The Press Justice Project supports people affected by press abuse and campaigns for higher standards across journalism. On 13 October, it will be bringing that work into focus with an event looking at the ways women are treated by the media, as targets of discrimination in press coverage, and as journalists in the newsroom.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

This post covers developments since the last weekly Law and Media Round Up on 3 August 2026.  The summer legal vacation will run until Thursday 1 October 2026 when the Michaelmas Legal Term will begin. Our next weekly round up will be on 5 October 2026.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

Professor Arday is not the first to be viciously hounded by the rabid press. I doubt he will be the last. To end this brutal cycle of tragedy, we need politicians brave enough to overcome their cowardice and implement mandatory, independent press regulation that tackles press malpractice but preserves press freedom.

In a judgment handed down today, Mr Justice Nicklin made an order that the claimants  in the case of Baroness Lawrence & Ors v Associated Newspapers pay the costs of the action to be assessed on the indemnity basis ([2026] EWHC 2207 (KB)) .

The sense of public outrage about the late Professor Jason Arday’s treatment by the press is palpable. The government would do well to listen. As Newscord reports, Professor Arday was the subject of 249 articles in 22 days.

How much of what you see on social media comes from sources that repeatedly post falsehoods? And if that content quietly vanished from your feed, would you believe anything different months later?

Media lawyer and author Jonathan Coad recently complained to IPSO about a Telegraph article entitled “Hacked Off Hugh Grant pushes Andy Burnham to curb free speech”.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

In the early 20th Century, the Sunday Chronicle, a newspaper owned by E. Hulton & Co, published a satirical travel piece about a festival in Dieppe, France.  The article referred to an individual named Artemus Jones, an Englishman who it was alleged had come over to the festival in Dieppe and was carrying on an adulterous affair with a French woman.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

Though it has many legitimate uses, the dark side of deepfake technology has once again been highlighted by Labour MP Jess Asato’s current claim against Elon Musk’s xAI for its Grok feature which produced fake sexualised images of her.

In his article on the recent Court of Appeal judgment in Vince v Associated Newspapers Ltd EWCA Civ 899, Sean Sutherland warns, forebodingly, that the “striking decision risks undercutting the law of defamation, which has grown incrementally to balance the interests of freedom of expression and of reputation” and adding “uncertainty into the law.”

The Trinity Legal Term ended on Friday 31 July 2026.  The summer legal vacation will run until Thursday 1 October 2026 when the Michaelmas Legal Term will begin.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

The Trinity Legal Term ends on Friday 31 July 2026.  The summer legal vacation will run until Thursday 1 October 2026 when the Michaelmas Legal Term will begin.

One year after the decision in Walters v OpenAI (Case No. 23-A-04860-2) , the case remains one of the most significant judicial examinations of how traditional defamation principles apply to generative AI, albeit in a U.S. context.

This month’s Mail Newspapers judgment in the case brought by Prince Harry and others was a comprehensive defeat for the claimants EWHC 1637 (KB). The judge found that, in relation to every one of the 57 pleaded articles, the claimants had failed to prove that Mail journalists had used unlawful information gathering (UIG).

On Wednesday 15 July 2026, the Court of Appeal (Vos MR, Warby LJ and Whipple LJ) handed down judgement in the appeal of Vince v ANL EWCA Civ 899. Eco entrepreneur, Dale Vince brought a defamation and subsequent data protection claim against Associated Newspapers in relation to the publication of an article which juxtaposed his photograph with a headline referring to a "sex pest" Labour donor, despite the article itself relating to another individual.

On 15 July 2026, the Court of Appeal handed down an important judgment in Vince v Associated Newspapers ( EWCA Civ 899). This decision establishes, for the first time, that a person can sue a newspaper under data protection law for an “unfair” article even if, under the law of defamation, there is no claim.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.