Cadwalladr began her talk by recounting a trip she took after the Brexit referendum, back to her [] Journalist Carole Cadwalladr says 'the gods of Silicon Valley' have broken democracy . Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. She said the last three years had been "extraordinarily difficult" and hoped no other journalists had to go through this "crushing, debilitating, all-consuming experience". Journalist Carole Cadwalladr explores how social media platforms like Facebook exerted an unprecedented influence on voters in the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential election. The fact Carole Cadwalladr could now have to pay damages for journalism the court acknowledges was in the public interest is deeply disappointing. She is an activist, Sanni, who is still close with Cadwalladr, told me. A GNM spokesperson said: Carole Cadwalladrs award-winning journalism has prompted worldwide debate on social media, privacy and political targeting. ", A.R.F. It tends to be opened at eight oclock the evening before World Book Day, to, Hancock and Goves cringeworthy Covid love-in. The context for the remark was that the Times, the Observer and other news outlets had been reporting how Mr Banks had, as one lawyer put it, misled everyone about the number, and nature, of his covert meetings with Russian officials. Arron Banks appealed last years high court ruling on three discrete points. Its Russian. Steyn also found that serious harm had not been established in relation to the tweet at any point. The organisations commented on the unusual step of suing Cadwalladr as an individual journalist but not the Guardian or TED. She dropped her defence of truth and relied on one of public interest. They pretended there were not serious reasons to vote the way we did, but only vacuous, stupid people, led down the wrong road by agents of a foreign power. With a little patience cats can be trained to scratch in the proper place. The single meaning of Ms Cadwalladr's words was that: "On more than one occasion Mr Banks told untruths about a secret relationship he had with the Russian government in relation to acceptance of foreign funding of electoral campaigns in breach of the law on such funding", Ms Cadwalladr said she did not intend to make that allegation, and accepts it was untrue, After initially putting forward a truth defence, Ms Cadwalladr withdrew that defence, She then used a public interest defence to justify her statements and Ms Cadwalladr established that "her belief that publishing the TED talk was in the public interest was reasonable", The court found that talk "had caused serious harm to his [Banks's] reputation", But Mrs Justice Steyn said: "I accept the TED talk was political expression of high importance, and great public interest (in the strictest sense), not only in this country but worldwide", The tweet, which Mr Banks also complained about, had not caused "serious harm" to his reputation. Update: Carole Cadwalladr has disputed the fairness and accuracy of this article as follows: Then just 1 a week for full website and app access. The resolve displayed by Carole Cadwalladr in her successful defence against a libel action brought by Arron Banks calls to mind Hemingways definition of courage as grace under pressure. There is no information about Carole Cadwalladr's adoption. To be absolutely clear: this is a minor skirmish. Reacting to the decision in a Twitter thread, Cadwalladr described the case as absurdity after absurdity and Kafkaesque, and noted she had won on two out of three grounds of principle. She says she was not informed who the backer was, and did not mention the issue in her articles. Decisions by the courts then made it as hard as possible for her to win. TED Conferences, LLC. The UK Court of Appeals ruling partially in favour of businessman Arron Banks in his defamation case against journalist Carole Cadwalladr is disappointing and risks having a chilling effect on investigative journalism. Where will all this end? Although she claimed to see Russian agents everywhere it was finally Banks who decided to sue Cadwalladr. The significance of this will not be lost on anyone with experience of libel actions in British courts. [27] On 24 June 2022 the High Court granted Banks leave to appeal on a question of law relating to the 'serious harm' test. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its support for Cadwalladr, an RSF Press Freedom Prize laureate, and calls on the UK government to do more to protect journalists . Tell us what youre interested in and well send you talks tailored just for you. The world order is changing in his favour, The sinister rise of drag shows for children, Theresa May is the true villain in this latest Tory Brexit war. She is a features writer for The Observer and formerly worked at The Daily Telegraph. Some of Cadwalladrs online criticsaresaying that this verdict will reinforce the belief of centrist fanatics that Brexit was caused by a Russian hybrid warfare operation. They cant just dismiss me as a conspiracy theorist anymore, Cadwalladr told me. If you want evidence for the mess it has caused, just look around you. If she is wrong, then both her Brexit-Trump-Russia narrative and her career will be in trouble. One of the questions raised in this case is why, amidst all the thousands of articles and broadcasts about Brexit, Arron Banks and Russia, did a few sentences in a TED talk and a tweet lead to a libel trial? These chilling realities, when combined with the complexity of defending a case under UK libel