Observer writer Carole Cadwalladr has denounced plans to sell the title to Tortoise Media at an international conference on press freedom – despite being told to “desist” by management after previous public statements about the deal

Cadwalladr is one of few serving Guardian or Observer journalists to have spoken out publicly about the proposal to transfer the title and its 70 staff to Tortoise Media despite widespread opposition. Some 93% of Guardian and Observer journalists voted in favour of strike action in protest at the deal this week.

The podcast publisher says it has £20m to invest in turning The Observer into a standalone newspaper with a paywalled website. But Cadwalladr and many other Guardian staff feel the deal puts the future of the title in jeopardy.

Cadwalladr, who is on a freelance contract with The Observer, was written to by management after appearing on the Media Confidential podcast hosted by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger earlier this month.

Press Gazette understands she has been accused of disparaging colleagues and the company and of making inaccurate statements. Cadwalladr said she denies disparaging anyone and said no detail has been given about alleged inaccuracies.

All Observer and Guardian journalists are required to adhere to the GNM editorial code which states: “It is important that outside interests do not come into conflict with journalists’ work for GNM in any way that could compromise, or appear to compromise, the editorial integrity and reputation of individual journalists or GNM”. Freelance contributors are required to sign a contract which states: “You shall not at any time do anything to bring GNM’s brands, trademarks or reputation into disrepute”.

Cadwalladr was told that it was third occasion she had breached company ruleswith recent public statements and been asked to “desist”.

But Cadwalladr told Press Gazette: “I’ve decided that my loyalty lies with the readers of The Observer.”

Cadwalladr was the keynote speaker today (Friday 22 November) at a Malta conference on media freedom run by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

New age of ‘politically motivated witch hunts’

She warned that the US “is entering a new age of politically motivated witch hunts that will look like McCarthyism on steroids” in her address.

And she spoke about her legal fight with political donor Arron Banks which left her with a £1.2m costs bill.

She said: “The biggest political donor in UK history didn’t sue the Guardian, instead, he came after me as an individual. He waited for me to repeat a line from a Guardian article in a talk, and he sued me for that.

“It was clever and deliberate and designed to silence and intimidate me. To isolate me from my news organisation. And to silence and intimidate all journalism into him. And it worked.

“And this, I have no doubt, is a playbook that will be deployed against other journalists.

“It wasn’t just that the lawsuit tied me up for years in litigation and led to years of stress and fear, it also became a central weapon in an online harassment and abuse campaign against me. Every court report led to a new wave of attacks. It was like being trapped in a washing machine, a spin cycle of abuse.”

‘Grave threat’ warning over Observer deal

And she went on to tell the conference that her own news organisation “is under grave threat”.

She said: “All of mine and my colleagues’ work is read by a global audience on the Guardian’s website. But in the UK, it also appears in the print edition of The Observer, The Guardian’s Sunday sister newspaper.

“And, as we speak, The Guardian’s board has approved the sale of The Observer – the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world – to a tiny, financially unprofitable podcast company.

“We, the journalists of both The Guardian and The Observer, believe that this is an existential threat to our journalism.

“We believe the company that is seeking to buy us has no track record of success, no business model and insufficient funds. We don’t understand why no alternatives have been considered. We believe that The Guardian is risking the trust of the readers by making such a reckless decision in haste. We believe it is the beginning of the end of our newspaper.

“Now, 93% of us have voted to go on strike.

“I’m telling you this because ownership matters. The British government has previously scrutinised the potential buyers of news organisations and I urge it do so in this case.

“Because the freedom of the press is precious and fragile and when a news organisation dies, it leaves a gaping hole. Politicians go unscrutinised, crimes go unreported, human rights abuses go undocumented.

“If press freedom means anything, it has to mean the ability to speak out to advocate for the survival of our own news organisation. Because if a newspaper is allowed to die, it’s never coming back.

“And at this point, we, the journalists of The Guardian and Observer, believe The Guardian’s management is an active threat to press freedom.

“I’m speaking on behalf of those journalists when I say that we believe its actions are imperilling the survival of a 240-year-old newspaper.”

The Scott Trust, which owns Guardian Media Group, is expected to make a decision in principle over selling The Observer on Monday,

A Guardian spokesperson said: “We recognise the strength of feeling about the proposed sale of the Observer. Our priority is to serve our readers, protect jobs and support our staff, so that the Guardian and the Observer can continue to promote liberal journalism and thrive in a challenging media environment.”

Concluding her speech, Cadwalladr said: “I’ve learned the hard way what happens when journalism comes under attack. I am lucky. I live in a country with strong institutions and rule of law. I faced a civil not a criminal suit. And it still felt like an existential struggle for survival. I’m only now two years on, recovering my psychological and physical health. And I’m ending by telling you this because there is a global witch hunt coming. And what happened to me must not be allowed to happen to other journalists.

“I am just one person. But what I worry is that news organisations will find reasons to not provide financial and other support to their journalists when they come under attack. They will be afraid of the consequences. They will find loopholes and excuses to not do the right thing.

“This is what happened to me. I faced my nightmare alone. But we cannot let that happen to other journalists. Because a threat to one journalist is a threat to all. A threat to one news organisation is a threat to all.

“There is a curtain of darkness that is falling across the world, a blanket of fake news and lies is smothering the truth and we know where that leads. We simply cannot afford to let this happen.”

A source close to The Guardian said: “Carole is a fantastic campaigning journalist and welcome to an opinion but many would respectfully disagree with her that this deal threatens the future of this business – what this about is enabling the Observer to thrive.”

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Freelance journalist Carole Cadwalladr has applied for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against a £1m costs order in her libel battle with businessman Arron Banks.

The costs order was made last week after Banks won a partial victory at the Court of Appeal.

Press Gazette understands Cadwalladr and her legal team are prepared to take the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

She is appealing against an order that she must pay 60% of Banks’s legal fees (said to be £559,667) and her own costs (of £512,870).

The case centres on a statement in her 2019 TED Talk, broadcast online, in which she said: “And I am not even going to get into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian Government.”

The damages of £35,000 and costs relate to her continued defence of the case after the Electoral Commission stated in April 2020 it accepted the National Crime Agency’s finding that there was no evidence Banks had committed a criminal offence or received funding from a third party.

Lawyers for Cadwalladr, Gavin Millar QC and Aidan Wills of Matric, say the costs order is “a severe penalty against the defendant for establishing in legal proceedings that she spoke lawfully in the public interest”.

Citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, they state the order is a serious interference with the journalist’s right to freedom of expression, which will have a chilling effect and discourage the media from “disseminating information on matters of legitimate public concern”.

Her lawyers have asked for the costs order to be stayed pending the outcome of their request to appeal the case.

A Go Fund Me appeal to cover Cadwalladr’s legal costs has so far raised raised nearly £800,000.

An earlier appeal on Crowd Justice has raised nearly £300,000.

Cadwalladr believes the case should have been defended by publisher Guardian News and Media because it had prior site of her TED talk and the contentious statement was based on her previous reporting for The Observer.

She told Press Gazette: “As an organisation, it needs to understand that targeting an individual journalist in this way is a part of a recognised ‘playbook’ that has been used against multiple (mostly female) journalists around the world to stop their reporting and silence their voices. Its failure to acknowledge this and the new hybrid threat landscape that journalists face poses a risk to other journalists, I believe.”

The post Cadwalladr seeks Supreme Court ruling over ‘chilling’ Arron Banks £1m costs order appeared first on Press Gazette.

[Update: Carole Cadwalladr has applied for permission to appeal the £1m costs order at the Supreme Court]

Wednesday 18 May should go down as a dark day for journalism in the UK and a great one for litigious public figures with deep pockets.

Businessman and financial backer of the Leave.EU campaign Arron Banks has hit campaigning freelance journalist Carole Cadwalladr with a thumping legal action that has crippled her ability to function as a reporter.

That she had to face this battle alone for four years reflects poorly on the two publishers involved in the case: Guardian News and Media and TED, a non-profit organisation in the US that is dedicated to the spread of ideas.

