It was back in 2006 that Vancouver lawyer Roger McConchie warned in a CanWest News Service interview that libel cases were on the increase in Canada and that the Internet was “the single most important reason for the increase.” His law firm, McConchie Law Corp., has kept track of Canadian cases since the first Internet libel suit was launched in 1995, with one Julian Fantino awarded $40,000 in damages.
Fantino, who later became chief of police in Toronto, charged that a man named Joe Baptista had been sending emails and fax messages describing him in unflattering terms and accusing him of misconduct. Readers can Google McConchie Law and follow the libel and defamation links for more detail — and links to judgments — from that first case to the present.
They make for fascinating reading. The largest award, totalling $875,000, went to publishers Southam Inc. and investigative reporter David Baines when they sued a Florida-based newsletter publisher for libel. Among the more modest but still costly settlements was the B.C. husband ordered to pay his wife $40,000 after he fired off an uncomplimentary email about her to the local Rotary Club, a website and Facebook.
Free speech can be expensive, especially when used in haste and hate by people once described by Miriam Smith, who teaches media law and ethics at San Francisco University, as: “Passive-aggressive. There’s a whole segment of the population who all of a sudden have the [Internet] megaphone they’ve been seeking. It’s technology-enhanced gossip.”
McConchie’s site provides the statistics to demonstrate the growth of Internet-based libel suits. It also leads to court-ordered compensations. Careless gossip over the Internet’s global-reaching megaphone can be costly, but the uncontrolled voices of discontent babble on without concern. There seems little comprehension, not the slightest understanding, that malicious gossip is not a right of free speech.
It was with amazement that I read in a May issue of Maclean’s a letter of apology written to former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke after he launched his attempt to track down a handful of anonymous (they are always anonymous) gossipers. He wrote, and Maclean’s quoted: “I am new to the world of journalism and mistakes occur when people are new to something. Everyone is fallible, and I now understand that I made a mistake by posting a rumour online.”
I read it over and over, but it didn’t change. One of the writers of the devastating unsubstantiated Internet gossip about Burke’s personal life was confessing he was a journalism student! Are the Five Ws — who, what, where, when and why, with “how” added for a bonus — not taught any more? Do the teachers of journalism no longer drum into every rookie student the basic rule of news gathering is to get it fast, but first get it right? That “facts” need a responsible supporting source and other back-fence gossips don’t register on the reliability meter.
More frightening than the apologizing would-be reporter was the Internet response from one reader proudly hiding behind the name “Libeller.” He replied in Maclean’s comment section that Burke was just a malicious old man who obviously doesn’t understand the real value of the Internet: “The whole point of an anonymous Internet is to be able to put things out there without it being traceable to you.” Amazing.
He (I’m assuming “he” by the poor-choice swearing dotting his message) went on to say posting gossip is just like sitting around in your living room: “To most people of my generation [under 35 is suggested] it’s very much a private conversation that happens to be viewable to anybody who knows where to look.” Libeller laments that there are people out there trying to tell “anyone, anywhere, they have to watch what they say.”
He has that last bit right. Malicious gossip, even in your own living room, can be dangerous and costly if the object of your defamation catches a whisper of your careless tongue. It’s called “slander” and is not court-used as often as libel — but it can be if the gossip grows loud enough.
Libel, as Libeller and all like him should know, is defined by the Canadian Bar Association as ”the type of defamation with a permanent record like a newspaper, a letter, a website posting, an email picture, or a radio or TV broadcast.” You can, and indeed should, be sued for being brave with anonymous spite.
Free speech, written or spoken. A wonderful privilege. To be treasured and used with care. As the Apostle Paul wrote (slightly paraphrased) to the Philippians: “Let your speech be always with grace [even when] seasoned with salt.”