Rather disturbing story in Private Eye 1229 about Kent blogger Tony Flaig, who was threatned with legal action by Ten Alps, who make programmes for Kent TV, after he criticsed the local channel's cost and its news values.
As well as a letter from director of communications Jo Phillips accusing him of defamation, he was also told by Kent County Council's director of law and governance Geoff Wild that he had to expect the consequences of "choos[ing]to exercise your right to free speech in the manner that you do..."
Kent TV is a media outlet funded by Kent council tax payers. Mr Flaig has every right to record his views in his excellent blog, linked above.
Will Labour council leader Mike Eddy, who said that he was concerned Kent TV would be a "propaganda machine", also be threatned with legal action?
Tony Flaig says that council leader Paul Carter has sent him "an acknowledgement that indeed I'm entitled to exercise [the right to freedom of speech], but Kent TV are still concerned that his comments do not "distinguish between me criticising Kent TV which is funded by you and I the taxpayer, and third party providers of goods and services." You can see Tony's letter to Paul Carter here.
I urge the good citizens of Kent to vote out all those councillors who failed to support Mr Flaig, and to read his blog regulary. It covers a wide range of interesting local stories, and is now in my Google Reader.
On a side point, is Kent TV having an option marked "dunno" in an online poll really an example to Kent schoolchildren? Will I be sued for that remark?
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Kent blogger threatned with legal action over comments on local TV station
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1 comments:
Cheers and thanks for the supportive comments, I for was torn between ignoring the letter I'd received or highlighting it, I was not asked to remove any specific comments.
Still its not the sort of thing I felt I could just ignore.
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