And it is now beholden on all news publishers to support Cadwalladr in any future appeal to the Supreme Court because the judgment against her threatens to gag us all.

On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal ruled that she must pay £1.2m towards Banks’s legal costs in addition to a £35,000 damages payment and whatever contribution she must make towards her own ongoing legal costs.

The level of public concern about the case is reflected by the success of a second crowdfunded appeal that has raised more than £750,000, much of it in the days since the costs decision was made public. Even with an earlier appeal which raised £261,755, she still faces a potentially ruinous shortfall.

It has all been a huge price to pay for a freelance journalist who has been attacked over a statement that stemmed from investigative journalism into the activities of the biggest political donor in UK political history.

And it is a judgment that means Banks, and others like him, will be protected in future by a sort of cloak of invisibility. When the risks are so high, most publishers will choose less risky targets for their investigations.

Arron Banks versus Carole Cadwalladr: Why did he sue?

Cadwalladr was sued over comments made at a TED talk in the US, which was broadcast online in April 2019.

Banks took issue with these words in the talk: “And I am not even going to get into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian Government.”

At a preliminary hearing the judge held that, in the context of the talk, the words complained about meant: “On more than one occasion Mr Banks told untruths about a secret relationship he had with the Russian government in relation to acceptance of foreign funding of electoral campaigns in breach of the law on such funding.”

The case rests not on what Cadwalladr said, but on this interpretation of her words.

Banks partially won his appeal because the Court of Appeal held that Cadwalladr’s public interest defence fell away after 29 April 2020 when the Electoral Commission made a statement that it accepted the National Crime Agency’s finding that there was no evidence Banks had committed a criminal offence or received funding from a third party.

The potentially ruinous costs and damages ruling relates purely to publication on the TED website after 29 April 2020 (something which Cadwalladr had no control over).

As she said herself: “Why didn’t Banks sue TED? Or The Observer which first published the words? And now I’ve been held personally liable for a video published by media org in a foreign jurisdiction protected by the first amendment.

“This case has been absurdity after absurdity, starting with Kafkaesque ‘meaning’ of words that had never passed my lips to now being held responsible for the continued publication of a talk that the Court of Appeal has established was lawful when I gave it.”

The Commons culture committee’s Interim Report on Disinformation and Fake News held that Banks had many meetings with Russian officials between 2015 and 2017.

Why Observer publisher and TED should stand with Carole Cadwalladr

Cadwalladr was invited to speak at TED on the back of a British Journalism Award-winning investigation that revealed Cambridge Analytica had played a role in Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign and the Brexit referendum of the same year using data harvested from 87 million Facebook users without their consent.

The TED talk was shared in advance with Guardian Media Group and signed off – after numerous drafts – by TED themselves.

Cambridge Analytica was a huge editorial success for Guardian News and Media and the company was clearly happy for Cadwalladr to bang the drum for the brand in the US at such a high-profile event.

Guardian Media Group and TED both now need to step and stand with Carole Cadwalladr in the name of principle and to ensure that future contributors to both their organisations can feel protected.

All UK news publishers should hope that Cadwalladr appeals to the Supreme Court against a Court of Appeal judgment that severely undermines the public interest defence so relied upon in investigative journalism.

Cadwalladr and The Guardian: ‘I should never have had to face this alone’

A spokesperson for Guardian News and Media said: “Carole Cadwalladr’s award-winning journalism has prompted worldwide debate about social media, privacy and political targeting. The very high costs award made against Carole despite her journalism having been found to be in the public interest is very concerning, and has the potential to stifle freedom of expression in this country.

“While the Appeal Court ruled in favour of Arron Banks on the issue of the continued publication of the Ted talk, the Court noted he had lost on the major issue of public interest, which had absorbed most of the time and money. In the light of this, the high level of costs awarded to Banks sets a chilling precedent and represents a major blow to public interest journalism.”

Asked why GNM has not backed Cadwalladr financially, a spokesperson said: “This case has never been about journalism published by GNM. We have continued to support Carole in a range of ways throughout the last three years.”

In response to this statement, Cadwalladr told Press Gazette: “It is preposterous to suggest the Guardian and Observer had nothing to do this talk.

“The judgment made it very clear that it was intimately involved in the production of this talk as well as the nearly three years of reporting behind it. Specifically, Mrs Justice Steyn noted in detail the contributions of four editors at the Guardian and Observer who reviewed the talk and/or offered editorial feedback in addition to the head of corporate communications. The judge also notes the Observer had previously published ‘essentially the same allegations and a very similar meaning’.

“Multiple freedom of expression organisations have issued statements that they believe this was a SLAPP case in which I was deliberately targeted as an individual outside of my news organisation. I have asked the Guardian to review their position because I believe that this ongoing denial will put further journalists at risk.

“As an organisation, it needs to understand that targeting an individual journalist in this way is a part of a recognised ‘playbook’ that has been used against multiple (mostly female) journalists around the world to stop their reporting and silence their voices. Its failure to acknowledge this and the new hybrid threat landscape that journalists face poses a risk to other journalists, I believe.

“I should never have had to face this alone or rely on crowdfunding support.”

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Piers Morgan and Martin Lewis are the most influential UK journalists on Twitter, according to new analysis by Press Gazette.

In third place is David Ornstein, a football correspondent for The Athletic who previously spent 12 years as a sports journalist at the BBC. Sports (and in particular football) journalists were well-represented, making up 11 of the top 50 journalists on our list.

Scroll down to see the list of UK journalists with more than 100,000 Twitter followers

In total, 12 journalists had more than one million followers, but TalkTV presenter Morgan and Money Saving Expert founder Lewis were the only two above the two million mark.

Press Gazette found more than 180 journalists with more than 100,000 followers – the question now is how much of this influence may be replicated on other platforms if Elon Musk’s ownership leads to Twitter’s ultimate decline, as some commentators have predicted.

The most-followed journalists in the UK on Twitter are:

1. Piers Morgan, TalkTV – 8.44 million followers
2. Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert – 2.19 million followers
3. David Ornstein, The Athletic – 1.88 million followers
4. Jon Snow, ex-Channel 4 News – 1.44 million followers
5. Laura Kuenssberg, BBC – 1.41 million followers
6. Henry Winter, The Times – 1.36 million followers
7. Robert Peston, ITV – 1.34 million followers
8. Andrew Neil, Spectator – 1.24 million followers
9. James O’Brien, LBC – 1.12 million followers
10. Eamonn Holmes, GB News – 1.11 million followers

Note: Follower numbers for this story were taken between 21–24 March 2023. Some journalists with a following of more than 100,000 may be missing: if this is the case, it is an accidental omission rather than a deliberate one. Please send anyone you think ought to be on the list to pged@pressgazette.co.uk.

Twitter has become an “integral” part of the job for many journalists over the past 15 years, with the platform becoming a common way for reporters and columnists alike to build their personal brand.

Some journalists have successfully broken out of the so-called Twitter bubble, however, to find new audiences. Vice World News journalist Sophia Smith Galer, for example, did not make our Twitter list but has more than 463,000 followers on Tiktok. Similarly CNN’s London anchor Max Foster has 425,000 followers on Twitter but more than one million on Tiktok.

Some 43% of the 182 journalists we counted who have more than 100,000 followers could be classed as broadcast journalists, although this is a crude figure as many have a portfolio career appearing on or in more than one outlet.

After Morgan and Lewis, who has his own ITV show, the biggest broadcast journalists on the platform are former BBC News political editor Laura Kuenssberg (1.41 million followers), who now presents BBC One’s Sunday morning political show and ITV political editor Robert Peston (1.34 million). Kuenssberg’s successor Chris Mason was further down the list in 25th place among broadcasters with about 270,000 followers.

The biggest national newspaper journalists on our list were Carole Cadwalladr (715,263 followers), who is freelance but has frequently written for The Observer, followed by Financial Times data journalist John Burn-Murdoch (458,529) who grew his following during the Covid-19 pandemic by sharing regular analysis of the latest Government figures.

