When Gina Ford instructed her solicitors to send a letter to the ISP hosting mumsnet, threatening to sue them for libel if they didn’t cease hosting the community site for moms and expectant moms, she probably had no idea how much attention it would get in the newspapers. The story even made the news in Qatar. And let’s not underestimate the power of blog posts and digg votes.
In fact, coverage of the story is going ballistic.
Like thousands of others, I’d never heard until Ford or her sometimes controversial parenting books until yesterday when I heard about the predicament mumsnet found itself in. Now her name has been in every major UK newspaper website and the story has reportedly run on Channel 4 News (TV), LBC Radio, BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine, the ITV lunchtime news (and now on their website), BBC1 News (video). I’ve also heard that it was mentioned on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and may appear on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour at lunchtime.
…and I was just interviewed by BBC 5Live’s Victoria Derbyshire (using the listen again feature for Tuesday, I was on at 11.25am for seven minutes).
(Update 19 September: I have removed a link to the page at http://www.badmothersclub.co.uk/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=302&id=66633&last=0 from this post after concerns about the accuracy of information held on that page were brought to my attention. I cannot confirm what the contents were because the page has itself been removed.)
There was a lengthy report on the BBC News at One as well, with Sophie talking to a media lawyer about it all – however his basic point was that Gina was within her rights as the web is treated like TV and the newspaper as far as libel is concerned
Thanks for the comment Martin. I posted up a paper I wrote on internet libel and would welcome any comments you might have on it. Have a look at https://www.cybersoc.com/2006/08/user_generated__1.html
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