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“Four O’fucking clock.” This is how I teach my children to swear, by saying “Four o’fucking clock.” When it is four o’fucking clock, in the bloody morning. And the light in their room is on, one of them is wandering the hall having wet the bed again, the other is gaily playing with the new Polly Pocket toy she got for her birthday a few hours before.

And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to swear under those circumstances. I went to bed at midnight after prepping fucking pink, plastic party bags for a children’s party, the numbers at this do having swelled from 8 to 14 in a couple of days. I’m not looking forward to any of it (really) and being woken at four o’fucking clock is the last thing I need to prepare me for the day ahead. But that’s what happens.

So I tuck the younger one into the spare bed I’ve just changed and prepared for a friend to come and stay in, hoping she won’t wee again. I unceremoniously switch off the light on the older one telling her to get some sleep or she won’t enjoy the party tomorrow (meaning later today). And I go back to bed. Where I don’t sleep another wink all night coz the old brain is going again.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to express frustration and tension under these circumstances and, for me, that means swearing. But like any middle class, tertiary-educated parent, I just don’t my children to swear at, say, four o’clock in the afternoon when we’re having tea with Grandma. Which of course they will do, having learnt the word “fucking” in such gloriously compelling circumstances.

And I’m off… thinking, for some reason, about all the people who ever tried to sue me while I was editor of Broadcast. I wasn’t special or anything – people are threatening legal action against all sorts of publications every hour of every day – but now I’ve launched this blog, I’m thinking more seriously about libel again and remembering the various run-ins I’ve had in this area before.

For the record, what scared me shitless in the past was getting a letter through the fax (how quaint!) from Messrs Harbottle & Lewis or whoever, politely informing me that their client, Mr X, felt he had cause to complain about Y and would shortly be rodgering me mercilessly in court unless I printed a full and frank retraction forthwith. I, and my employer Emap, usually complied.

What didn’t scare me but used to make me laugh was getting, say, Richard Madeley or Victor Lewis Smith on the phone themselves, whingeing about something we’d published. If you haven’t got the face or the cash to hire a lawyer to make your complaint for you, you’re pretty much on a losing wicket, I reckon.

Of course, at Broadcast when I was there we usually ran “corrections” (that catch-all journalistic term for re-buttering up contacts who you’ve miffed in some way) even for bastards because we, as a magazine, wanted to maintain a relationship, if not directly with them, then at least with the companies and organisations they worked for. It’s all about the bigger picture.

I’m not sure it is about the bigger picture with a blog and I’m not sure I want a relationship with those men (oo, it’s always men isn’t it?) who have been so petty-minded as to pursue a trade magazine with worries about their egos. Hooray! At last I can say so.

And now, reaching for a volume on libel law , I’m reminded that the two main defences against a libel action are fair comment and, basically, the truth. If you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that what you’ve written is 100% true, you can’t be sued for it.

The problem arises when you don’t write enough or have enough space to cover every single element of a story or situation that might establish the truth. So it wasn’t good enough, on the one occasion that I chose to write a leader about daytime TV icons Richard and Judy, to simply refer to Richard Madeley’s shop-lifting episode. I should have pointed out, as he so nicely asked me to later, that he was totally acquitted of all charges of shop-lifting. So let’s do that again now. Richard Madeley was fully acquitted of all charges of shop-lifting.

I could go on, but won’t as it’s 6.50am and I’ve been awake since 4am and have a children’s party to host. Oh, and did I mention that I turn into a murderous being if I have less than seven hours sleep a night?

I do, I have and I must rest. And, let’s be honest, is it any wonder children are taking longer and longer to be totally out of nappies if the price is the sort of sleep deprivation that makes parents shake their children to death? Just kidding…

Posted on September 10th, 2008 under Behind the scenes • Tags: libel. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback