There are lots of university league tables out there; and the University of Edinburgh maintains an excellent page assessing these various leagues and rankings. For example, Times Higher Education (rankings), Newsweek (pdf), Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Wuhan University all produce annual tables of universities worldwide. Similarly, most of the UK newspapers produce tables of the UK’s universities (Guardian | Independent | Telegraph | Times). The Sunday Times annually produces just such a list but also has a parallel list of Irish universities. Read the rest of this entry »

Not only will the Irish Supreme Court have the opportunity on the appeal in Mahon v Keena [2007] IEHC 348 (23 October 2007) (discussed here and here by Daithí) to discuss the constitutional protections, if any, for journalists’ sources, but I learn from The Court that the Supreme Court of Canada will also have a similar opportunity this term on the appeal in R v The National Post 2008 ONCA 139 (CanLII):

When does freedom of the press cede to investigating crime?: R. v. National Post

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether confidential sources for newspaper reporters are entitled to a claim of privilege similar to that of confidential police informants. The case of National Post v. R. … will settle a long-standing grey area in Canadian media law, but to get there, the SCC will be asked to mediate between the conflicting public interests of investigating crime on the one hand, and the freedom of the press on the other. …

The Canadian case turns on whether a journalist can assert privilege over a bank document received from a confidential source which disclosed highly incriminating evidence of a conflict of interest by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in a property scandal which the bank and M Chrétien claimed was fabricated. In R v McClure 2001 SCC 14 (CanLII), (2001) 151 CCC (3d) 321 the Supreme Court said that the confidentiality of the relationship between a journalist and the journalist’s source may be protected on a case-by-case basis. However, in applying the test set out in McClure, the Ontario Court of Appeal held against the privilege in The National Post case; in particular, on the question of whether the injury to the relationship between journalist and source from the disclosure of the communications is greater than the benefit gained from the correct disposal of the litigation, the Court focussed on

the fact that his document was potentially fabricated to stir up controversy surrounding the Prime Minister of Canada, … [and] found that the benefits of getting to the truth were ‘overwhelming.’ The interest in protecting confidential sources, meanwhile was ‘attenuated’ by the fact that in this case the media was “shielding a potential wrongdoer from prosecution for a serious crime.”

The outcomes of the appeals will make for an interesting pair of cases, not just in relation to the similarities of fact but in particular in relation to the law on journalists’ sources.

From today’s Irish Independent Politicians, not public, want laws on privacy

Politicians are ‘crusading’ for stricter privacy laws despite just one-in-five formal complaints coming from the public. A survey of Irish journalism reveals that two thirds of privacy complaints against newspapers and broadcasters come from public figures, particularly politicians, with only one fifth from private citizens. …

From today’s Irish Times Privacy issue tops media complaints list, study shows

News reporting in the Irish media is virtually free of gratuitous racism, a symposium on ethics and journalism heard yesterday. Journalist Dr Simon Bourke told the conference at Dublin City University that no complaint of racism had ever been upheld by the Press Council or Broadcasting Complaints Commission … Dr Bourke presented to yesterday’s meeting his analysis of ethical controversies involving the media since 1973. Allegations of invasion of privacy emerged as the single largest issue, accounting for 71 of the 140 cases identified. …

From today’s Irish Times ‘We know dirt sells,’ says owner of photo agency

“We just want to make as much money as possible, we know dirt sells,” Ray Senior, owner of photo agency VIP Ireland, told the symposium. His agency pursues photographs of celebrities.

