Guardian News and Media is considering next steps after a pre-trial libel judgment found it was defamatory for an Observer article to describe an influencer as an “‘alt-right’ agitator”.
Andy Ngo is suing GNM over one phrase in the first paragraph of a music review published in The Observer and on The Guardian website in March, before Tortoise Media formally took ownership of the Sunday title.
The review of the Mumford and Sons album Rushmere said: “In the wake of the 2021 exit of banjo player (and son and co-founder of GB News) Winston Marshall, Mumford and Sons have reverted to a trio for their fifth album.
“Marshall’s departure followed an outcry after he praised ‘alt-right’ agitator Andy Ngo. Yet listening to Rushmere, one wonders whether the world might be a better place had every member of the band felt obliged to quit three years earlier, when news broke that they had hosted Jordan Peterson at their studio.”
Ngo sued GNM for libel over the phrase “‘alt-right’ agitator”, arguing that the descriptor “alt-right” was synonymous with racist or far-right beliefs and that “agitator” suggested that he took action on those beliefs and was not just an “armchair observer”.
Ngo is an American social media influencer who now lives in London and has published a book titled: “Unmasked: Inside antifa’s [anti-fascists’] radical plan to destroy democracy.” He is also an editor at Canadian-based website The Post Millennial.
Lawyer Ben Gallop, for The Guardian, told a pre-trial hearing held on 19 November that the article was a “humorous, opinionated and pithy music review”.
According to the judgment, Gallop said: “The ordinary reasonable reader would read this once only and the fleeting reference to the Claimant would make very little impression. The reader would not be thinking about what definition applies to the alt-right – this would be overly analytical.”
He argued that “alt-right” was in quotation marks to indicate that this is how other people have characterised Ngo’s beliefs.
He also argued it was a statement of opinion – honest is a defence for libel under UK law – as it was a “criticism, judgment, remark or observation” about Ngo’s publicly stated views.
However in a judgment published on Friday, Deputy High Court Judge Guy Vassall-Adams KC found that the phrase was “plainly defamatory at common law” as the natural and ordinary meaning was that Ngo “actively promotes far right beliefs”.
The judge said: “To allege that a person is actively engaged in promoting far right beliefs tends to harm their reputation in the eyes of right-thinking members of society generally and clearly meets the seriousness threshold at common law.”
He also said that the innuendo meaning, or how it would be understood to readers with a certain level of specific knowledge (of whom he said The Observer’s “highly educated and well-informed readership” would have at least one), was that Ngo “actively promotes far right, racist and white supremacist beliefs”.
But the judge noted: “Whether this innuendo meaning can be sustained in practice will be a matter for the main trial.”
The judge also sided with Ngo regarding the potential defence of opinion, saying the description of him was an “assertion of fact”. Even if it was opinion, Vassall-Adams said, no basis had been given for it – meaning the defence would not meet requirements under the 2013 Defamation Act.
A Guardian spokesperson told Press Gazette: “This claim relates to a 190-word music review published by The Observer in March.
“We believe the judgment has several shortcomings and will carefully consider the next steps.”
Other defences available if GNM continues to defend the case to trial would include that the words were true or that they were published in the public interest.
A trial would also consider whether Ngo had suffered any serious harm because of the article, a necessary aspect for GNM to be found liable for defamation.
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