The newspaper political editor with the biggest Twitter following is The Guardian's Pippa Crerar (427,513), who was named Journalist of the Year at the most recent British Journalism Awards for her work breaking the Partygate stories while at the Daily Mirror. She also jointly broke the news of Dominic Cummings' lockdown-breaking trip to Durham.

The 14th biggest newspaper journalist is Sunday Times chief political commentator Tim Shipman (211,220), who last year paid "substantial damages" to a shadow minister after posting tweets wrongly suggesting she had a secret adulterous relationship with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

The Financial Times dominates the list of national newspaper journalists, with eight represented – or nine, if its former editor Lionel Barber (113,318) is included. It is followed by The Guardian, with five journalists on the list, and the Mail on three.

Several foreign correspondents are featured who may have grown their followings during the Ukraine war: Christopher Miller (419,247) for the FT in Ukraine, Max Seddon (361,423) for the same newspaper in Russia, Shaun Walker (213,006) for The Guardian, and Bel Trew (127,902) of The Independent.

Freelance journalists John Sweeney (280,588) and Oz Katerji (200,987) also expanded their followings because of their work on Ukraine.

Columnists and commentators are almost as well-represented in our list as their national newspaper journalist colleagues, likely due to their greater ability to speak with their own voices. Owen Jones of The Guardian is above one million, followed by Caitlin Moran at The Times (873,400) and Paul Mason (623,799) who writes for The New European and The New Statesman.

A quarter of the sports journalists (excluding presenters/commentators) we found who had more than 100,000 followers were from The Athletic, which entered the UK market for football reporting in 2019 but poached several journalists with established followings from other major publications.

Behind Ornstein, the only other sports journalist with more than one million followers was Times chief football writer Henry Winter (1.36 million followers). Back in 2015 when he left The Telegraph to join The Times, Press Gazette reported that Winter had more followers on Twitter than his then-newspaper. He is behind both The Telegraph (3.3 million) and Times (1.7 million) nowadays, however.

Most of the sports list was made up of BBC, Sky News and national newspaper journalists, but two local Reach journalists made the cut: Samuel Luckhurst (540,473) of the Manchester Evening News, and Lee Ryder (137,058) of The Chronicle in Newcastle. National World football content editor and writer Chris Wheatley also made the list (296,144).

Full list of most-followed UK journalists on Twitter:

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The serious harm test for defamation should be a “one-off exercise” and should not be revisited following a change in circumstances, a lawyer for Arron Banks has argued in his libel appeal against journalist Carole Cadwalladr.

[UPDATE: Arron Banks wins Carole Cadwalladr libel appeal and set to receive damages]

The barrister also objected to a High Court judge’s decision that a tweet about the Brexit donor did not cause him serious harm because it was published to Cadwalladr’s followers whose opinion “was of no consequence to him”.

In June the Brexit donor lost his case against Cadwalladr, who said in a 2019 Ted Talk he had told “lies… about his covert relationship with the Russian government” and repeated the claim in a tweet.

Cadwalladr won using the public interest defence as High Court judge Mrs Justice Steyn decided it was reasonable for her to believe what she said was in the public interest – even though it caused harm to Banks’ reputation.

Banks’ appeal centred around the judge’s finding that Cadwalladr’s public interest defence no longer applied from April 2020 when the Electoral Commission accepted an earlier finding from the National Crime Agency that there was no evidence he had committed any criminal offences.

The judge said that Banks had failed to prove he had been caused serious harm after this “significant change in circumstances”, however, as most of the views of the talk had already happened.

At the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Benjamin Williams KC, on behalf of Banks, argued that the serious harm test is one “threshold test at the outset” and that this does not need to be under “constant review”.

Williams said: “The analysis of whether or not there has been serious harm is a one-off exercise having regard of the consequences of the publication holistically. That is our case.”

Gavin Millar, representing Cadwalladr, argued that Banks’ case amounted to an attempt at a “complete re-argument of the case”, adding: “This court is not supposed to be a place [where] the claimant can have a second bite of the cherry.”

Cadwalladr ‘doubles down’

Cadwalladr wrote a letter of apology to Banks in March 2021 in which she said: “It was not my intention to make any such allegation and I accept that such an allegation would be untrue,” referencing the meaning of her words as determined at an earlier hearing by Mr Justice Saini. She dropped the truth defence because of this ruling on meaning.

But Williams said Cadwalladr has “done nothing at all to bring that concession and apology to public attention”, noting that the Ted Talk and tweet both remain live and that Cadwalladr continues to repeat allegations about Banks that are “misleading the public”.

Because of Mrs Justice Steyn’s ruling, he is unable to obtain any type of injunction, Williams added, claiming this was an “indication something has gone wrong in the lower court”.

He pointed to the fact Cadwalladr had “doubled down” at 10pm on Monday night, just over 12 hours before the appeal hearing began, in a new series of tweets: “Tomorrow, Arron Banks’s lawyers will try to overturn a minor point of the judgement against him. What this will not & cannot change is the *facts*. A High Court judge found Banks had a close & covert relationship with Russian officials in run-up to Brexit.

“What I want to know is why UK govt swept evidence of years of Kremlin influence operations under the carpet…” Williams said the question of whether this had broken the terms of her apology may be “an issue for the future”.

Williams suggested Banks deserved damages for vindication if he is successful on any of the points raised during the appeal hearing.

Williams said Banks and his team take “no issue” with the idea that the Ted Talk was an important contribution to the debate on a matter of public interest – the impact of social media on the Brexit referendum.

But, he said, the talk contained a “gratuitous” line about Banks that Cadwalladr subsequently “doubled down” on in a tweet.

Williams said Banks accepts he is a “controversial public figure” and said he and Cadwalladr could both “fairly be described as polarising or Marmite… and that comes with some cost”.

However, he went on, there is a “fundamental qualitative difference” between being thought of by a section of the public as having bad political opinions versus being a bad faith political actor and conduit for a foreign regime that was poorly thought of in the UK following the Salisbury poisonings in 2018.

Echo chamber is ‘completely unsafe premise’

Williams also requested permission to appeal over two further points – the fact that the tweet and the Ted Talk after the Electoral Commission publication did not cause Banks serious harm.

Mrs Justice Steyn had found that those who saw Cadwalladr’s tweet were “likely to consist of people whose opinion of [Banks] was of no consequence to him”, basing this on the idea that her Twitter following would constitute an “echo chamber” in which people shared similar views.

Williams took issue with this, however, giving Banks himself as an example of someone who follows Cadwalladr on Twitter but disagrees with much of what she says. He said the judge’s reliance on the echo chamber idea was a “completely unsafe premise”.

He also said that even though people may have had a low opinion of him due to his political opinions and the way he conducted himself during the Brexit referendum, it is still a leap for them to believe him a bad faith actor who broke the law.

He noted that many people would be interested to see the tweets of a “respected journalist” who had won the Orwell Prize and written on matters of public interest. Cadwalladr currently has more than 713,000 followers on the platform, up from about 311,000 in 2019 when Banks launched this legal action.

There “certainly was not evidence that she was broadcasting to a choir that was capable only of singing in unison,” Williams said.

He suggested that the trial judge had underestimated the number of people who may have seen the tweet from outside Cadwalladr’s following because of retweets and the potential that it appeared in Google search results.

However, Millar said: “It is not accepted that there was any evidence for example that you could get the tweet on Google or anything like that. There was no evidence of that at all. All we had was the principle that the tweet drops down into oblivion early in its life and gets suppressed further and further down the chain.”

The judge had also noted that the tweet was seen by only a “fraction” of the number who watched the Ted Talk, which had been viewed more than five million times by December 2021. But Williams said the audience of the tweet was still comparable to or larger than that of a UK regional newspaper.

