LM v ITN

'ITN is suing Living Marxism magazine over its publication of the article by Thomas Deichmann about ITN's Bosnia reporting ('The Picture That Fooled the World, LM97, February 1997)...A major news broadcaster is using libel laws to thwart an open press and this has serious implications for journalists. The days of Robert Maxwell seem to be with us again....We encourage all journalists to support LM against the libel writ and defend a free press and open debate.'

Tessa Mayes, Noam Chomsky. Phillip Knightley, Roy Greenslade, Auberon Waugh, Charlotte Raven, Tim Gopsill, Geoffrey Goodman, Toby Young, Cosmo Landesman, Vanessa Thorpe, SJ Taylor, Linda Melvern, David Monaghan, Gavin Hills and David Northmore, letter to the Spectator, 3 May 1997

'it is a shame [ITN] did not choose to seek redress against Living Marxism in a television confrontation - on BBC, say - rather than issuing writs and apparently silencing discussion of a complex situation.'

Harold Evans, former editor of the Times and Sunday Times, quoted in the Guardian, 28 May 1997

'But the ITN writ has effectively silenced the debate raised by the article....NUJ Deputy General Secretary Jake Ecclestone commented: "I don't know the truth of the allegation, but I do think journalists might be humble enough to admit they might be wrong, and discuss it sensibly rather than hysterically."'

Tim Gopsill (editor), The Journalist, May/June 1997

'Sadly, the supporters of Living Marxism's attack on Penny Marshall and Ian Williams (the two reporters who were first into the camps) offer no sympathy to them. They seem damned because they work for a large news organisation. How much better, in the "giant versus dwarf" debate, if Marshall and Williams were to fund the whole case themselves and present it as two principled journalists harassed by a relatively affluent group whose heroes range from Saddam Hussein to Neil Hamilton.'

Richard Tait, ITN editor-in-chief, 'We did not fool the world', Spectator 24 May 1997

'Even in our victim-obsessed age, Richard Tait's claim that his people at poor little ITN (revenues £88m a year) are being "harassed" by the "relatively affluent" Living Marxism (£2.50 a month) is an exceptionally pathetic plea for martyrdom. Presumably the libel writs and gagging orders which I have received from ITN's lawyers Biddle and Co (well-known champions of the poor and oppressed) are Tait's idea of counselling for bullies.'