Injunction round up: What the papers say
Today’s papers are awash with comment on the super-injunction fiasco but what are they speaking in unity or clashing with. The Drum sifts through the editorials to find out what is being said.
The Guardian notes that privacy laws have been left in “chaos” following the outing of Ryan Giggs by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming.
The Telegraph meanwhile says “the law on super-injunctions has been thrown into further confusion”, saying: “Apart from rich lawyers funded by some even richer footballers and other celebrities, nobody is emerging well from the shabby business of injunctions and super-injunctions designed to prevent inconvenient truths seeing the light of day.”
Commenting on the sorry saga The Independent notes: “Don't suppose that this tussle has had anything to do with high principles. From the beginning it has been about power and money. In the early days of dealings between a celebrity and the media, the two sides work together. People who play to paying audiences will give almost anything for media attention because their stock-in-trade is fame. If they have to engage in stunts, then that is what they do. The relationship is often one of connivance.”
Elsewhere the Daily Mail have rounded on the “weeks of legal farce” with a headline piece titled “Saving Ryan’s Privates”. In it Richard Littlejohn believes the truth will always out: “But in the meantime we are having to put up with an absurd legal circus which ultimately stands as much chance of suppressing the tidal wave of full disclosure as King Canute had of turning back the sea.
“You can’t keep secrets in a cyberspace age. Suing U.S.-based conglomerates such as Twitter and Facebook is futile, especially as the American courts have a more enlightened commitment to freedom of expression than some of our own judges.
“Why should traditional newspapers be subject to gagging orders which can’t be enforced against global online sites?”