laws, explain why British journalists are reluctant to publish information about wealthy or powerful individuals. Firstly, it should be noted that the campaign of defamation which Cadwalladr has engaged in over recent years has been poisonous. No commitment. For Wylie to speak publicly, she helped find him legal representation, and in her telling, Wylies lawyers then pursued a financial backer to cover his legal fees in the event he was sued. Her rise also reveals something about the state of British media, where social-media-powered campaigners can become megastars. But the baubles seemed hardly to have mattered. There are several ways to support RSF: find the one that suits you and join the fight! However, the judges acknowledged that Ms Cadwalladr is not in control of what the TED organisation publishes, and we note that Mr Banks chose not to sue Ted Talks. Like my worst nightmare was how she described the comments, trying to shame me for not being married, for not having children, for being a middle-aged woman. Many of the recurring Twitter attacks she mentioned to me appeared to be themed on the notorious barb from Neil, the BBC journalist: Trolls disparage her, commenting that it is time to feed the cat or crazy cat lady kicking off again. The BBC anchor, she says, has not apologized. Banks sued her personally. Throughout, Cadwalladr was talking and working with Wylie almost daily, a relationship that illustrates her journalistic style: She does not operate like a traditional reporter, favoring objectivity and distance; instead, she becomes close to her subjects, intenselyand, her critics would argue, unethicallyso. does not recommend declawing of any cat except for medical reasons. She is even the thinly veiled inspiration for the journalistic hero in a recently released young-adult novel. When Catherine Belton, author of Putins People, and HarperCollins, her publisher, were sued for libel in 2021 by several oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich and a Russian oil company, she told MPs that her case had cost the publisher 1.5m in legal fees to defend and could have cost 5m if the case had gone to trial. This talk was presented at an official TED conference. It tends to be opened at eight oclock the evening before World Book Day, to, Hancock wanted to deploy new Covid variant and frighten the pants off everyone, Prince Harry and Gabor Mat are a match made in heaven, Is Putin winning? T, o be absolutely clear: this is a minor skirmish. But to her opponents, many of whom use sexist and ageist language to discredit her work, she is a conspiracy theorist. Trim their nails Short nails cant cause damage. These cats are either two-paw or four-paw declaw. "It leaves open for the journalist the excuse that she thought what she said was correct even though she had no facts," he posted on Twitter. The Observer newspaper has supported her, and as her entirely unsubstantiated claims grew, she was shamefully awarded the Orwell Prize for journalism. LONDONCarole Cadwalladr is different from the stereotypical British journalist. When Sanni realized irregularities were taking place, Wylie, whom he said he had met in the gay scene and who initially introduced him to Vote Leave, brought him into the fold with Cadwalladr. For the courts to rule on a passing remark she made in a 2019 TED talk and a tweetabout the Leave.EU tycoon, who gave the pro-Brexit campaign the largest donation in British political history, has cost Banks somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million. Rather than sue the owners of the immensely successful TED franchise, Banks, who has always strongly denied the allegations against him and has indicated he will likely appeal against the judgement this week,went for her. [7] In the US, it was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. Follow. However, the judge did not consider this to be a SLAPP saying this case was "legitimate" and "it is neither fair nor apt to describe this as a SLAPP suit". (Wylie did not respond to an interview request or a message that Cadwalladr says she sent him suggesting he speak with me for this article; his lawyer did not respond to a request for comment on the financial-backer arrangement. She has responded, accusing Banks of harassment and an attempt to silence her by tying her up in complex court proceedings. Reporters Without Borders and other supporters of press freedom have written to the government in her defense. The judgment, written by Lord Justice Warby, also said on serious harm that there was insufficient basis for Steyns finding that the opinion of the publishees were of no consequence to Banks because he did not care what they thought. Most recently, she has investigated campaign finance violations during the Brexit. According to the judgement from Mrs Justice Steyn: A public interest defence allows a defendant to justify themselves based on the reason that the information was in the public interest. The most positive outcome of the Banks case is the evolution of judicial thinking on what constitutes a public interest defence. As Brexit spawns an American-style culture war in Britain, Cadwalladr has become a lightning rod. Her behaviour has in fact been far more damaging to this country and the journalistic trade than Haris ever was. Do you want to help free and independent journalism, and those who embody it? That liberal democracy was broken. Discussion of Russian influence on British politics was chilled, not only by Bankss action but by the Kremlins pet energy company Rosneft and severalRussian