“On any view, it is a publication of considerable scale,” Williams said. “It may be smaller than the Ted Talk but it is still a matter of mass publication.” Millar criticised some of Williams’ workings, however, saying for example that there could be some double counting in the people who saw the tweet and that there was no evidence regarding how many people in this jurisdiction of England and Wales saw it after the defence lapsed.

Williams compared this issue of scale to Countdown star Rachel Riley’s successful libel case against blogger Mike Sivier last year, following a judgment also by Mrs Justice Steyn that found the serious harm test can be met following publication to a relatively small number of people. Williams also contended that the allegation in that case – that Riley harassed a 16-year-old girl – was less serious than the contention that Banks was colluding with Russians to harm democracy in the UK.

“This is a troubling contrast which underpins me having the temerity to say that this is a case where the judge is completely wrong,” Williams said, later adding: “You put Sivier next to this case and you cannot understand how they could be the decisions of the same judge.”

Williams also suggested it should not matter if the opinions of Cadwalladr’s followers were of “consequence” to Banks and, even if so, “that was not his view… he brought this action at huge expense”.

He gave the example that Cadwalladr herself may have disregard for the readers of the Daily Telegraph but would still take objection if the newspaper wrote falsehoods about her.

There were “hundreds” of “hurtful social media reactions” and an “avalanche of bile” towards Banks, which Williams brought up because “although of course the statutory test is not won on whether you have been hurt, it may be evidence of whether serious harm has been suffered”.

Regarding the Ted Talk following the end of Cadwalladr’s public interest defence, Mrs Justice Steyn had estimated that the number of viewers after this part was about a tenth of who had already watched it.

But Williams said: “Ten per cent of the readership of a high circulation daily newspaper is still hundreds of thousands of people,” noting that the approximately 750,000 views after 29 April 2020 were “far more than in other cases where serious harm was inferred in respect of people’s grave allegations”.

He also pointed out that the Ted Talk could not be seen as being seen by only Cadwalladr’s “echo chamber” because part of the reason for delivering the talk – titled “Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threat to democracy” – was for her reporting to reach a wider audience.

President of the King’s Bench Division Dame Victoria Sharp, Lord Justice Singh and Lord Justice Warby, who heard the case on Tuesday, reserved their judgment to a later date.

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National newspaper editors from across the political spectrum have urged the UK Government to crack down on intimidating legal tactics known as SLAPPs.

SLAPPs, which stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, refer to lawsuits targeting journalists, news organisations, whistleblowers or other groups putting out information in the public interest that are deemed meritless and being used to bully them into silence, including by dropping a story.

Libel, copyright, data protection and misuse of private information laws are all increasingly abused as SLAPPs, critics of the practice say. The cases that get heard in court are said to be just the “tip of the iceberg” as many succeed in silencing journalists through the fear of racking up substantial costs.

An open letter from many journalists and lawyers to members of the Government, including Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan, has asked them to adopt an “oven-ready” solution published this year.

This is a model anti-SLAPP law created by the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition that would allow courts to swiftly dispose of cases deemed to be SLAPPs and hand out penalties that would act as a deterrence and ultimately provide full compensation for those targeted, stopping claimants from being able to “weaponise” the legal system.

Among the 74 signatories are the editors of almost all of the UK’s national newspapers: the Times, Sunday Times, Sun, Daily Mail, Guardian, Observer, Mirror, Express, i, Financial Times and Telegraph.

Recent high-profile SLAPP cases have included Russian oligarchs such as then-Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich targeting former FT Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton over her book Putin’s People (ultimately settled), a Kazakh mining giant’s case against journalist Tom Burgis, the FT and his book publisher Harper Collins that was thrown out by a judge, and Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr’s win using the public interest defence after being sued by Brexit donor Arron Banks. All three have signed the open letter.

Scroll down for the complete list of 74 signatories

Burgis, whose book Kleptopia contained the relevant allegations, told the Anti-SLAPP Conference hosted by the Foreign Policy Centre and Justice for Journalists Foundation in London on Monday that lawyers representing claimants targeting the media have become increasingly powerful, resulting in stories being spiked “every day because the journalists are too scared to do them”.

Lawyers ‘as powerful as Fleet Street editors’ in editorial decisions

“Their editors are too scared to run them. And because London law firms whose senior partners wield power equivalent to that of a Fleet Street editor in deciding what we get to read and what we don’t get to read are making just those decisions every day on behalf of clients whose interests are completely inimical to democracy.”

Burgis also suggested he would have benefited from a mechanism to throw out SLAPP cases because “any independent observer could have said on day one this case is absolute bollocks. It was ludicrous.

“The central allegation was that I had written that a holding company, essentially a piece of paper, had murdered some people. My six-year-old knows that that’s rubbish. And yet Harper Collins is still down significant amounts of money even though we got awarded all our costs, amounts of money that’s equivalent to books, valuable books, that could have been published and the company continues to operate around the world more or less unchallenged.”

Other editors to have thrown their support behind the model law include Prospect Magazine’s Alan Rusbridger, Private Eye’s Ian Hislop, The Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes, Reuters’ Alessandra Galloni, Bloomberg’s John Micklethwait, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Rozina Breen and Open Democracy’s Peter Geoghegan.

TBIJ, Open Democracy and The Telegraph are currently facing a legal threat from an organisation linked to Kazakhstan’s former dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev over stories about his alleged use of a UK company to protect his assets. Lawyers on behalf of the company claimed the stories had caused it financial loss, according to Open Democracy.

Labour MP Liam Byrne last week led an attempt to add an amendment to the Economic Crime Bill designed to allow judges to dismiss SLAPP cases, but it was rejected by the Government which promised to deal with SLAPPs earlier this year. However it has been criticised for moving too slowly.

The new letter to the Government pointed out progress against SLAPPs is being made in the EU and US and the Government must “ensure that the UK can keep pace and contribute to this global movement to protect against SLAPPs”. “It is crucial momentum is not lost,” it said.

[Read more: UK is SLAPP tourism capital of Europe but scale of ‘iceberg problem’ not fully known]

Rupert Cowper-Coles, a partner at the law firm RPC and one of several lawyers to sign the letter, said his employer is one of a handful in London that defends the media and never acts against them.

‘Brave’ news organisations jeopardise staff and legal budgets to fight

Speaking at the Anti-SLAPP Conference, Cowper-Coles said: “I’d say for every one of me there’s probably eight or nine claimant solicitors or lawyers – this is big business, the reputation management business.”

He said the proposed Government reforms are “desperately needed” as the industry is currently in a “depressive situation where brave organisations – media organisations, NGOs and journalists – are having to decide between the principle of fighting to get a story out or facing the commercial reality that they might be jeopardising their entire legal budget, the employment of staff or, in the case of freelances, their house or their retirement on a story.

“That’s the reality of what we’re often having to advise our clients when they’re facing SLAPP cases.”

He said that during the Government’s recent consultation process on the issue, there was “almost no recognition that there was any issue from private practice solicitors and counsel from the other side of the divide”, adding it was “quite remarkable how stark the division is”.

Cowper-Coles added that a statutory dismissal mechanism for cases deemed to be SLAPPs was “desperately needed” as he has looked at common law ways of doing so and calculated it would have proved “desperately expensive and highly risky”. Developing the appropriate case law would take decades, he added.

It is also “absolutely crucial” to deal with costs, he added, as litigation has become so expensive. He said a cost budget to take a libel or privacy case to trial might have been £200,000 to £300,000 ten years ago but “I don’t see cost budgets going in for less than £1m these days”.

Guardian editor Katharine Viner said in a statement: “The abuse of the UK legal system by powerful individuals and vested interests to intimidate journalists should be a subject of national shame. The British government has taken this issue seriously for the first time in a generation, and this model law provides a clear opportunity for the government to act on its good intentions to pass legislation without delay.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This issue is of the utmost importance and is being given urgent consideration. We intend to introduce legislative proposals as soon as possible.”

