One of the more comical aspects of the Cooper-Flynn case was the shedding of journalistic crocodile tears on account of the bill facing Ms Cooper-Flynn - evidence, we were told, that Ireland's archaic libel laws are bad for plaintiffs, too. It is, of course, a spurious, disingenuous and selfserving argument, another ploy in the routine abuse of media power to engage in special pleading on the defamation issue.
The Cooper-Flynn case was exceptional: media defendants mostly lose because they are usually in the wrong. The suggestion that the libel laws favour only rich plaintiffs, or that plaintiffs abuse them to silence the media, is not borne out by the record.
Many people of modest means have sued and won, because their cases were good. The outrageous scale of legal fees makes defamation actions scary for plaintiffs, but they have no choice when media organisations which have damaged them refuse to admit error or fault.
Many libel actions result from a clear-cut mistake or intemperance which the culprit has refused to concede. The standard rationalisation offered by media organisations is that they cannot apologise for fear of admitting liability.
This is bogus. As Yvonne Murphy points out in her book Journalists and the Law, once an apology or retraction is published as part of a negotiated settlement, there is no risk of the plaintiff profiting from it in a subsequent action. Media organisations will not apologise because most are run by people unsuited, by lack of grace, to positions of such power.
The NUJ Code of Conduct stresses that journalists should "rectify promptly any harmful inaccuracies, ensure that corrections and apologies receive due prominence and afford the right of reply to persons criticised when the issue is of sufficient importance".
But, whereas newspapers or radio programmes will often allow quite trenchant, even abusive comment attacking individuals - even their own journalists or presenters - the same latitude is not extended to criticising standards of journalism or exposing fault lines in the operation of the media in general.
It is one thing to print a piece of knockabout vulgar abuse, alleging someone is a racist or a misogynist, and another to put your editorial hands up to the charge that one of your journalists has failed to observe a cardinal rule of journalistic methodology, such as giving a hearing to both sides of the story.
One kind of criticism, while generating more heat than light and focusing on the alleged personal shortcomings of an individual, contributes to the pseudo-democratic appearance of media-generated discourse; the other highlights the broader inadequacies and abuses of the media.
Try to recall the last time you heard a presenter voluntarily admit that an item was unfair to a particular party. Or recall the last time you saw a correction published acknowledging a piece of bad reporting, or a lapse in the ethical standards of a newspaper.
SEVERAL times I have sought retractions from newspapers for articles about me, which were defamatory or which misrepresented the facts in a serious way.
Serious breaches of the NUJ Code of Conduct were involved, particularly that a journalist should "strive to ensure that the information he/she disseminates is fair and accurate, avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact, and falsification by distortion, selection or misrepresentation".
In all but one recent instance I was rebuffed in the most abrupt fashion by editors who knew their journalists had crossed the line but would not be seen to climb down. In one instance it was alleged that a response in which I had outlined an abysmal episode of reporting, could not be published because it was ipso facto libellous of the journalist in question.
Clearly, it is right that the same rights to reputation are available to journalists as to the general public. But frequently editors hide behind the assertion that rights of reply are themselves defamatory when they are not, and in any event are covered by qualified privilege.
Unless the complainant is in a position to instill fear, editors will dissemble, prevaricate, seek to censor, almost anything but concede error. The object is to force the complainant to join the ranks of the 50 per cent of potential litigants who give up in frustration.
There can no more be a "right" to publish damaging material about individuals than to shoot into a crowded street. To earn the entitlement to report and comment freely on public affairs, media acquire a responsibility to enable those who feel misrepresented or defamed to reply to criticism, clarify matters of fact and have their reputations vindicated.
If the media aspire to promote democratic debate, they must be prepared to have their own actions placed under the same scrutiny as those on whom they comment and report. The evidence of such willingness is scant.
For the moment, tough libel laws represent an essential element of press freedom, and it is entirely proper that such laws be skewed to favour injured parties.
jwaters@irish-times.ie