billionaires suing Catherine Belton and the publishers of Putins People; a post-Soviet mining conglomerates action against Tom Burgis and the publishers of his study of kleptocracy; and the general fear the lawyers incubate that if you take on the super-rich you risk losing everything. There is nothing weird or easy about it. Cadwalladr, who works for the Guardian Media Group in the UK, is being sued as an individual by millionaire businessman and political donor Arron Banks, best known for his role as co-founder of the 2016 Brexit campaign Leave.EU. ", "Dear Carol: I salute your courage. In the talk, she said: "And I am not even going to get into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian government.". Individuals can, in the age of social media, reach huge audiences but it has its risks. Sixteen organisations reiterate their support for award-winning journalist and author Carole Cadwalladr who is facing a week-long defamation trial in London this week. [24], On 26 November 2020, the day before a strike-out hearing, the Press Gazette reported that she "has been ordered to pay 62,000 in costs to Banks after withdrawing her defences of truth and limitation just one day before the next hearing in the case was scheduled to take place on Thursday morning", in the light of the judge's determination of the meaning of certain words. Banks could have sued the publisher of the Ted Talk for defamation, but it was Cadwalladr personally that he chose to sue. In conversation with TED Global Curator Bruno Giussani, Cadwalladr discusses the latest on her reporting on the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal -- and what we still don't know about the transatlantic links between Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election. Cadwalladr and her financial backers have for years pretended that the British public were misled into voting for Brexit. She has also reported on alleged links between Nigel Farage, the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and the Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election that has been investigated in the United States. Arron Banks' relentless pursuit of an individual journalist is not only a clear attempt to intimidate and discredit her personally, but also a chilling warning to other journalists of what can happen if they dare to take on the rich and powerful. She is a features writer for The Observer and formerly worked at The Daily Telegraph. She also claims that Seumas Milne, consigliere to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, has pro-Putin views. This, she tweeted, is influencing Labours ambivalent Brexit stance. [9], Anthony Barnett wrote in the blog of The New York Review of Books about Cadwalladr's articles in The Observer, which have reported malpractice by campaigners for Brexit, and the illicit funding of Vote Leave, in the 2016 EU membership referendum. The judges findings of fact are intact, she wrote. Both the governing Conservatives and opposition Labour Party here in Britain, she says, have got reasons not to want to excavate problematic connections to Russia. Why? Cancel any time. Perhaps it is necessary to say at this point that I have never met either Banks or Cadwalladr and have no special love for either of them. Sitting at her feet is Meg, her aging collie cross retriever. She had said as an aside in a TED talk entitled Facebooks role in Brexit and the threat to democracy that: I am not even going to get into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian Government, and repeated much the same in a follow-up tweet. She declined to say whether this arrangement would violate the Timess guidelines. In its decision of 13 June 2022, the High Court found that the TED talk, published in April 2019, was political expression of high importance, and great public interest, not only in the UK but worldwide - an aspect of the ruling that has not been challenged. She and her friends pumped poisonous toxins into post-2016 Britain, from a position of considerable privilege and with some serious financial backing of their own. Carole Cadwalladr outside the Royal Courts of Justice with her supporters in January 2022. Sorry, no results found! The judge's ruling, on everything else, holds., Banks has repeatedly denied the case is vexatious and, , in reaction to the appeal verdict: Hopefully, some journalistic lessons will be learned from this episode., RSF representatives were in court to monitor the appellate hearing on 7 February, as well as at the, five-day trial at the High Court in January 2022. . In her judgement this week, Mrs Justice Steyn said Cadwalladrhad to prove that she was talking about a matter of public interest, which she clearly was, and that she had reasonably believed that publishing the words sued over by Banks was in the public interest. Until recently, many London-based Russian oligarchs used the same strategy to intimidate journalists and authors. We are meant to have the rule of law in England and Wales. [8], Starting in late 2016 The Observer published an extensive series of articles by Cadwalladr about what she called the "right-wing fake news ecosystem". I can say with 100 percent certainty that an American journalist who treated their source with cool detachment and distance would never have gotten this story, she says. In conversation with TED Global Curator Bruno Giussani, Cadwalladr discusses the latest on her reporting on the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal -- and what we still don't know about the transatlantic links between Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election. Rather than focus on such afringe, supporters of Boris Johnson would do better to ask why Russia was so keen on Brexit. Banks pursued her as an individual, rather than the media outlets which published her reporting, isolating her and exposing her to extensive legal costs which many journalists would not be able to take on. Warby agreed with Steyn that that publication of the tweet after 29 April 2020 had not caused serious reputational harm because its visibility would have peaked well before that time. '[19] The letter described the case a so-called SLAPP suit Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. [20] According to The Guardian, "Banks's lawyers argued this meant there were strong grounds to believe he would assist the interests of the Russian government, against those of the British government, in exchange for that money". Separately, Nick Clegg, the former British deputy prime minister who is now Facebooks vice president of global affairs and communications, has dismissed claims that Cambridge Analytica influenced the Brexit referendum, suggesting some kind of plot or conspiracy was a simplistic crutch to explain away the result. ", , Cadwalladr described the case as absurdity after absurdity and Kafkaesque, and noted she had won on two out of three grounds of principle. Great investigations might even play out this way in the future, he arguesa future where some journalists are celebrities, their work furiously promoted by online fandoms and denigrated by trolls. But what has just happened is something that should cause a certain ripple of consequences. I have seen some right-wingers on social media saying that she got off on the weird technicality of a public interest defence in relation to that TED talk. My fear is that this will open the floodgates for similar attempts to silence other journalists, she says. As Guido reports here she conceded that she had no evidence and could not go ahead with the case. Does it matter? "We are pleased that the judge dismissed the majority of the appeal against Cadwalladr," the members of the UK Anti-SLAPPs Coalition said. Carole Cadwalladrs victory over Arron Banks is a triumph for free speech that has come at a cost no free society should bear. Of course, shes a journalist whatever, but shes both a journalist and an activist.. So we are talking about between 1.5 and 2 million for a single case. Sanni blew the whistle on the campaigns significant overspending, which the Electoral Commission later found to be illegal. Is Cadwalladr even a reporter, or more of a campaigneran activist with policy goals she is pursuing through journalism? The new prime minister has, meanwhile, dismissed as codswallop a video she obtained showing Steve Bannon boasting of his ties to him. The judge said if she had found the tweet had caused "serious harm" to Mr Banks' reputation she would have concluded Ms Cadwalladr's belief that the tweet was in the public interest was also reasonable. Carole Cadwalladr. A spokesperson for Guardian News and Media, the parent company of The Guardian and The Observer, declined to comment, saying, We are not going to go into confidential discussions between editorial colleagues.), Some might see Cadwalladrs willingness to be involvedeven indirectlyin financially helping a source as a violation of journalistic standards, one that left her (and her stories) vulnerable to questions about such a backers motives, but Cadwalladr believes that her close relationship with Wylie was essential to informing the public. A GNM spokesperson said: " Carole Cadwalladr's award-winning journalism has prompted worldwide debate on social media, privacy and political targeting. When is Eurovision and how do you get tickets? Carole Jane Cadwalladr ( / kdwldr /; born 1969) is a British author, investigative journalist and features writer. Join our organisation! The judges findings of fact are intact, she wrote. The article eventually came out a month laterappearing in both the New Review and, in shorter form, the news pagesafter almost a year of work. Mr Banks, the founder of the pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU, sued Ms. Click to fill out a free no-obligation adoption application or learn more about our adoption policies and procedures. 4,438,446 views | Carole Cadwalladr TED2019 Like (133K) Share Add Facebook's role in Brexit -- and the threat to democracy In an unmissable talk, journalist Carole Cadwalladr digs into one of the most perplexing events in recent times: the UK's super-close 2016 vote to leave the European Union. Her articles have triggered investigations, were partly responsible for hauling Mark Zuckerberg in front of Congress, and helped result in Facebook being fined several billion dollars. EUs funding had already been dropped). Putting names to archive photos, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, In photos: India's disappearing single-screen cinemas. Appreciation page for the top investigative journalist #CaroleCadwalladr (fan account ) Posts Tagged. Though The Guardian has a large full-time staff based in London and elsewhere, itlike many other outlets, including The Atlanticalso employs freelance journalists and pays them for individual stories or projects. 'We note with concern the abusive approach Banks has taken in targeting Cadwalladr as an individual on the basis of comments she made orally including a single sentence in a TED talk and on Twitter, rather than similar reporting that had been published in The Guardian.
