14.10.09

Should Carter Ruck be reported to Law Society for Trafigura-gate?

Media Guardian are running a line saying Tory MP Peter Bottomleyis goingto report Carter Ruck for engaging in that heinous offence of seeking to inhibit the reporting of Parliament but is the media's super injuncting nemesis about to be censured? No.

They tried it on and along came a question in Parliament which trumped their gag potential so end of.

There have been far more serious affronts to free speech in recent years through anti terrorism legislation and 'national security' issues. As Mediabeak has already posted, natural justice has prevailed and the Guardian has secured the story and moral high ground.

What is interesting about this case is that the old and new world orders have combined to produce the right result. On the one hand we have the ancient rule about Parliamentary business being reportable through Hansard and beyond while on the other we have Twitter and the freedom to Tweet.

The public domain is a great thing and concept and what Twitter is proving is that - beyond the millions of tweets about random people round the world doing and sharing their random things - it can play a significant part in putting information or an issue into the public domain and so defuse the legal process from its power to suppress information.

Twitter might not be Carter Ruck's friend today but it will be tomorrow because the opportunities if offers will - Mediabeak suggests - become part of the democratisation and liberation of information that will be definitive of news, knowledge and evidence in the years to come.

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