Reynolds Defence

In its defence against George Galloway's libel claim, The

Daily Telegraph relies on the protection for responsible
journalism established by the law lords in a case brought
by Albert Reynolds, the former Irish prime minister,
against The Sunday Times.
Before the law lords ruled on the Reynolds case in
October 1999, newspapers that had carried accurate
reports sometimes had to pay libel claimants huge sums
in damages simply because they did not have the
evidence to prove that what they had published was true.
• Now, newspapers may be protected from
liability provided they publish information that
the public is entitled to know. Reynolds
privilege, as it was called in court yesterday,
gives news organisations that behave
responsibly a defence against libel even if they
cannot prove the truth of what they have
published.
• Reynolds privilege is a type of "qualified" privilege,
which for many years has operated as a defence in
libel. This protects the maker of an otherwise
defamatory statement so long as he had a legal duty
to communicate the information to someone who
had a material interest in receiving it.
• Giving the leading judgment in Reynolds, Lord
Nicholls gave 10 examples of the factors courts
might take into account when deciding whether
qualified privilege would be available:
• The seriousness of the allegation. The more
serious the charge, the more the public is
misinformed and the individual harmed if the
allegation is not true.
• • The nature of the information, and the
extent to which the subject matter is of public
concern.
• The source of the information. Some
informants have no direct knowledge of the
events. Some have their own axes to grind or
are being paid for their stories.
• • The steps taken to verify the information.
• • The status of the information. The allegation
may have already been the subject of an
• investigation that commands respect.
• The urgency of the matter. News is often a perishable
commodity.
• • Whether comment was sought from the claimant. He may
have information others do not possess or have not disclosed.
An approach to the claimant will not always be necessary.
• • Whether the article contained the gist of the claimant's side
of the story.
• • The tone of the article. A paper can raise queries or call for
an investigation. It need not adopt allegations as statements
of fact.
• • The circumstances of the publication, including the timing.
• Laying down his now famous "10 points", Lord Nicholls
stressed that "the common law does not seek to set a
higher standard than that of responsible journalism, a
standard the media themselves espouse".
• The courts have continued to develop the 10-point test,
deciding whether individual newspaper reports have acted
in the public interest and met the standards of responsible
journalism. But in Reynolds itself, The Sunday Times lost
its appeal because its coverage did not include the former
prime minister's own explanation for the conduct of which
he was accused.