Media and Entertainment Law
Question 1
For this year’s Actors’ Guild Awards Ceremony, the famous actor Gerald O’Mahoney has declined to attend as he is currently in what he describes as ‘yet another rehab trip’ to hospital in London. He is, however, a keen blogger with hundreds of thousands of followers who like to hear his thoughts on current films and Hollywood gossip. Gerald watches the awards from his room and cannot resist blogging his thoughts as the ceremony unfolds.
As the actor and film star Robert Uppery walks down the red carpet, Gerald blogs: ‘Nice to see Robert looking so fit and tanned. Shame he left all that ‘toothpaste’ under his nose! LOL’
He goes on to write that, ‘Millie Roscovich is looking..err big..has she been at the donuts again? But that would be such a coincidence considering Harvey Goldstein says she’s expecting Gordon Strange’s baby…she’s positively blooming! Pity Gordon’s married to someone else….’.
Towards the end of the evening, as the contenders for Best Picture are announced, Gerald cannot help himself from commenting on the production company that refused to produce his latest script: ‘Amazing that Schlock Pictures don’t have a film in the list! If you look at their latest financial figures they can’t afford their next offering, Titanic 2 – The Return’ to hit an audience iceberg…they’ll be the ones to sink without trace!’
As the evening wears on Gerald becomes more depressed. He decides to tweet about his latest experience coming through arrivals at Heathrow Airport: ‘Had the worst experience coming through Heathrow the other day – such queues! I’ll bring a machine gun next time. That way I can chop that queue down to size!’
With reference to relevant case law and statute, explain the liability Gerald may have:
a) in defamation for his blogs with regard to the awards, and
b) in criminal law for his tweet regarding Heathrow Airport.
(2,000 Words)
Question 2
“…the media’s entitlement to criticise the conduct of individuals even if there was nothing illegal about it could not be a pretext for invasion of privacy by disclosure or publication of purely private sexual encounters…”
PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2016] UKSC 26 2
Critically evaluate the UK’s approach to balancing the rights of individuals and the freedom of the media to report news with regard to relevant privacy case law.
(2,000 Words)
