The price of libel

September 15th, 2008 § 0 comments

Ben Goldacre on The Guardian fighting a libel case brought by ‘vitamin pill’ magnate Matthias Rath:

I should also mention that I am extremely pleased and – cheesily – proud that the Guardian fought this case. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’d have expected from them, it’s the paper my grandparents bought, blah blah blah, and to me today everything they stand for is still very good indeed.

Newspapers can be very good things, and today the Guardian is a very good one indeed.

Bravo and well done to the Guardian and Ben, but if you read the piece, they have been awarded interim costs of about £250k, with the total cost of it all coming to about £0.5 million, which they are seeking.

if that had been a private individual, that money would need to found from somewhere, and in all likely hood, not found and so silenced.
Freedom of speech has a price. And that price is whatever the lawyers say it is.

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