Every newspaper editor knows that a good scandal story sees copies fly off newsstands as sales rocket. The same applies in the magazine trade. The main targets are celebrities. We are fascinated with the people who appear in the movies we watch and the new genre of television personalities. All this delivers a good living for both the in-house journalists who create the stories and the vast army of paparazzi who invade victims privacy to get the shot that may make them rich.
Truth is often a casualty when a good story sets sales soaring. The suggestion that a leading personality is having an affair will have readers agog. At times, the pursuit of stories has descended into deadly harassment as the untimely death of Princess Diana aptly testified. Reputations are often trashed and vindication through the courts has proved to be difficult.
All that changed this week when the Victorian Supreme court handed actress Rebel Wilson a massive damages payout. The court found that Wilson had been defamed by the publishers of Woman's Day and awarded her $ 650,000 in general damages and a whopping $ 3.91 Million in special damages. This was the highest defamation payout in Australian legal history.
It seems that the Woman's Day articles went after Wilson unmercifully with the contention that she was a liar and that her account of her earlier lifestyle was untrue. This Australian story was amplified by many American news channels and had the result in Wilson being dropped from the leading roles in two Hollywood movies. It was contended that not only were the stories untrue, but that Woman's Day knew they were untrue - and printed them anyway.
What will have the publishing media sitting up and taking notice was the venom with which Woman's Day appeared to attack Wilson. This was not just a casual story that appeared in a single issue. She was branded a serial liar in eight separate issues and this took on the appearance of some sort of vendetta. Wilson had been prepared to settle out of court for a mere $ 200,000 and this was scorned and rejected by the publisher. Wilson then proceeded to go to court action.
A new benchmark has been set and story editors will now have to weigh the chances of damaging stories ending up in court. This $ 4.56 million damages payout will be a significant setback to the magazines profitability. The publisher may consider taking the matter to a higher court but it seemed an emphatic decision and a further loss would incur more crippling legal fees. Rebel Wilson has indicated that it was the principle rather than the money behind her action, and she will donate the money to charity.
The celebrity world will heave a sigh of relief. Perhaps newspaper and magazine journalists will now need to be much more careful in the matter they print in view of this damages award. It may even have an effect on the survival of the magazine trade. Many readers bought them for the salacious stories that they knew to be mostly untrue, but if these disappear then interest may wane. It seems that the Supreme court has done more than just hand down an award. It has introduced a need for responsible journalism that may be incompatible with magazine publishing.
No comments:
Post a Comment