Full list of signatories to media anti-SLAPP letter (as of 29 November):

• John Witherow, Chairman, Times Media
• Emma Tucker, Editor, The Sunday Times
• Tony Gallagher, Editor, The Times
• Victoria Newton, Editor-in-Chief, The Sun
• Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief, DMG media
• Ted Verity, Editor, The Daily Mail
• Katharine Viner, Editor-in-Chief, The Guardian
• Paul Webster, Editor, The Observer
• Alison Phillips, Editor, The Mirror
• Oliver Duff, Editor-in-Chief, i
• Roula Khalaf, Editor, The Financial Times
• Chris Evans, Editor, The Telegraph
• Alan Rusbridger, Editor, Prospect Magazine
• Ian Hislop, Editor, Private Eye
• Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
• Alessandra Galloni, Editor-in-Chief, Reuters News Agency
• John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg
• Drew Sullivan, Co-founder and Publisher, Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)
• Paul Radu, Co-founder and Chief of Innovation, OCCRP
• Rozina Breen, CEO, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ)
• Peter Geoghegan, Editor-in-Chief and CEO, openDemocracy
• Nick Mathiason, Co-founder and Co-director, Finance Uncovered
• Gerard Ryle, Director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
• David Kaplan, Executive Director, Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN)
• Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary, National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
• Dawn Alford, Executive Director, Society of Editors
• Sayra Tekin, Director of Legal, News Media Association (NMA)
• Sarah Baxter, Director, Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting
• Paul Murphy, Head of Investigations, Financial Times
• Rachel Oldroyd, Deputy Investigations Editor, The Guardian
• Carole Cadwalladr, journalist, The Observer
• Catherine Belton, journalist and author of the book, Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the west
• Tom Burgis, reporter and author of the book, Kleptopia: How dirty money is conquering the world
• Oliver Bullough, Journalist and author
• Clare Rewcastle Brown, investigative journalist and founder of The Sarawak Report
• Richard Brooks, journalist, Private Eye
• Matthew Caruana Galizia, Director of The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
• Mark Stephens CBE, Partner at Howard Kennedy LLP
• Caroline Kean, Consultant Partner, Wiggin
• Matthew Jury, Managing Partner, McCue Jury and Partners
• David Price KC
• Rupert Cowper-Coles, Partner at RPC
• Conor McCarthy, Barrister, Monckton Chambers
• Pia Sarma, Editorial Legal Director, Times Newspapers Ltd
• Gill Phillips, Director of Editorial Legal Services, Guardian News & Media
• Lisa Webb, Senior Lawyer, Which?
• Juliette Garside, Deputy Business Editor, The Guardian and The Observer
• Alexander Papachristou, Executive Director of the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice
• José Borghino, Secretary General, International Publishers Association
• Dan Conway, CEO, Publishers Association
• Arabella Pike, Publishing Director, HarperCollins Publishers
• Joanna Prior, CEO of Macmillan Publishers International Limited
• Meirion Jones, Editor, TBIJ
• Emily Wilson, Bureau Local Editor, TBIJ
• James Ball, Global Editor, TBIJ
• Franz Wild, Enablers Editor, TBIJ
• James Lee, Chair of the Board, TBIJ
• Stewart Kirkpatrick, Head of Impact, openDemocracy
• Moira Sleight, Editor, the Methodist Recorder
• Paul Caruana Galizia, reporter, Tortoise
• Tom Bergin, journalist and author
• James Nixey, Director, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House
• Edward Lucas, Author, European and transatlantic security consultant and fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)
• Sean O’Neill, Senior Writer, The Times
• Dr Peter Coe, Associate Professor in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham
• Alex Wilson, Partner at RPC
• George Greenwood, Investigations Reporter, The Times
• Simon Bowers, Investigations Editor, Finance Uncovered
• John Heathershaw, Professor of International Relations, University of Exeter
• Tena Prelec, Research Fellow, DPIR, University of Oxford
• Thomas Mayne, Research Fellow, DPIR, University of Oxford
• Jodie Ginsberg, President, Committee to Protect Journalists
• Dr Julie Macfarlane, Co-Founder, Can’t Buy My Silence campaign to ban the misuse of NDAs
• Zelda Perkins, Co-Founder, Can’t Buy My Silence campaign to ban the misuse of NDAs

The post Guardian and Daily Mail editors unite to demand action over legal bullying of media appeared first on Press Gazette.

Update on 24 June 2022 from PA:

Arron Banks has won a bid to appeal after losing his High Court libel claim against Carole Cadwalladr.

Sara Mansoori QC, for Banks, told the High Court on Friday that the judge had been wrong to find that the issue of whether the high-profile businessman had suffered “serious harm” needed to be decided again after he had previously proved it.

In written submissions, she said: “The claimant succeeded in discharging the burden of establishing that the publication complained of had caused and was likely to cause serious harm to his reputation.

“At that point, it was for the defendant to demonstrate that she had a defence to the original publication and/or its continuing publication.”

Gavin Millar QC, for Cadwalladr, opposed the appeal bid, arguing the judge “was correct to consider the application of the serious harm test afresh”.

However, Mrs Justice Steyn gave Banks the go-ahead to appeal on this point at the Court of Appeal, rejecting four other grounds.

She said: “I am going to grant permission. It does raise clearly an issue of law that has not been determined previously.

“There is a real prospect of success on that ground.”

Original story 13 June 2022:

Journalist Carole Cadwalladr has won her libel battle with Brexit donor Arron Banks using the public interest defence.

Brexit donor Banks sued freelance journalist Cadwalladr over this phrase in a Ted Talk she gave in 2019: “And I’m not even going to go into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian government.”

As of 16 December 2021 the Ted Talk had been viewed 4.3 million times, and as of 31 December it had been watched on Youtube one million times.

[Read more: Banks versus Cadwalladr libel ruling reaction: ‘Victory for public interest journalism’]

Banks also sued over a Twitter post on 24 June 2019 in which she repeated the allegation and shared a link to the talk: “Oh Arron. This is too tragic. Nigel Farage’s secret funder Arron Banks has sent me a pre-action letter this morning: he’s suing me over this TED talk. If you haven’t watched it please do. I say he lied about his contact with the Russian govt. Because he did.”

In a judgment handed down on Monday, Mrs Justice Steyn said the Ted Talk had caused serious harm to Banks’ reputation but the tweet had not, dismissing the latter part of the claim. This was because the opinion of Cadwalladr’s Twitter followers of Banks would be “of no consequence to him,” the judge said.

Mrs Justice Steyn said Cadwalladr had succeeded in her defence of the Ted Talk by establishing that it was reasonable for her to believe publication of the allegation against Banks was in the public interest.

Cadwalladr said on Monday morning: “I am so profoundly grateful and relieved. Thank you to the judge, my stellar legal team and the 29,000 people who contributed to my legal defence fund. I literally couldn’t have done it without you.” She added that it was a “huge victory for public interest journalism”.

Banks has said he is “likely” to appeal, adding: “The judge said what she said was defamatory but no serious harm was caused, this was about vindication and it’s clear what she said was wrong. The allegation about Russian money was always a hoax!”

‘Important matter of public interest’

Cadwalladr’s Ted Talk was based on years of reporting she had done for The Guardian and The Observer but Banks chose to sue only her. Press freedom organisations and advocates therefore described the case as a SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation) designed to intimidate her out of reporting. Banks denied it was a “vexatious” or “bullying” claim.

Mrs Justice Steyn said: “In the Ted Talk Ms Cadwalladr made a serious contribution to the discussion of a subject that was of real and abiding public interest at the time of publication. Moreover, the words complained of were themselves on an important matter of public interest.

“It was reasonable for Ms Cadwalladr to regard those words as forming part of the story that she was telling about the potential for targeted political advertising on social media to undermine democracy.”

The judge found that Cadwalladr “genuinely did not appreciate” her wording could carry the defamatory meaning as ruled on by an earlier judge.

Instead, the judge said, Cadwalladr had intended to convey the meaning that Banks “lied on more than one occasion about a secret relationship he had with the Russian government” and that “there are questions to be asked (i.e. grounds to investigate) whether the source of his donations was foreign funding, accepted in breach of the law on the funding of electoral campaigns”.

