Carole Cadwalladr’s journalism, which has prompted worldwide debate about the role of social media in our democracy and the part that Facebook played in the Brexit referendum, has been recognised with awards on both sides of the Atlantic.
It led to multiple criminal investigations, a $5bn fine for Facebook, and revolutionised public understanding of how big tech exploits personal data. The Observer stands proudly behind her ground-breaking reporting. But for years Cadwalladr has been forced to divert time and energy away from her work to fight a lawsuit brought by Arron Banks, a leading figure in the Leave.EU campaign, against her personally. He did not sue the newspapers she wrote for, or the Ted organisation that broadcast a talk about the issues.
She has been open about the personal, professional and psychological toll of the lawsuit.
An initial high court judgment vindicated Cadwalladr, and represented real progress for British journalism.
It set an important precedent that should have given journalists confidence that they can defend reporting into topics of vital national interest.
Banks appealed on three points, and won on one of them, for which he was awarded compensation, agreed in the sum of £35,000. But the court of appeal has handed down a punitive ruling on costs that undermines progress made in the original ruling.
The majority of that ruling still stands. However, although the appeal court recognised that in the lower court Banks had lost on the issue that “absorbed most of the time and money” – namely, whether it was ever reasonable for Cadwalladr to believe that it was in the public interest to say what she did – it ruled that she must pay 60% of Banks’ legal costs from that original trial. This was seemingly because the judges felt her “persistence in her defence of the second phase of publication of the Ted Talk was highly optimistic”.
The very high costs ruling made against Cadwalladr, despite her journalism having been found to be in the public interest, and despite the court of appeal’s view that the award struck “a proper and just balance”, is very concerning and has the potential to stifle freedom of expression in this country.
It sets a chilling precedent and represents a blow to public interest journalism.
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