View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Media Law
November 8, 2011

Regional editors reveal press freedom cost of legal fees

By Andrew Pugh

Leading regional newspaper editor have warned that rising legal costs combined with the continuing economic problems for newspaper publishing could lead to them spiking stories for financial reasons.

Speaking at a joint committee hearing on privacy and injunctions, MPs were told of the ‘chilling effect’of legal costs following the rise of Conditional Fee Arrangements (CFAs).

Asked whether he had ever spiked a story due to the threat of an injunction, Liverpooo Echo editor Alastair Machray replied: ‘Personally, no, but hypothetically it would be an issue for us.

‘We had a non-privacy injunction some years ago involving injunctions going out on the basis of confidentiality. The injunction was granted to a nightclub in Liverpool over a story we wished to publish and we went to the Court of Appeal and lost, and we ultimately won in the House of Lords.

‘Had we lost in the House of Lords our estimated costs would have been £500,000 – this is about eight, nine years ago.

‘As it was we won and the costs to us were still considerable, about £60,000. Now eight or nine years ago we would dig and say let’s fight, let’s fight, let’s fight.

‘I think we would be less inclined to fight now given that a few hundred thousand pounds for a local newspaper company now can literally mean the difference between profitability and loss.”

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

Sunday Herald editor Richard Walker said that his paper had fought on points of principle in the past but would now ‘certainly have to think hard over whether or not it was worth it… there would certainly be cases where we would weigh it up and think it would not be worth the money. We’d have to make an editorial judgement I guess, and a commercial judgement in some sense as well”.

Sunday Sun editor Matt McKenzie said it was not only the threat of injunctions that was having an impact on newspapers but the threat of any kind of legal action. ‘You may well have published something and you’d be completely confident that it was right and be able to demonstrate it,’he said.

‘But the costs attached to fighting that through the courts… when it comes to small publishers these are very real concerns. It’s a consideration.’

Neil Fowler, a research fellow at Oxford University and the former editor of Which, the Lincolnshire Echo, Derby Evening Mail, The Journal in Newcastle and the Cardiff-based Western Mail, told the committee: ‘I think the rise of the Conditional Fee Arrangement has had a big effect on regional newspapers, where clearly if you were to fight an action… under CFA costs can double or even more..”

He added: ‘I think CFAs have had that chilling effect, but at the same time, in my experience you would look at an issue and if you decided whether its worth fighting, you would fight it.”

Fowler argued that in ’50/50’situations editors would now ‘have to take a financial view on the matter as well but I think that’s not just true of the regional press, I’m sure nationals do the same as well”.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network