I think (although this post may lead to me being quickly proved wrong) that I have been pretty careful and accurate in my reporting of various different injunction stories of late. This is largely thanks to my former colleague and media law blogger Judith Townend, whose exasperation with the media bandying around the term “superinjunction” I have seen first hand.
Not everybody has been cautious, and the term superinjunction seems to have been applied left, right and centre to celebrity injunctions. The fact that Ryan Giggs never obtained a superinjunction, and that there have only been two new superinjunctions in the past year — one lasting seven days and the other overturned on appeal – are two of ten lessons taken away from the whole affair by Kingston University journalism lecturer Brian Cathcart, who writes today on Index on Censorship.
The other eight include these gems:
There appear to be 75,000 British Twitter users who are ready, with the right tabloid encouragement, to participate in the “naming and shaming” (or pillorying) of adulterers.
When it suits them, the tabloids also blithely set aside their usual view that online social networking is an evil invention that causes crime, suicide, binge drinking, obesity, terrorism and cancer.