Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 21
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2 MR. MORRIS: I have nearly finished on the context. What I was
3 trying to say is that, if we take the "McGarbage" symbol at
4 the top, the Plaintiffs are going to say: "Oh, it is not
5 what the leaflet says", the fact of whether tons of their
6 packaging ends up littering the cities of developed
7 countries, that what it really must mean is that McDonald's
8 deliberately do it and throw it all around, because the
9 heading, you know, if it relates to that section, implies
10 that it is the kind of deliberate, fundamental purpose of
11 the corporation to create environment/index.html">litter. It just becomes a kind
12 of dangerous exercise. What the Plaintiffs are doing, what
13 I would like to say, is a dangerous exercise in terms of
14 the chilling effect on freedom of speech, to pick out
15 headings or cartoons which are clearly journalistic tools,
16 as I have said, hyperbole or satire or eye catching tools,
17 and then try to use those to elevate something that is not
18 defamatory -- clearly not defamatory -- to elevate it into
19 something which they would argue is defamatory. So I think
20 it is a slippery slope in this case, and probably
21 elsewhere.
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23 If I can just finally give a couple of examples, before we
24 go back to Helen's argument. Another of the cartoons which
25 was shown, which was disclosed, had a figure of someone
26 about to crush people protected by the minimum wage; and,
27 in the text of the article, the only organisation that
28 seems to be identified with that figure is in the first
29 column: "Tomorrow the CBI will reaffirm its opposition to
30 the minimum wage"; and that is about an inch and a half
31 down that first column. If I was a CBI, I could say, well,
32 that clearly means that CBI, you know, want to crush people
33 to death. Again, that is just a satirical tool to attract
34 people to an article, and it is up to them to read the
35 article to find out what the actual issues are about.
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37 Probably half the cartoons in the national press have the
38 same potential. There are a couple of other... (Pause)
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40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Why do you not let Ms. Steel resume, and if
41 you remember your extra points you can pick them up later.
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43 MR. MORRIS: It is just that there was -- if I may show this
44 rather than disclose it -- there was a heading in The Times
45 of 27th October 1995, which I think was just before the
46 last hearing we had on this issue -- I was going to bring
47 it up -- "Cashing in on sick children", about newspapers
48 paying money for the story of a girl who needed specialist
49 treatment; just as a general point about, people are
50 expected to read the text to find out what the issues are.
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52 My last point I was going to make was the famous "Smoking
53 causes heart disease", in this case, which -- I cannot
54 remember what company this is -- Silk Cut. It does not
55 really matter, except that Silk Cut is being accused of
56 causing heart disease. The point is, it is fair comment to
57 link even a particular company (as this does) with a
58 disease, because it is part of the general problem of
59 people smoking too much; and I have just changed it
60 to "eating junk food causes heart disease". That is
