PRESS GANG

THE JOURNALIST John Ware has issued a writ for libel against Press Gang editor Paddy French.

Ware seeks £50,000 in damages.

Press Gang is contesting the action and has instructed solicitors to act for Paddy French.

The case will now go to court.

Ware’s action concerns the Press Gang pamphlet “Is The BBC Anti-Labour? — Panorama’s Biased Anti-Semitism Reporting: A Case To Answer” published last December.

This was a critical analysis of last July’s Panorama programme “Is Labour Anti-Semitic?”

John Ware was the reporter and presenter.

Labour called the broadcast an “authored polemic” by Ware and “an overtly one-sided intervention in political controversy by the BBC”.

The Corporation hit back: “the BBC stands by its journalism … we completely reject any accusations of bias or dishonesty”.

The Press Gang pamphlet came down on the side of Labour and was critical of John Ware.

Ware called our report “seriously defamatory”.

Press Gang has instructed the London solicitors Bindmans.

A crowdfunded appeal has been launched to help pay the legal costs of the action.

So far, more than 260 backers have donated over £8,000 to this fighting fund.

The link is here.

UPDATE 1

The fighting fund has reached £26,000 from more than 900 supporters.

The target is £100,000.

There will be a preliminary hearing in the next couple of months.

UPDATE 2

The preliminary hearing will take place on 18 February 2021.

This will be a half day session after which the judge will decide if the case should go to full trial.

Tags: Anti-Semitism, BBC, John Ware, Labour Party, Paddy French, Panorama

This entry was posted on July 6, 2020 at 11:56 am and is filed under BBC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.