Saturday, March 08, 2014

Levant Vs. Awan: Past Is Future?

From Blatchford's latest:

MacKinnon told the judge in his opening statement Levant’s defence is largely that of fair comment — traditionally the defence that is the purview of journalists.

And yet Levant, by his own admission, is not a journalist. “I’m a commentator, I’m a pundit,” he explained to the judge. “I don’t think in my entire life I’ve ever called myself a reporter.”

And he appears to have considered it Awan’s responsibility to have contacted him if he had a complaint about what he was writing, when, in fact, most journalists consider it their burden to contact those about whom they’re writing.

From the decision in Levant vs. Vigna, which Ezra lost:
I'm betting that, for a second time in a row, a judge will not let Ezra claim journalistic protections when he did not follow "responsible journalistic practices".  But I am only willing to bet $5.  I'm not made out of money, after all.

1 comment:

Terrence said...

I agree with you.

As I recall, when asked why he didn't get in touch with Vigna about the allegations, Ezra claimed that he'd tried -- by calling the HRC's main switchboard.

Quite reasonably, Vigna asked why Ezra hadn't emailed him, or tried to contact him in some other, more direct way.

There was no good answer to this question. Nor was the judge impressed by the attempts to elide it (or so I judged his facial expression from my position in the room.)