The Wardman Wire

You are browsing the archives of 2008 July.

This post is a straightforward list of blogs and websites posting about the legal threat made against cartoonist Dave Walker by Mark Brewer to force him to take down his reporting and comment about the SPCK bookshop chain’s takeover and management by the Society of Saint Stephen the Great (SSG). I followed the story, and my view is that Dave has been careful almost to a fault to stay the right side of the “defamation” line; I would happily repost everything here.

But this list is not primarily about taking a view of the SPCK/SSG “affair”; it is about the right to discuss it in public and not have anyone try and close down debate by having (or claiming to have) access to a bigger legal bludgeon. The list is articles I am aware of that have been posted; they are listed in the order I found them.

Cartoon: Lingamish

If you would like to be added to it, please email me at mattwardman at gmail dot com using the subject line “My Name is Dave Walker” with the complete webaddress of the article you have posted, and who you are. Or make a comment here.

There’s a new Libel threat to close down Yet another Blogger.

Of all people Dave Walker - the Artist in Residence at the Lambeth Conference - has been sent a cease and desist letter at half-a-day’s notice to take down all posts (75+) relating to the reporting of the new management of the SPCK bookshop chain SPCK bookshop chain by the Society of St Stephen the Great, which he has been covering for 2 years.

Dave has been keeping a close eye on all of this, and providing a forum for people to share news about the chain. He has been told he’ll be sued unless all SPCK posts are removed from his website.

This does not seem like a good way to do it quietly - The Lambeth Conference is crawling with Journalists looking for “different” stories.

We have another blogosphere Libel Action. More details later.

Dave Walker, the official Lambeth Conference Cartoonist in Residence, has taken 75 posts down on his blog after being threatened with Libel Action by the new owner of SPCK - the oldest chain of Anglican Bookshops. He has been reporting the story of alleged mismanagement for two years.

Already there are a lot Industrial Tribunals from ex-employees, among other things.

A blog I picked up via Ian Whickham at Question That, which has a name every bit as good as the Harry’s Place slogan:

Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.

This is Underdogs Bite Upwards.

And relax…
Finally summer is upon us and that can only mean one thing – our MPs are off on their holidays. Gordon is off to Southwold in Suffolk while Alastair Darling is off to the Outer Hebrides – I know! What is wrong with these two? At least Dominic Grieve isn’t trying to be all [...]

Yesterday (21st July) in the Independent Media Section, Claire Beale was very enthusiastic about an advert designed by Ogilvy.

In the Best in Show section of her Advertising Page, she included:

• The standard presentation of four screenshots in the printed Media Section of the paper.
• Instructions on how to find it, including details of the exact search to use on Youtube.

The article does not include a clickable link within the web page on the Independent website.

I’m taking an interest because the video has had a relatively small number of views, so it is an opportunity to examine the statistics in a bit more detail than we usually see.