Does The Daily Mail Need Better Lawyers?

[jake-the-peg]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22988215

[bazwillrun]

If shes has these amazing powers then i'm sure the payout was no surprise to her.

she claims its not a con trick...well then wot the phruk is it ?

[sandyRoe]

Or a stronger backbone. They threw in the towel rather than fight their corner.

[FredPuli43]

If they had evidence that she used an earpiece and an accomplice to perpetrate a fraud on the audience, they would have fought it. As she said, expressing cynicism about her claims is fair enough, "fair comment" as we used to call the defence, but an assertion of fact like that, unsupported, is not.

[jno]

it seems the Mail picked up an allegation first made on a radio programme that Morgan's staff in the audience were relaying things to her via an earpiece. It later emerged the people in question weren't her staff at all but worked for the theatre.

It's an extremely damaging allegation and you'd have expected a newspaper to check things like this. It got off very lightly paying £125,000 - how much compensation would you want if a libel meant you would have trouble ever working again?

[jim360]

Maybe the DM lawyers were smart enough to advise not to fight the case -- on closer inspection it might be that the Daily Mail needs to make sure that it has its facts right all the time.

Mind, she's still not got any psychic powers.

[Sqad]

One could argue, doesn't anyone who loses a court case need "better lawyers?"

How about Sally Berkow..........did she need "better lawyers?"

[FredPuli43]

Sally Bercow needed a better brain. She should have known the risk if being sued. Once she had tweeted, the damage was done and all the lawyers could do is try to get her out of trouble. Still think that the judge was wrong to read a damaging innuendo into the tweet, but that's what happens under our present law of defamation.

[jno]

I thought Bercow had been quite careful not to say anything about her target except that he was trending. I remain surprised that this can amount to defamation. I suspect she was found guilty of thinking bad thoughts rather than writing bad things.

[ludwig]

It depends how she advertises the show. If there's a bit of small print somehwere that says 'for entertainment purposes only', or 'this is all ***', (as there often is with these shows) then technically it's not a 'con' and the Mail should have chosen it's words more carefully.

[Gromit]

They should have seen that coming.

[sunny-dave]

Good grief - a court case in which I would have wanted both sides to lose ...

[Zeuhl]

A wanton failure by The Daily Mail to check its facts

Symptomatic of their general disregard for the truth in favour of their 'story'

Careless and stupid

[jno]

jsut going back the original question - yes, newspapers do run this sort of thing past their lawyers; I'm surprised they didn't politely ask the editor if there was evidence to back it up. Perhaps they did, and were told there was.

[Dodger666]

I suppose it all depends on whether you believe in Psychics, personally I don't.

I have to laugh when I read some of my wife's magazines where readers have written to the resident "psychic" asking if their dead relative is happy and blames them for anything. Needless to say the "psychic" tells them everything they want to hear and no doubt they feel better for it. If it makes them happy then so be it. However, It's all hogwash!

Perhaps the DM lawyers were psychics too and knew the outcome could be worse.

[FredPuli43]

Seeing how the Daily Mail regularly constructs articles by getting 'the wrong end of the stick' or by jumping to conclusions on ambiguous evidence, it is no surprise that 'person with earpiece in theatre' was construed the way it was and that their lawyers passed the item.

[jno]

true, it might just have been the Deaf Club's annual outing.

[emmie]

they shouldn't cave in, she is a scam artist

[jno]

they have caved in, because they got it wrong.

How do you know better than them, though, em? (And have you got a good lawyer handy...)

[emmie]

no i don't need a lawyer,