Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 43


     
     1             of observation by  the readers of the newspaper.
     2               As I pointed out during the argument, we have
     3             frequently in the Court, when dealing with
     4             revenue cases, to decide the very difficult
     5             quest5ion whether a particular profit or gain is
     6             to be considered income so as to attract tax, or
     7             is a capital increment.  I have never known the
     8             Daily Herald or any other daily newspaper, if
     9             some person has falsely stated that to be
    10             capital which has turned out ultimately to be
    11             income, to honour that  state of things by a
    12             statement in large letters in italics: 'False
    13             return to the Income Tax Authorities'.
    14             I think one is entitled to have regard to the
    15             mode and occasion of the publication and to say
    16             that a jury might come to the conclusion that
    17             these words were defamatory in their ordinary
    18             and natural meaning, having regard to the place
    19             in which they appear in this paper and having
    20             regard to the fact that the word 'false' is
    21             ambiguous and, if not in its primary meaning,
    22             that it may at least connote something of a
    23             fraudulent nature."
    24
    25        Can I say then at this stage, because it may be convenient,
    26        a few words about context and, in particular, about
    27        headlines.  Charleston makes clear that there may be cases
    28        in which the sting, the defamatory effect of a headline may
    29        be neutralised by the text, because when you put the two
    30        together it becomes apparent that the headline cannot mean,
    31        does not mean what, taken in isolation, it might otherwise
    32        be thought to mean.
    33
    34        What I take from Charleston, however, is really this, that
    35        there is a rule of law that you are not entitled to read
    36        either text or headline in isolation from the other.
    37
    38        In fact, of course, in most cases -- and we do argue this
    39        is one of them -- headline and text are not contradictory
    40        of each other at all, but complementary.  They usually
    41        combine to give the reader a single meaning.  The reader
    42        will assume in the generality of the cases, and certainly
    43        in this case, that the headline is the publisher's summary
    44        or interpretation of what the reader is going to find in
    45        the text.
    46
    47        It does happen from time to time, as it obviously did in
    48        Charleston, that the sub-editor of a newspaper will put a
    49        headline on an article which actually misrepresents the
    50        effect of the article, the effect of the text; and that is 
    51        plain what had happened in Charleston, so that when the two 
    52        are read together, one finds that they are contradictory. 
    53
    54        It may also happen -- though we do not believe this is such
    55        a case -- that the text is somewhat Delphic or opaque.
    56        I gave an example this morning of one of those rather
    57        difficult articles in a serious Sunday newspapers; one has
    58        to puzzle out, perhaps by reading it twice, what it is one
    59        is actually being told.  In those cases, the headline will
    60        often be an aid to interpretation to enlighten or for

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