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If you’re following the issues we discussed in ‘Part of the news media? or a “PR blog” dedicated to “destroying” reputations?‘ there’s a worthwhile post over at The Standard which offers some background and argument from the point of view of Cameron Slater’s target, the man who is suing him for defamation.
Read it here: When the wolf cries boy
This extract, it seems to me, is key:
I told the Court that I believe Mr Slater published this material at the behest of a third party and that, directly or indirectly, he received a benefit from doing so. If he is just a crank being a crank, that is one thing, but if he is a gun for hire masquerading as a commentator, that is a different ball game. The damages will increase substantially.
In an attempt to avoid having to hand over this information, Mr Slater claimed that he is a journalist. The Judge, without any real prompting from me, decided that he is not. I agree. Journalism is a profession. It has standards and he has none.
Whilst I well understand the commentators who say that, because his blog apes a news medium, he should be given his own tea set, the High Court can assess the application of the privilege afforded by the Evidence Act in this case.
The protection of journalists’ sources is a “public interest” privilege. It is hard to argue for a public interest privilege in the absence of any public interest. There was no public interest in my hard drive. If I am right about who gave it to him, Mr Slater has, for whatever reason, allowed himself to be a megaphone for one source individual who wishes to inflict considerable damage on another individual and his family from behind a cloak of anonymity. In this instance, there is no public interest in allowing that source to remain in hiding.
I believe Mr Slater himself has a great deal to hide with respect to my hard drive. That is why, as Martyn Bradbury so pertinently observed, we have the wolf crying boy. A person who has previously eschewed the mainstream media and made so much of his swashbuckling outsider status now begs the protection afforded to the establishment. Rather than point to any aspect of the public interest that arises in this case, Mr Slater hopes that he can acquire the mantle of a journalist and get blanket protection….
Good on him for laying out his case, and good on The Standard for publishing it.
We’ll see what the High Court decides, if it is actually asked to do so.
– P
Very good and insightful distinctions being made here, Peter. Thank you!
Its the same scenario as i found myself in when driving to the Gym on Sunday morning at around 6.30am and found a whole group of cyclists on the wrong side of the road and covering 1 and one half of two available lanes i had to navigate … when i slowed to turn and tooted i was given the fingers by all – to which i rolled down the window and yelled “get on your own fucking side of the road you ingrates…”
You dont know what armchair warrior will film you or snap you and then post it on youtube and present you in a negative light.
Peronally .. the idiot on the port hills who harassed a mountainbiker then got decked by said mountainbiker after a long harassment … but managed by filming it to get said mountainbiker convicted of assault … in my view the harasser was the perpetrator (and there wasnt an underage female in sight either … so there …).
Same goes for Sir Bob Jones who gave a nosy reporter a bloody nose on the banks of the Tongariro in the (i think) 80’s when he ditched the NZ Party … the reporter deserved it … the man was entitled to his privacy and non harassment.
Its all vigilante justice – disguising itself as “new media” … self righteous thugs would be a better description perhaps
[…] Well, maybe. But, as the target of a particularly nasty online campaign wrote last year: Some of them are no more journalists than they are brain surgeons. (see: Target of Cameron Slater’s ‘campaign’ speaks up) […]
[…] possibly carried out as a commercial arrangement (a theory also advanced by the businessman, see: Target of Cameron Slater’s ‘campaign’ speaks up), or as self-publicity — to raise profile and advertising revenue for the website (this possible […]