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