Mrs Justice Steyn said this meaning as intended by Cadwalladr was “less damaging” to Banks although “still a serious allegation”.

“In particular, she alleged outright that he had told lies about a covert relationship with the Russian government, as well as raising the question whether the source of his political donations was unlawful foreign funding.”

But she ruled that Cadwalladr had “reasonable grounds to believe that her intended meaning was true” because of the journalistic research she had done into Banks.

Mrs Justice Steyn said a statement given by Banks in November 2017 that his “involvement with ‘the Russians'” had amounted only to a single lunch was “wholly inaccurate”.

The judge went on: “Ms Cadwalladr regarded this as the pre-eminent lie, but it was also reasonable for her to believe that other statements Mr Banks made regarding his relationship with the Russian government were inaccurate.”

She added that “given the wider limits of acceptable criticism that apply to an important public figure such as Mr Banks” it would have been “wrong to expect a journalist to refrain from identifying such an inaccurate statement, particularly one given in writing in response to the announcement of an Electoral Commission investigation, as a lie unless the deliberate nature of the inaccuracy has first been proved to a standard that would satisfy a court.

“Moreover, Ms Cadwalladr specifically put to Mr Banks that it was not credible that he could not recall whether he had had one or multiple meetings, and that his press statement… was untrue. He chose not to comment.”

In her consideration of Cadwalladr’s allegation of a “covert” relationship, Mrs Justice Steyn added: “It is true that, to a degree, the relationship was overt. But as identified above there were many aspects of it that were undisclosed. It is evident that, in describing the relationship as covert, Ms Cadwalladr was conscious that some aspects of the relationship had been made public…”

‘Negligible’ evidence of business impact on Banks

The judge said the public interest defence in the Defamation Act 2013 had stopped applying once both the National Crime Agency published a statement in September 2019 finding no evidence of any criminal offences by Banks and the Electoral Commission accepted the findings of the NCA on 29 April 2020.

But although Mrs Justice Steyn said the 2020 acceptance had amounted to “a significant change of circumstances” for the case, she found that Banks had failed to prove he had been caused serious harm following this date, and so that part of his claim was dismissed.

She had noted worldwide viewership of the Ted Talk after 29 April 2020 was “close to a tenth” of the figure from 15 April 2019 when it took place. The judge also said that although the NCA decision “demanded appropriate respect”, that “is not the same as saying that it was beyond reasonable questioning or criticism”.

The trial was held in January at London’s High Court. Banks told the court Cadwalladr’s allegations affected his business dealings: “From a corporate standpoint, we were less successful in obtaining approval of funding than we had been previously and I consider that the Ted Talk and the fact that Carole had claimed she could prove what was said was true [contributed] to this.”

In her judgment Mrs Justice Steyn said there was “negligible” evidence that the Ted Talk “had any impact on Mr Banks’s reputation and prospects in the business sphere”. And she said his reputation was “obviously not harmed” among his friends and acquaintances who, Banks said, mentioned it to harm as “banter” and “another of Carole’s conspiracy theories”.

Of a number of negative comments about Banks on Cadwalladr’s fundraising page, which she used to help her fight the case, the judge said it was “highly likely that those who chose to support” her “are people amongst whom he had no reputation to be damaged and whose opinion of the claimant has no consequence of him”.

On the serious harm caused, Mrs Justice Steyn rejected the idea that Banks “would have had no or no meaningful general reputation to be harmed” in the eyes of the Ted Talk viewers. She added: “On balance, I am persuaded that it can be inferred that a sizeable number of people who knew or would later come to know Mr Banks, would have viewed the TED Talk and believed what was said about him, lowering his reputation in their eyes.

“I consider that this is a proper inference to draw given the extent of publication, the gravity of the single meaning, the serious nature of the TED Talk, the fact that it was given by an award-winning investigative journalist, and the authoritative and credible nature of the international platform on which it was given (that is, at the main Ted conference).”

Judge rules Cadwalladr was reliable witness

Cadwalladr fought the case only using the defence of public interest. She previously dropped the truth defence after a judge’s ruling on the meaning of the words in question in the case. Cadwalladr told Press Gazette in November 2020: “He has ruled that when I said Arron Banks lied about his relationship with the Russian government, it was ‘in relation to acceptance of foreign funding’.

“But these are not words I have ever said. On the contrary, I’ve always been very clear that there is no evidence that Banks accepted Russian funding.

“I have a very robust defence based on the very strong public interest grounds of my reporting and that has not changed.”

Banks’s lawyer William McCormick claimed Cadwalladr was not a reliable witness of fact but Mrs Justice Steyn disagreed.

She said it was clear Cadwalladr found the case, and being cross-examined for several days, “very stressful indeed” and that “she was evidently anxious throughout”. The judge added that she felt Cadwalladr “gave truthful answers throughout” even though she “became more evasive”.

Although Cadwalladr made some errors in her evidence, the judge said this did not mean she was not a reliable witness, adding: “The inaccuracies in reporting her interview with Mr Banks do not go to the core of the defence, and it is obvious they were not intended to mislead.”

Pictures: Reuters/Hannah McKay and Press Gazette

The post Carole Cadwalladr wins libel battle with Arron Banks using public interest defence appeared first on Press Gazette.

The dismissal of the libel case brought by millionaire Brexit donor Arron Banks against journalist Carole Cadwalladr has been dubbed a “victory for freedom of speech”.

One lawyer noted that the case demonstrates the High Court’s “willingness to allow public interest defences, which are an important tool for journalists when defending proceedings”.

[Read more: Carole Cadwalladr wins libel battle with Arron Banks using public interest defence]

Cadwalladr’s victory came despite Mrs Justice Steyn’s ruling that the Observer contributor had seriously damaged Banks’s reputation, on the grounds that it was reasonable for her to believe publication of the allegations were in the public interest.

Banks sued Cadwalladr (pictured) over her remark in a 2019 Ted talk that said: “I’m not even going to go into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian government.”

He also sued over a tweet in which Cadwalladr shared the talk and repeated the claim.

Mrs Justice Steyn ruled on Monday that Cadwalladr had succeeded in her public interest defence.

Keith Mathieson, partner and head of RPC’s media team which acted for Cadwalladr, said: “Today’s judgment is an important vindication not just of Carole, but of the right of everyone to express themselves freely on matters of public interest.

“The judge undertook a highly detailed and careful examination of what Carole said in the statements Mr Banks sued on and rightly found that Carole was entitled to say what she honestly and reasonably believed based on years of investigation.

“The judgment gives significant support to the public interest defence in the law of defamation and the protection it offers journalists, bloggers and others to contribute to public debate on serious issues.”

Matthew Gill, a senior associate in the media litigation team at Howard Kennedy LLP, said: “While defamation claims by Rebekah Vardy and Johnny Depp may have had more of the public’s attention, today’s judgment is the most important we will see this year.

“The court’s decision is a victory for freedom of speech. It shows that even in the face of an unrelenting opponent, public interest journalism can prevail.”

Mrs Justice Steyn dismissed the portion of the suit regarding Cadwalladr’s tweet. Media law trainer and expert David Banks (of no relation to the litigant) highlighted a passage of the judgment stating that “those within the jurisdiction to whom the tweet was published are likely to consist of people whose opinion of the claimant was of no consequence to him”.

David Banks said: “Because it can be assumed Carole Cadwalladr’s followers don’t think highly of Arron Banks, her tweet about him could not have caused serious harm to his reputation.”

He told Press Gazette: “So those whose followers are predominantly of the same outlook are safer than those whose followers have more diverse views.”

Carolyn Pepper, a libel expert and partner at law firm Reed Smith, said: “The success of the public interest defence here is one which will be celebrated by the media. It illustrates the court’s willingness to allow public interest defences, which are an important tool for journalists when defending proceedings.

“Without the protection of the public interest defence, there would be a chilling effect on the media and so it is very important that there are examples of the court upholding it in cases where it is appropriate to do so.”

