The full resources of The Australian have been mustered to defend Chris Mitchell from a tweet. Caroline Overington (who used to be a serious journalist before becoming an apologist for her boss) writes:
Posetti sat in on a conference where serious allegations were made about Mitchell. Posetti published those allegations without checking to see if they were true or asking Mitchell for a response.
So from now on, before you tweet, get a response and include that in your 140 characters. Also, Overington makes a serious allegation about Posetti: that she broke the rules of journalism. Shouldn't she have asked Posetti for a response?
Also in The Australian, Sally Jackson spins a story of how Posetti's defenders are saying that defaamtion law doesn't apply to Twitter:
"I am not one who believes new media should be exempt from the normal laws of the land," Mitchell said. "Asa may or may not have said what the tweeter alleges. She denies to me that she did.
"But either way, the allegations are a lie and Asa has admitted as much," he said. "There is no protection from the law in repeating accurately allegations falsely made." ...
"It's very worrying as a parent of university students and a journalist of 37 years that a journalism lecturer and academic does not understand the laws of defamation," Mitchell said.
That's a serious, possibly defamatory allegation, I wonder if Sally Jackson checked to see if it was true and/or asked Posetti for a response?
Monash University Law Professor Sarah Joseph comments:
Mitchellâs assertions regarding the law are true ... sort of. One can perpetrate the tort of defamation by republishing, accurately, someone elseâs defamatory statement, even if that statement was made in public. But there are defences, including a whole area of complex law under the banner of âqualified privilegeâ. I am not a defamation law expert, but a review of the âdefamationâ entry in Halsburyâs Laws of Australia indicates to me that Posetti has a good chance of raising a successful defence. In coming to this conclusion, I am assuming that there was no malice in her tweets: this blog proceeds on that basis. ...
But the chilling effect of the threat of defamation action here seems disproportionate and potentially wide-ranging. The editor of a major newspaper is threatening legal action against a lecturer for tweeting tweets which I believe are likely to fall within applicable defences. An alternative response, perhaps, was for his newspaper to publish his rejection of the perceived contentions of her tweets. It will surprise me if this matter escalates to the point of a court case. If so, Mitchell risks the setting of a precedent which, if it goes his way, could boomerang badly on his newspaper.
On her blog Posetti writes:
All I am personally permitted to say on the issue at this stage is the following: "My University has not received any communication from Mr Mitchell and I have been asked not to comment further on the detail of what transpired until we know what allegations are being made against me and the University and have had an opportunity to take legal advice.â
Now I don't think that Mitchell had to have a conversation with Overington or Jackson to tell them to slant their stories in his favour. Andew Dodd's story describes how Mitchell does it:
Wahlquist, the long-time science and rural affairs writer for The Australian, accused Mitchell of controlling coverage of climate change because he believes those who subscribe to the âeco-fascist lineâ that humans have induced climate change are âaiming to destroy everything he loves and valuesâ. ...
Wahlquist says she self-censored stories on the human causes of climate change fearing they would not be run. She described this as âprofessionally compromisingâ and âunbearableâ. ...
âAs a news writer you have no power with the way it is reported. Someone rewrites your copy. This happens more than you know.â
Mitchell has not disputed any of this.
There, of course, a lively discussion on this affair on Twitter, under #twitdef.
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> "Asa may or may not have said what the tweeter alleges. She denies to me that she did.
> "But either way, the allegations are a lie and Asa has admitted as much,"
Great, so now Mitchell is going the 'Asa never said that I pressured her into censoring her climate change articles' route. I think in the end he may need to sue Andrew Dodd and everyone else who ever attended that particular conference. Pass the popcorn.
Considering the defamatory article on Professor Phil Jones that Mitchell allowed David Burchell to publish a week or so ago, I think that Mitchell doesn't, in fact, have the slightest clue about the defamation laws.
Compare and contrast: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/radicals-get-rich-while-tr…
That article reads like the ramblings of a drunkard, staggering incomprehensibly from Phil Jones to Iraq and Wikileaks.
"The Australian"? "Fact checking"? On the same page?
But AmandaS, the two cases are completely different! Everyone knows that Climate Scientists are dangerous, untrustworthy scum just waiting for a chance to sacrifice our children to Gaia - that's why they have to walk around with a yellow planet stitched to their clothing, so we know them on sight. Defaming one of them is completely different to defaming a decent, hard-working editor of a major right-wing newspaper belonging to the Emperor of the Universe.
Re #2.
Yes, that fired me up sufficently to come out with all guns blazing and to try and set the record straight. Also indicated that the comments were defamatory and Burchell owed Professor Jones an apology. Unsurprisingly, my comments weren't published.
My next post is on that Burchell defamation fest.
Chris Mitchell complaining about being misrepresented.
Oh, the irony.
I think that is the politest I can put it.
More Crikey comment on the story by [Clive Hamilton](http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/11/29/mitchell-on-defamation-neither-the-…) - apparently threatening to sue (but not actually doing so) is Mitchell's modus operandi, he made similar threats when Clive published Scorcher.
@2 Mitchell knows that he has the full resources of News Corpse behind him to fight any defamation proceedings against him should they occur.
I'm another who would happily donate to a fighting-fund for Posetti's legal defence (if it actually comes to that).
As I said before, ThinkBig, you'll probably need a pepper-corn.
Mitchell should sue everybody on the Internet and get it over with.
Audio backs Posetti's version:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/29/3079695.htm?section=justin
Poor Chris.
#3 - well, that describes most of Burchell's writing. The man does not know how to make a logical argument. Or an argument. Or sense. He just barfs right-wing buzzwords onto a page and soaks in the applause of the uncritical.
#6 - I did the same, Jimmy Nightingale. My comments, also, did not get published.
Argh - wrong tags!
Sorry, comment should read as follows:
@3 - well, that describes most of Burchell's writing. The man does not know how to make a logical argument. Or an argument. Or sense. He just barfs right-wing buzzwords onto a page and soaks in the applause of the uncritical.
@6 - I did the same, Jimmy Nightingale. My comments, also, did not get published.
"Posetti published those allegations without checking to see if they were true or asking Mitchell for a response"
Wouldn't it be great if The Oz could live up to this standard?
Michael, excellent point. Perhaps Mitchell should pay close attention to these [50 odd posts](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/the_war_on_science/) showing problems with Australian's fact checking on climate change.
Just their fact checking on climate change, jakerman? I didn't think they bothered printing anything factual.
[Here is](http://newmatilda.com/2007/06/15/australian,-free-speech-and-hypocrisy) a reminder that this has been a failing of the Oz's editors for years.
Of course this would be less of a problem if Murdoch and his cronies were not controlling 70% of the press in Australia, and large sectors in the USA and the UK.
Two relevant articles on Murdoch's control of the press in the USA and UK and the implications for democracy (Murdoch controls the only Daily paper in my state of 1.5 million pop. He [buys every niche](http://www.altmedia.net.au/how-we-lost-our-voice/18521) to stifle competition, and His people attack startups that might grow to threaten his monopoly):
http://www.filthylucre.com/rupert-murdoch-effect
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/oliver-huitson/can-murdoch-be-s…
"Of course this would be less of a problem if Murdoch and his cronies were not controlling 70% of the press in Australia, and large sectors in the USA and the UK."
What about Canada? Just curious.
Any Canadians looked at this?