I briefly commented about the Trafigura/Guardian/ Carter-Ruck fiasco in my last blog, but as part of my online course, this week’s blog is primarily about the case.
Basically, Carter-Ruck and Trafigura imposed a super injuction upon The Guardian banning them from reporting in parliament and therefore publishing a parliamentary question. The whole thing is pretty confusing so I’m going to try my best to explain it.
- Usually if a newspaper has an injunction imposed on them they are able to say that they have an injunction preventing them from commenting on a specific case. However, in this instance a super injunction was granted which meant that The Guardian was unable to even tell its readers that one had been put in place.
- To try and get around this, The Guardian asked an MP, Paul Farrelly, to raise a question concerning the reporting of an incident in which toxic waste was dumped in the Ivory Coast. In the House of Parliament anything goes and anyone can pretty much ask any question they want and this is how many newspapers get stories.
- However, the media was then banned from reporting the Parliamentary question thus making sure that the public had no idea of the goings on in the Trafigura case.
However, this all changed with the help of social networking sites. The Guardian story had only been published online for a few minutes when internet users put two and two together and came up with four. Richard Wilson, scoured the internet after hearing of the gag being placed on the paper and published the fact that he thought it related to Farrelly’s question about Trafigura. Within a matter of hours, the three trending topics on Twitter related to The Guardian, Trafigura or Carter-Ruck.
With the incredible backlash it received from social networking sites its no surprise that Carter-Ruck backed down and with just 90 or so minutes to go before the high profile law firm and The Guardian (backed by other national newspapers) were to go to the High Court to battle it out, Carter-Ruck caved leaving people on Twitter celebrating. Stephen Fry himself tweeted: “Can it be true? Carter-Ruck caves in! Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don’t we?”
There is no doubt that Twitter had a major part to play in Carter-Ruck’s decision to overturn the super injunction. The Twittersphere had gone absolutely crazy with people tweeting about the gag, informing others who then started searching to find out what all the fuss was over. Alan Rusbridger emphasised his belief that it was indeed those on Twitter who had helped lift the gagging order in his column even saying: “Twitter’s detractors are used to sneering that nothing of value can be said in 140 characters. My 104 characters did just fine.”
So now its the return of the Twitter trending topic bit of my blog. Todays tweets have covered several different topics from music to newspapers to hoax stories about boys being trapped 10,000 feet in the air in a balloon.
Unsurprisingly, idiot journalist Jan Moir was still a trending topic. Days after her column was published about the ‘unnatural’ elements to Stephen Gately’s death, tweeters are still seething – myself included. The PCC has received 21,000 complaints, a record number, forcing Moir to issue a feeble apology in which she failed to say sorry for any distress caused to Stephen’s partner, family and friends. The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker then waded into the debate (and rightly so) publishing an article online in response to Moir’s column with celebrities such as Stephen Fry praising him for doing so.
Another trending topic was Cheryl Cole, following her LIVE performance on The X Factor on Sunday night (which was swiftly followed by a hideous performance by Whitney Houston). Cole performed her new single Fight For This Love and despite controversy over whether she was singing live or not she managed to pull it off, with a record number of people tuning in to watch. 15 million people watched Mrs Cole strutting her stuff, beating the previous record of 14.6 million viewers who tuned into watch Alexandra Burke being crowned X Factor winner 2008. Whether they loved it or hated it tweeters have been talking about it since Sunday evening making it a trending topic.
Rihanna has found herself in the firing line after releasing a luke-warm track which is unlikely to win over many of her fans. The single, entitled Russian Roulette, is a far cry from her other extremely popular singles and has earned her the top two trending topics for the last few hours with people offering their opinion on the track. Perez Hilton tweeted that only 23% of his readers voted in favour of Rihanna’s new track… Maybe its a grower but having listened to it a few times I don’t think so. Sorry Rihanna, you’d better hurry up and release a decent second single.
Finally, Balloon Boy has taken over the Twittersphere since his ‘adventure’ last week. Falcon Heene’s brother supposedly told his parents that he saw Falcon climbing into a homemade balloon before taking off in it, thereby turning the story into a media feeding frenzy. When the boy was later found hidding in the attic the whole thing was discovered to be a hoax. However despite this, the parents of the 6-year-old boy, Richard and Mayumi Heene, still remain adamant that they truly believed that he was in the balloon. I suggest you watch this video then make your own mind up. The couple are now facing criminal charges relating to the incident.
