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Fighting for journalism and profitable news media
Future share price dives | Harry trial part of Hacked Off ‘political campaign’ says Mail
Plus agency could owe £100k legal costs to Mail and Telegraph over £200 copyright claim
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Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Wednesday, 1 April.
For a company that has pinned its success on advertising revenue and e-commerce, the drop-off in Google traffic has been disastrous.
Future made £739m revenue last year on profit of £92m, but both those figures are continuing to head downwards.
It has spent some £1.6bn on acquisitions since 2016. If it had instead just put that money in a safe somewhere rather than buying the likes of Dennis Publishing and Go Compare the company would today be worth at least six times what it is at the moment.
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⚖️ As the epic 11-week Prince Harry versus the Mail privacy trial concluded yesterday, publisher Associated Newspapers said the whole thing was part of a “political campaign” by Hacked Off.
Five years after the death of Max Mosley, the former Formula One boss continues to reap his vengeance on the UK tabloid press.
It appears to have been Mosley’s cash, distributed via journalist-turned-legal researcher Graham Johnson, which induced private investigators to give evidence against the Mail.
This evidence was then used by lawyers to persuade Prince Harry, Sir Elton John, Baroness Lawrence and others to sue Associated Newspapers.
At least 40 journalists have been implicated in the alleged criminal conspiracy at the Mail titles but all insist they are innocent of commissioning or carrying out illegal acts.
Most of the complained-about stories probably were breaches of privacy by today’s legal standards, but the cases hinge on proving that criminality was involved and the claimants only realised this within six years of suing.
We will have to wait a few months for Mr Justice Nicklin to return his written judgment, but I will be surprised if this one results in anything other than a humiliating defeat for Harry and his team.
The evidence from Associated has been copious and convincing while that supplied by the celebrity claimants looks circumstantial and, in places, decidedly wobbly.
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📷 A small claims court legal battle over fees of less than £200 in picture syndication has left news agency journalist Michael Leidig with a potential costs bill of £100,000, he claims.
Leidig believes that the Telegraph and Mail titles are running the tab up with expensive external barristers and legal advice to make him go away.
And he argues that an important principle is at stake regarding the right of news agencies to be paid when they have gone to the effort of sourcing and verifying supplied pictures that they do not themselves own the copyright to.
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