Mother Sues After Bebo Story Hits Press

slick_shoes notes a story out of England: a woman named Amanda Hudson is suing six national newspapers for defamation and breach of privacy after they ran stories based on her 15-year-old daughter's exaggerated claims about her party, published on her Bebo site. The party was held at the family's £4m villa in Spain, and the daughter's account claimed that jewelery had been stolen and furniture and a television set thrown into the swimming pool; in addition there were claims of sex and drug use. The mother says that this was all falsehood and exaggeration. A number of newspapers picked up claims and photos from Bebo and ran them nationally. From the article: "The case is expected to have far-reaching consequences for third parties who use or publish information from social networking sites. Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites."

Comments

Since when was there a requirement for truth...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...in reporting? Maybe they do things differently in the UK, but certainly in the US, as Fox News demonstrated, there's no such legal requirement.

Re:Editors?

[Dekortage]

To quote John Swinton:

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

Assuming the mother is telling the truth

[Woundweavr]

By US standards this case would likely be tossed out.

The first story I found from the Daily Mail included getting a response from the mother, quotes from other party goers, etc

In the words of Jodie on her Bebo page after the event: 'There's so much damage and clothes stolen. A lot of broken doors. people cauight (sic) having sex.'

But the teenager seemed unrepentant about the chaos she caused, adding: 'I got punched by my mum for it and grounded until the summer. wat a a BITCH!'

Mrs Hudson, who is separated from Jodie's father, yesterday denied she had hit her daughter. ...
One partygoer, who said he had heard about the event from friends, said: 'Somebody said we were allowed to wreck the house because the birthday girl's parents were getting divorced.

'There were kids behaving like gangsters from a rap video, throwing stuff around and smashing things. There were chairs, tables, even a TV in the pool.' ...

Mrs Hudson had been hoping to move and had put her home in the exclusive El Paraiso development on the market.

Friends said she told them: 'The place looked like a war zone.
'All the banisters have been broken. The walls are ruined, the carpets are destroyed, furniture is broken . . . It is going to take months to sort out.'

One friend said: 'Amanda is still furious with her daughter and hasn't spoken to her for days.'

Last night Mrs Hudson played down the furore. 'Jodie had up to 400 people, but she knows a lot of people,' she said.

'With a party that size you are always going to end up with some damage.'

Asked about Jodie's comments on Bebo, she said: 'I don't know what she has written on her site, and I'm not saying anything else.'

Just because the mother denies (possibly criminal, depending on how hitting her daughter occurred and what the laws are regarding serving minors alcohol over there) the report doesn't mean it was defamation or they didn't do their jobs. Maybe the quotes were made up, and maybe the pictures from the girl's blog didn't show what they seemed to (teenagers paired up in bed, passed out drunk girls, young men/teenagers carrying beer around) but we shouldn't assume that.

According to wiki in the UK

A private individual must only prove negligence (not using due care) to collect compensatory damages. In order to collect punitive damages, all individuals must prove actual malice.

The US uses a somewhat similar standard. If you've got claims by the daughter, quotes from friends of the mother, and from party goers (and these are not fabricated) then to me "due care" has probably been taken.

Re:Editors?

[deweyhewson]

"If they said...that's libel/defamation."

You are 100% correct. I worked for a newspaper once and my editor would constantly hammer into us that we had to "quote, quote, quote!" If somebody said something, we were to write it as "somebody said something".

Anything not attributed as a quote is viewed as fact in the news, so quoting is of utmost importance when reporting anything that has not been proven to have occurred; if not for accuracy's sake, at least for liability protection. People will sue, and win, over the smallest details that were reported as fact when they were not verified as such.

As a side point, any journalist who uses an online post as a source without further research is nothing short of a shoddy reporter.