Superinjunctions: Americans take note and, shall we say, over-report things
IF you think the US isn't interested in soccer, you can be sure they ARE interested in the legal tornado going on over one anonymous player' s alleged affair with Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas.
"Tension has been mounting for weeks on end as the British public gets restless. They're waiting for some news outlet to leak the name of the Premier League player who is seeking to squelch the news of his reported affair with a former reality television personality. Now, a Scottish newspaper has made a move that might tip the gossip balance, in defiance of the vaunted super injunction.
"The Sunday Herald defied a London-based order to keep the soccer player’s identity a secret, publishing a full-page photograph on its front page, only blocking out his eyes with a thin black bar.Though part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has its own legal system and the newspaper's understanding of injunctions is that they must be filed separately." AdWeek said a top Scottish libel lawyer (The Drum's adviser Campbell Deane) however, believed the paper was still covered by the injunction and could now face charges. AdWeek continued,"As the Scottish paper stoked the flames of the story, a High Court judge back in England reportedly sent a journalist to be considered for criminal prosecution following a tweet that breached the privacy injunction of another soccer player. With rumors swirling about both athletes on the micro-blogosphere, approximately 30,000 people could be subject to criminal proceedings if the Attorney General moves forward with the case. Those close to the Attorney General think it unlikely for a criminal case to materialise, leaving the soccer players and their lawyers to defend the gag order in civil courts." The US website Deadspin ran a four-paragraph story, prior to the Sunday Heralds's bravado, giving a player's name 18 times in the short piece. Where was the copy editor? Check our arithmetic - we have , as the saying goes, redacted the name: The headline reads: Totally Anonymous Soccer Player Sues Twitter For Saying ----- Had An Affair The story goes on: " Some married British soccer player had an affair with this lady, and we guessed it was -----. But the media couldn't reveal his name because of a court order. So someone signed up for Twitter and started naming names, including that of -----. But we still don't know for certain that ----- had an affair, because the newspapers are still barred from reporting that ----- had an affair. "Today a soccer player, who may or may not be ---- (we have no idea!), filed a lawsuit against Twitter, because one of its users reported that ----- had an affair. Why this footballer would be suing, we have no idea, unless they're upset that it was reported that ----- had an affair. And for them to have a legal basis for the suit, the Tweeted information must be from the injuncted documents. So when someone says that ----- had an affair, ---- would have had to have an affair for this unnamed footballer (maybe -----) to bring a suit in the first place. "It's unclear how our reporting of others' reporting that ----- had an affair fits in here. As an American site writing that ----- had an affair, we're probably not subject to British media law. But even so, we're not saying that we've discovered that ----- had an affair: only that some people are saying that ----- had an affair, and that one Twitter user says ----- had an affair, and that some soccer player is suing over people saying that ----- had an affair. "At press time, ----- had not returned our request for comment."