Society of Editors executive director Dawn Alford described the judgment as a “hugely important victory” for press freedom, but added that the case “highlights the ongoing challenges and threats faced by journalists in producing public interest journalism that seeks to hold the wealthy and powerful to account”.

Gill said “it should not be as difficult to defend public interest journalism as it was for Carole Cadwalladr.

“Arron Banks’ decision to sue Carole Cadwalladr, and not the publishers of her work – The Guardian, The Observer, or Ted –  appears to have been motivated by a desire to take aim at the ‘weakest’ link – the person who Arron Banks might have thought was least likely to have the financial resources to fight back. 

“Carole Cadwalladr was only able to defend Arron Banks’s claim due to the generosity of members of the public who crowdfunded her defence to the tune of over £500,000. It should not be that way. It has never been more important that Parliament take steps to protect public interest journalism, including by establishing a media defence indemnity fund.”

Banks’ decision to sue Cadwalladr has been described by some commentators as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), meaning a case designed to intimidate someone into ending their reporting or other inquiries.

However in her judgment, Mrs Justice Steyn said that although Banks’s claim had failed “his attempt to seek vindication through these proceedings was, in my judgment, legitimate”.

“In circumstances where Ms Cadwalladr has no defence of truth, and her defence of public interest has succeeded only in part, it is neither fair nor apt to describe this as a SLAPP suit,” the judge said.

Despite this others have maintained their view of the case as a SLAPP. Press freedom campaign group Index on Censorship reacted to the judgment by saying: “While we really welcome this fantastic result, we cannot say that it represents an outright win for media freedom.

“No journalist should be forced to spend years tied up in expensive and onerous legal battles to defend their public interest work. Public interest journalism is the lifeblood of our democracy.

“Index on Censorship has long maintained that this case is an example of a strategic lawsuit against public participation… The case underscores the fact that we need anti-SLAPP measures, including legislation, that can weed out abusive cases at an early stage. We need journalists to be able to hold power to account for the good of our media freedom and our democracy.”

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: “This type of lawfare is cynical and targeted, pursued by those with deep pockets in a manner intended to pile as much pressure on an individual freelance as possible…

“As part of our work campaigning against SLAPPs, the NUJ is calling for the introduction of a clear statutory public interest defence and a series of other measures to ensure that investigative reporting in the public interest is protected from those that seek to undermine journalists and journalism.”

Banks’ lawyer, William McCormick, denied during the trial in January that the suit was a SLAPP. He argued it “is being brought in respect of an allegation which she accepts was false, which [Cadwalladr] does not contest was a serious allegation to make against a man, and which has been published on a massive scale”.

Pepper also disputed the claims the case was a SLAPP.

“In this case the court said that although Mr Banks’s claim has failed, his attempt to seek vindication through the proceedings was legitimate and that it was neither fair nor apt to describe the proceedings as SLAPP litigation,” she said following the judgment.

“There are a number of practical difficulties in identifying SLAPP litigation, which the proposed reforms have to wrestle with and the courts have clearly already begun undertaking the process of attempting to identify SLAPP litigation whilst waiting to see what the reforms will bring.”

Press Gazette reported earlier this month that the UK is the SLAPP tourism capital of Europe. Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf commented in May in her Cudlipp Lecture that the country enables the “professionalised intimidation” of journalists.

The government proposed a clampdown on vexatious suits in March, prompted in part by Russian oligarchs’ attempts to sue critical UK journalists.

Picture: Orwell Foundation

The post Banks versus Cadwalladr libel ruling reaction: ‘Victory for public interest journalism’ appeared first on Press Gazette.

[UPDATE: Carole Cadwalladr wins libel battle with Arron Banks using public interest defence]

Journalist Carole Cadwalladr has told the High Court she “did not think I was saying anything controversial” about Brexit donor Arron Banks in the talk over which he is suing her for libel.

Banks took issue with Cadwalladr stating in a 2019 Ted talk:  “And I’m not even going to go into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian government.”

He has also sued her over a tweet in which she repeated the same allegation and shared a link to the talk.

However Cadwalladr has argued the same claims had already been made repeatedly in the press, including multiple times in her own reporting in The Observer.

She said her inclusion of the line about Banks was based on her own “rigorous reporting” over the course of two-and-a-half years “and in the light of multiple investigations opened by the UK authorities” such as the National Crime Agency, which later found no evidence he broke the law.

Banks has told the court his relationship with the Russians in the period before the EU referendum amounted to a long boozy lunch and a brief meeting over a cup of tea with the Russian ambassador, with a further lunch following several months after.

However he had at one time only admitted to having one meeting with the Russian embassy. Evidence of multiple meetings with Russian officials was first revealed in emails reported on by The Sunday Times and The Observer in June 2018.

[Read more: Arron Banks suing Carole Cadwalladr for libel is free speech concern, High Court hears]

In her witness statement, Cadwalladr said: “It did not at any time occur to me to send a right-of-reply to [Banks] in the context of the Ted talk. I was reporting nothing new. I had said every fact in my talk many times before.”

She later added: “I would never make a new allegation in an article without first going to the individual concerned for comment. But I was not breaking news at a Ted conference. There was no new allegation.”

For example, a June 2018 Observer article by Cadwalladr stated that Banks had “lied about” his relationship with the Russians to the public and to Parliament “and we don’t know why”.

Cadwalladr said she would not have used the terminology she did in the Ted talk if Banks “had complained about my presentation of the facts in the Observer articles or in interviews or had sought to correct me”.

In November 2018, Banks’s lawyers wrote to The Observer complaining about references to Banks in an article Cadwalladr had written about former UKIP leader Nigel Farage. However they “did not complain about any of the public statements I had made previously in which I claimed [Banks] lied about his visits to the Russian Embassy,” Cadwalladr said.

“I took this to be confirmation that he did not dispute lying, otherwise he would have raised it in that letter, not to mention on the numerous previous occasions when I had offered him a right to reply.”

Cadwalladr pointed out that publications including The Sunday Times, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Vanity Fair have all reported on the meetings. She said they were also a matter of parliamentary record from Banks’s appearance before the DCMS Select Committee.

A New Yorker article published in March 2019 “went much further than I ever had” in suggesting Banks “may have been an agent or asset of the Russians,” Cadwalladr told the court.

She said she did not believe Banks had threatened legal action over this allegation or the “implication throughout the piece that Russian money may have funded the Leave campaign”, whether against the publication or the journalist, a British citizen living in the UK.

In June 2018 Cadwalladr gave an interview on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show in which she said Banks had “lied previously about his contact with the Russian Embassy”.

She told the programme: “If I was faced with massive evidence that I had been lying to and misleading the public for two years – and I think I can say that now because Arron has admitted that now that he had lied about that… he said in Parliament that there were three meetings so there is absolutely no doubt and Arron has admitted that now.”

Cadwalladr pointed out: “This was a very similar statement to the one I made in the Ted talk and which has led to this claim but [Banks] did not complain about what I said on this show which was broadcast to a large BBC audience.”

A month later, Cadwalladr appeared on Fresh Air, a programme on US National Public Radio (NPR) which claims to have 8.5m weekly listeners, in which she again “claimed that [Banks] had been lying about his relationship with the Russian government – the claim that I made almost a year later in my Ted talk. I also raised the question of why he was lying”.

In her witness statement, Cadwalladr said: “Accordingly, it did not even occur to me that almost a year later, [Banks] would object to my words. He had acknowledged to Parliament that there was more than one meeting. He accepted therefore that he had lied.”

Banks’s legal team has argued that although Cadwalladr had “written inaccurately” about him over the preceding two years, the Ted talk “was a different order of magnitude in terms of audience and made the outright allegation that he had lied about a covert relationship with the Russian Government…”

They also said that emails between Cadwalladr and Banks between March 2017 and late 2018 show she “never asked him to respond to an allegation that he had lied about the number or nature of the meetings with the Russian Ambassador (let alone in the context of a covert relationship, still less, one in relation to illegal funding of the Brexit referendum)”.

