Media Law: Defamation and Legal Issues in Reporting

Media Law
1

Table of Contents
Problem 1.........................................................................................................................................3
Law issues........................................................................................................................................3
Laws and possible defenses.............................................................................................................3
Case laws.........................................................................................................................................4
Publishing legally allowed materials and why................................................................................4
Case-2..............................................................................................................................................5
The main media law issue................................................................................................................5
Laws and possible defenses.............................................................................................................5
Cases relevant to this situation........................................................................................................6
Course of action...............................................................................................................................6
Case-3..............................................................................................................................................7
The main media law issue................................................................................................................7
Laws and possible defenses.............................................................................................................7
Cases relevant to this situation........................................................................................................8
Course of action...............................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10
2

Problem 1
Law issues
According to the media law, reporters are not allowed to post any defamatory statement about
any person or organization. A media representative requires doing proper research and
investigation before posting anything over social media or publishing via paper or digital media.
In this case, one of the repetitive was highly opposed to the current government’ policies and had
been posting critical messages opposing the government on Twitter. This was against the media
law as media representatives cannot criticize any individual, organization or political party. They
are responsible for proving truth and facts to the people (Barker, 2012). Media representatives
neither speak in favor nor in against of any individual or organization. Posting defamatory
statement can affect the reputation of the person as it was being done in the case. The
representative did not have any proper evidence for whatever he had been posting on Twitter and
he was clearly violating the media law. The defamation had applied to the state government as
the reporter was working in State Government department.
Laws and possible defences
The defender has to prove that the post which was posted on Twitter was not defamatory it was
actually true. He can also defend himself by proving that the post which had been posted on
Twitter cannot be considered as defamatory because there was no communication. That means if
an individual has written something about someone but did not post it or did not receive any
communication on it (comments) then it cannot be considered as a defamatory statement
(Rowbottom, 2018). Here, the defender needs to show that he did not get any comment over his
post. The common defense that can be used by the defender is privilege or immunity. Absolute
privilege can be considered as immunity from the charge of defamation, though the statement is
malicious. If the defender will be able to prove that the statement which he had posted was an
opinion rather than a pronouncement of a fact, then the statement might not be determined to be
defamatory (Butler and Rodrick, 2015).
3

Case laws
An Australian actor Rebel Wilson has become a successful actor after one of his hit moves
named Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015. But the jubilation evaporated along with potentials new movie
role after allegations in the top-selling magazine Woman's Day and on associated websites
portraying her as a serial liar went viral (Abc, 2017). She sued for defamation over the
reputational harm she had suffered and the Victorian Supreme Court compensated her in 2017
with a record $4.75 million damages, later it was reduced on appeal $600, 000(Packard, 2013).
Yahoo7 and reporter Krystal Johnson learned this hard way after publishing a story during a
murder trial containing inadmissible evidence of victim’s social media posts that not been to the
jury. The exciting law in the sub juiced area presents two major problems to the media (Crothers,
2017). It is ill-defined in the many respects leaving journalists and blogger unsure of what can be
infrequent and unpredictable, sometimes tempting publishers to take a risk on the premise that
prosecution for contempt in unlikely. Sometimes this seems to be a commercial decision,
reached be weighing the size of the potential fine against the boost to circulate ratings or online
page views.
Publishing legally allowed materials and why
All the materials which are being published must be protected by proper evidence. As a media
representative, I will do proper investigating and will arrange all the evidence before posting any
report on social media or releasing via paper or electronic media so that if I accused of
deformation then I can show them that the statement was true and based on the evidence
(Descheemaeker, 2015). Publishing a report without any proper evidence can be considered as a
defamatory statement and it could lead to imprisonment or fine as it can affect the reputation of a
person or an organization. The defamation law can be applied for examining the issue because
the reporter was working in the department of state government.
4