, for example the guardian has a ‘Response’ column in its Comment is free section.[ii] The scandal sheets which offer no such facility seem to have only the most tangential reliance on evidence at the best of times so it is unclear how such a law would affect them as they would be likely to resort to assertion even more than they currently do.

The idea of a right of reply is fine in theory but, in reality, it is difficult to see how it would have any real impact on the day to day working of the press. This concern comes before any consideration of how it would work in relation to the more pervasive media of broadcast and online news outlets – or is this punishment to be reserved as the last nail in the coffin of the printed press?

[i] Article III. Jun Bautista. A Right of Reply” Law Violates Press Freedom. 9 February 2009.

[ii] The Guardian, Response

The on-going agglomeration of news and opinion is a wider and deeper issue than tackling factual inaccuracies and one that needs to be resolved in other ways. Frequently, that’s the very point to be addressed by the courts – whether a statement is legitimate comment or is being masqueraded as fact[i]. The right of reply is not presented as a cure all for the media as a whole but it is a useful way of getting the basics right before addressing the higher-level concerns that often stem from these fundamental errors.

[i] The ‘fact or opinion’ distinction is crucial to cases of defamation it basics are set out here.  

A right to reply would be no more of a fig leaf than voluntary self-regulation that has so bedevilled the media in so many countries. Responsible journalists and publications are already involved in the process where it is useful and others would use it as an excuse to avoid real regulation.

It is comparatively rare for the damage to be done at the level of factual data but signing up to making those corrections (indeed the requirement to give equal parity would allow papers to make a great song and dance about the fact) would mask the real story that opinions and comment are what really trash reputations – along with the half-facts and insinuations mentioned in the previous argument.

Different countries tackle press regulation in different ways. In some the threat to freedom of speech comes from over-regulation, in others from an over-mighty press drowning out dissent. The right of reply seems to answer neither concern – the paper will always have the last word as it can respond to the response or simply press its case more subtly. A right of reply hides that fact and creates a false sense of parity between the two.

Opposition seem to be arguing, ‘This is difficult, let’s do nothing’ – the rallying call of apathy down the ages. There may well be grounds for a wider right of reply – indeed as most news outlets increasingly favour their online presence many of their practical arguments of the past fall away. The disadvantage of regulation is that it empowers government in relation to the press, litigation favours the wealthy. A right of reply favours the readers as the final arbiter.

We are happy to concede that in the glacial world of academic journals, the right of reply mostly works. Two experts clarifying exactly what was said by whom and being appraised by an equally expert readership can make sense of this process through article, response, and counter response. That’s why it already happens.

In the world of political, economic and scientific monthlies and weeklies, the idea would make sense some of the time. This is why it already happens some of the time.

In the cut and thrust of daily newspapers with rolling news on their websites and newsblogs from most of their contributors and journalists it ceases to make any sense whatsoever. So it is not surprising they don’t do it. In the developed world, the days of people reading the same paper in the same way every day are mostly gone[i], news comes from a variety of stories with readers often following one story through different outlets rather than digesting many stories from one. Where should a correction be posted? Just on the first site to mention it or on all the ones that subsequently pick it up. Does this cover blogs or just outlets that also have a printed edition – and if not, why not? This is an answer to a question nobody is asking.

[i] The Canadian Journalism Project. Belinda Alzner. A quick look at news mediums (sic) and international development. 24 August 2012.

The notion that the print media has lost its power since the emergence of the Internet is simply untrue. Not only are they still a major source of news for many – they are particularly a source of news for other news-makers. Blogs and other exclusively online sites rarely ‘break’ stories – with the exception of those that act in the same way as regular print editions such as the Huffington Post. Identifying those news outlets that are large enough to be registered companies is really not beyond the wit on humankind equally, imposing the regulations on those already covered by libel legislation would seem fairly obvious.