Cadwalladr is using the public interest defence to fight the case, arguing that it was right for her to investigate and pose questions about Banks’s alleged Russian connections. This was in the context, she said, of multiple MPs and experts raising concerns over Russian interference in British politics, and many unanswered questions including in publications such as the Financial Times relating to the source of Banks’s wealth.

Cadwalladr said: “I believed that there was the highest public interest in speaking out about these matters and particularly so in an international context.”

Numerous press freedom and freedom of expression groups have raised concerns that the case is a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation), meaning a libel action brought with the intention of silencing its target – especially when used against an individual journalist rather than their publisher.

Cadwalladr told the court she believed Banks’s legal action “seemed to be an attempt… to stifle the distribution of a documentary and stymie my investigation into [his] political activities.

“It is my belief that this legal action potentially shuts down journalists’ participation in public life,” she said, adding that she did not believe there had been any journalistic investigations into Banks’s business activities since the legal claim was filed.

Banks has denied he is pursuing a SLAPP suit, telling the court: “I was not sure how else I was expected to correct the record and I certainly cannot do so if she insists on being able to repeat false claims.”

The trial continues.

Picture: Reuters/Hannah McKay and Press Gazette

The post ‘I did not think I was saying anything controversial’, journalist Carole Cadwalladr tells court in Arron Banks libel case appeared first on Press Gazette.

[UPDATE: Carole Cadwalladr wins libel battle with Arron Banks using public interest defence]

Prominent Brexit donor Arron Banks’s libel case against journalist Carole Cadwalladr should be a concern “to anyone who cares about freedom of speech in this country”, the High Court heard on Friday.

However millionaire businessman Banks, who made the UK’s biggest ever single political donation ahead of the Brexit referendum, insisted the case was not a “vexatious” or “bullying” SLAPP suit.

Banks is suing Cadwalladr, a freelance journalist who has frequently worked for The Observer, over one sentence of a Ted Talk and one tweet. It has culminated in a trial which began on Friday at London’s High Court.

[Read latest: ‘I did not think I was saying anything controversial’, Carole Cadwalladr tells court]

Cadwalladr said in an April 2019 Ted Talk, which was primarily about Facebook’s role in the Brexit referendum: “And I’m not even going to go into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian government.” According to Banks’s legal team the talk has been viewed around 5.3m times.

A tweet posted two months later saw Cadwalladr repeat the same allegation and encourage people to watch the Ted Talk as she revealed Banks’s intention of legal action to her followers.

Banks’s case has repeatedly been described by Cadwalladr, her allies and numerous press freedom and free expression groups as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation), meaning a libel action brought with the intention of silencing its target.

[Read more: SLAPP lawsuits aiming to silence journalists on the rise]

Gavin Millar QC, representing Cadwalladr, told the High Court the case was a “concern to us and should be to anyone who cares about freedom of speech in this country”.

He added that Cadwalladr, who has had to crowdfund hundreds of thousands of pounds to defend the case as she fears it could make her bankrupt, believes Banks’s action was designed to “stymy her investigations about him and make other investigative journalists wary about continuing theirs”.

As the trial began 17 groups, including Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Index on Censorship, put out a joint statement saying the case was aimed at “intimidating and silencing” Cadwalladr. “We… unreservedly reiterate our support for Cadwalladr as she continues to defend her public interest work,” they said.

However William McCormick, representing Banks, told the court that any attempt to label the case “as bullying or a SLAPPs suit or vexatious” would be wrong.

He said: “The defendant has characterised this action as a SLAPP suit… it is no such thing and she could not reasonably have thought it was such.

“As she now accepts, it is being brought in respect of an allegation which she accepts was false, which she does not contest was a serious allegation to make against a man, and which has been published on a massive scale… To suggest it was issued in bad faith simply to stop her reporting is a complete fabrication.”

And Banks said in his witness statement: “Carole has subsequently accused me of bullying her, harassing her and using this lawsuit to intimidate and silence her as part of a SLAPP lawsuit… I was at a loss to understand how Carole could reasonably suggest I was operating a SLAPP policy. I considered her criticism to be unfair. I was not sure how else I was expected to correct the record and I certainly cannot do so if she insists on being able to repeat false claims.”

Cadwalladr is defending the case on the grounds that she was speaking about “matters of utmost public interest relating to the integrity of democratic processes” after conducting reasonable due diligence.

Her case is that there is “no overriding public interest which would justify sanctioning and placing restrictions on the high value political speech at the heart of this case”.

McCormick told the court he did not dispute that Cadwalladr was speaking on matters of public interest – including the debate about Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data, and whether there may have been Russian or other foreign funding involved in Brexit.

But he said the defence did not mean a journalist can say “I am entitled to say effectively what I like and the court should not prevent me from repeating [it]”.

McCormick added: “We say that at the time she gives the Ted Talk she fails the Section 4 public interest test [of the Defamation Act 2013] because she cannot reasonably have believed what she said about my client was in the public interest.”

Cadwalladr has previously withdrawn the defences of truth and limitation after a judge ruled that her words meant Arron Banks lied about his relationship with the Russian government ‘in relation to acceptance of foreign funding'”. She told Press Gazette at the time: “But these are not words I have ever said. On the contrary, I’ve always been very clear that there is no evidence that Banks accepted Russian funding.”

McCormick said on Friday: “It is often said that there is no public interest in the publication of false material. It appears Ms Cadwalladr’s case is that it is.”

Millar noted that the court must make allowances for editorial judgment under Section 4. He said the comment about Banks was an “important part” of the talk and “falls clearly within the margin of journalistic/editorial judgment”.

He said Cadwalladr made the editorial decision to include Banks in the talk because he was relevant to the relationship between the Trump and Leave.EU campaigns, which she considered “helped to convey the public interest issues to an international audience in an engaging way”.

She also felt there were “compelling public interest reasons” to refer to his relationship with the Russian government, and that she believed the allegations she was making were “true on the basis of the extensive investigations she had undertaken”.

McCormick and Banks pointed out that Cadwalladr had failed to offer the businessman a right to reply ahead of the Ted Talk, nor included what they considered to be important context.

But Millar told the court: “Everything [she] said about him in the Ted Talk had been said many times before including in a number of mainstream media outlets.” He also said Banks had previously “stopped responding other than in a rather unpleasant and infantile” manner.

Banks argues his relationship with the Russians in the period before the EU referendum amounted only to a long boozy lunch and a brief meeting over a cup of tea with the Russian ambassador, with a further lunch following several months after.

Banks, who took the witness stand on Friday afternoon, also questioned why Cadwalladr had mentioned him in the Ted Talk at all considering it was primarily about Facebook’s role in the EU referendum.

He said in his witness statement: “… I do not understand why she chose to include me at all other than for personal animus.” He added that he saw it as a “calculated and deliberate attack upon me” considering Cadwalladr had scripted and rehearsed the talk.

McCormick told the court that Banks “accepts that as a public figure who took a leading role in the Brexit referendum he has to have a thick skin. He has been the subject of much ill-informed criticism and comment”.

But Banks said although he expected to get some media coverage and personal criticism and that he supports freedom of speech, “there are boundaries that must be observed”.

He claimed in his witness statement that the allegations affected his business dealings. “From a corporate standpoint, we were less successful in obtaining approval of funding than we had been previously and I consider that the Ted Talk and the fact that Carole had claimed she could prove what was said was true [contributed] to this.”

He also said his sons had heard from their teachers and fellow school pupils that he was involved with the Russians, and that a man had thrown a drink at him in public while accusing him of being a liar and selling the country “down the river”.

However Cadwalladr’s case is that Banks’s evidence of serious harm caused by her words is “thin”. In regards to the tweet, Millar suggested to the court that Banks likely had no good reputation among Cadwalladr’s Twitter followers already.

The trial continues with Cadwalladr expected to take the stand in her defence early next week.

Picture: Reuters/Hannah McKay and Press Gazette

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