From the DCU news website yesterday Ethics and Journalism – symposium hosted by DCU School of Communications

DCU’s School of Communications today hosted a symposium on the topic of ‘Ethics and Journalism’ which was attended by academics as well as print and broadcast journalists. … Simon Bourke, the author of ‘Taking the free-speech temperature: Irish libel law and newspaper journalism‘, has just completed his PhD on ‘Ethical trends in Irish journalism, 1973 to 2008′. The findings of his research showed the following:

- Historically, a large majority of complaints of ‘unethical journalism’ in all forums had no identifiable ethical basis. …

- Of complaints with an arguably ethical basis, invasion of privacy (54%) and intrusion upon grief (28%) and conflict of interest (7%) formed the bulk. …

- The evidence suggests that the emphasis on privacy issues in the public discourse on journalistic ethics is being led by public figures and, particularly, by politicians. Two-thirds of invasion of privacy complaints in all forums were from public figures. One-third came from private citizens, and only a fifth (21%) actually concerned private citizens. …

As the Dáil resumed yesterday, last week’s post on libel tourism has prompted me to pick up the story of the tortuous progress of the Defamation Bill, 2006 through the Houses of the Oireachtas [the Houses of Parliament]. When we left it on this blog, it had just scraped the through the Seanad [the Senate, the Upper House of Parliament] on the second time of asking; thereafter, it had a brief consideration in the Dáil [functionally equivalent to a House of Commons, the Lower House of Parliament] before the Summer recess halted its progress once more. This post, and the next few, will consider these stages of its progress, just in time to wait (and – probably – wait and wait) for further developments in the new Dáil session.

The Defamation Bill in the Seanad
The Defamation Bill, 2006 was introduced into the Seanad on 7 July 2006, and thereby began a long and winding road to enactment, a destination it has not yet reached. Read the rest of this entry »

An article by Marcel Berlins in today’s Guardian raises the issue of internet libel, especially by anonymous bloggers:

The web encourages lies and deceit. It’s impossible to know who lurks behind a funny nickname

On the whole, I can’t complain too much about the readers who respond to my column online … [but] I seriously considered suing one commenter for libel; I would have won, and English law, for purposes of libel litigation, allows the real identity behind an online pseudonym to be discovered.

It is that anonymity that’s at the hub of a debate and vote that takes place in the European Parliament tomorrow. An Estonian MEP, Marianne Mikko, is worried that a growing number of blogs are written with “malicious intentions or hidden agendas”. She proposes that bloggers identify themselves and declare any interests they have in the issue they’re writing about. Her concerns should be taken seriously. … We may soon have to consider devising controls on entry, though what form they’ll take is not easy to envisage. It is possible that we will find out, in five or 10 or 20 years, that, in the internet, we have created a monster we cannot tame, whose capacity for doing harm exceeds any good it once brought.

I couldn’t disagree more with Marianne Mikko’s proposals relating to blogs or with Berlins’ weary acceptance of their inevitably. Unsurprisingly, they have attacted much derision online, especially from blogs politically critical of the EU (see also here from today’s Telegraph online), though there are some rather more balanced assessments as well. For example, European Avenue suggests that Mikko should exercise judgment when reading information; I agree, we should all take responsibility for judging what we read, rather than expecting Mikko’s Big Sister to grade it for quality in advance.

In any event, it is important to be clear on the status of Mikko’s proposal. Read the rest of this entry »

The School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin will host a presentation by Prof Sharyn Roach Anleu under the above title at 4pm, Thursday 2nd October 2008, in the Robert Emmet Lecture Theatre (Room 2037, Arts Building (Map)), Trinity College Dublin.

Sharyn Roach Anleu is a Professor of Sociology at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, where The Judicial Research Project is undertaking wide ranging socio-legal research concerning the Australian judiciary as a legal and social institution and as a professional occupation. The presentation will examine the social and career background of members of the judiciary and their everyday work to create a picture of the judiciary as a professional occupation, working among and dependent on other professionals, including social workers.

More information is available here (doc), and from the School of Social Work and Social Policy.

As the debate about the reintroduction of some form of third level fees rumbles on (and on, and on), the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) – a UK think tank established in 2002 with the laudable aim of ensuring that higher education policy development in the UK is informed by research and by knowledge of the experience of others – has just published a report by Juliet Chester and Bahram Bekhradnia on Financial support in English universities: the case for a national bursary scheme. Read the rest of this entry »