Spring in London, 25th May 1895 and there’s still a whole summer to look forward to; but for the flamboyant Oscar, an important verdict is about to be announced. 87 years later, in 1982, an ageing ex-MI6 spy named Graham puts the finishing touches to his latest work. Nearly Christmas in 2006, and the editor of the The New Republic picks up Michael Crichton’s next book – imaginatively titled, ‘Next’. And in April 2008, The Guardian publishes one of the most important articles on chiropracty ever (have there been any others?).
Simon Singh’s article published in The Guardian on 19th April 2008 as an extension to his recently published book “Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial”, stated, “This organisation [British Chiropractic Organisation] is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments [referencing that the association claims their members can help treat children with problems such as asthma and colic]." The comment resulted in Singh being sued for libel, a case which he has lost (although there is still the appeal).
The comment on the bogusness of chiropractors really isn’t much to make a fuss about. The people who believe in Alternative Medicine (alt-med) believe in it because of faith (leading to the placebo effect), not because of evidence. That’s the whole point about alt-med. If it worked (above and beyond that of a placebo) it would have lost the prefix. However, this debate should be left for Ben Goldacre (please check out his book ‘Bad Science’ and his Blog of the same name, a trillion times better than this one – www.badscience.net). But what about the end result, the following libel case and the loss thereof for Mr Singh?
Problems for author’s with the nuances of the libel laws have existed for some time. In 1895, Lord Alfred Douglas, also known as Bosie (God knows why), was in a relationship with a certain genius male author called Oscar Wilde – then at the height of his career. The Lord’s father, a Marquess no less who was pretty angry about the whole thing, left an obscene message at Oscar’s club accusing him of homosexuality. Oscar sued the Marquess for libel and during the case, Oscar’s penchant for rent boy’s came out, and Oscar was subsequently sentenced to 2 years hard labour.
In 1982, ex-MI6 spy and legendary novelist Graham Greene published a pamphlet entitled, J’Accuse – The Dark Side of Nice, about corruption in the higher echelons of Nice’s civil government. It resulted in a libel case which Greene lost. However, although Greene never got to see it, Jacques Medécin (the ex-mayor of Nice) got his comeuppance. In 1994, he was convicted of several counts of corruption and associated crimes and sentenced to prison.
More recently, in 2006, Michael Crowley wrote an article which criticised Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear. Subsequently, never to rise to provocation, Crichton added a character to his next book (‘Next’), called Mick Crowley – a child molester with a small penis (I kid you not). I can’t find reference to a subsequent libel case but all it really achieved for Crichton was to bring more attention to the original article written by Crowley – and the subsequent article by Crowley where he described the “literary hit-and-run”.
Crichton used a weapon to hide his defamation, one of the few in the writer’s arsenal if he really wishes to make a ludicrous statement obvious to the reader. It was first detailed in The New York Times in 1998 and is known as the ‘small penis rule’. That being that it discourages lawsuits. If you use a character to defame a real life person, and then give that person a small penis, no male is going to come forward and say, “That’s me”!
In all of these cases, the simple fact is that one side is always lying, and it isn’t always the same side. The media are just as guilty at cooking up crap as alt-meds are at cooking up evidence. If we want freedom of speech, we should respect it not abuse it. And if you want privacy, try not to sleep with five prostitutes in black leather outfits where people can photograph you.
Of course, the best position to be in of all is that of the winner – and that doesn’t always involve a lawsuit. As Crowley put it; “let me suppose a corollary to the small penis rule. Call it the small man rule: If someone offers substantive criticism of an author and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he’s conceding that the critic has won.”
Well said; small dick.
[Sign up to the petition to keep the libel laws out of science - go to Sense About Science]
Simon Singh’s article published in The Guardian on 19th April 2008 as an extension to his recently published book “Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial”, stated, “This organisation [British Chiropractic Organisation] is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments [referencing that the association claims their members can help treat children with problems such as asthma and colic]." The comment resulted in Singh being sued for libel, a case which he has lost (although there is still the appeal).
The comment on the bogusness of chiropractors really isn’t much to make a fuss about. The people who believe in Alternative Medicine (alt-med) believe in it because of faith (leading to the placebo effect), not because of evidence. That’s the whole point about alt-med. If it worked (above and beyond that of a placebo) it would have lost the prefix. However, this debate should be left for Ben Goldacre (please check out his book ‘Bad Science’ and his Blog of the same name, a trillion times better than this one – www.badscience.net). But what about the end result, the following libel case and the loss thereof for Mr Singh?
Problems for author’s with the nuances of the libel laws have existed for some time. In 1895, Lord Alfred Douglas, also known as Bosie (God knows why), was in a relationship with a certain genius male author called Oscar Wilde – then at the height of his career. The Lord’s father, a Marquess no less who was pretty angry about the whole thing, left an obscene message at Oscar’s club accusing him of homosexuality. Oscar sued the Marquess for libel and during the case, Oscar’s penchant for rent boy’s came out, and Oscar was subsequently sentenced to 2 years hard labour.
In 1982, ex-MI6 spy and legendary novelist Graham Greene published a pamphlet entitled, J’Accuse – The Dark Side of Nice, about corruption in the higher echelons of Nice’s civil government. It resulted in a libel case which Greene lost. However, although Greene never got to see it, Jacques Medécin (the ex-mayor of Nice) got his comeuppance. In 1994, he was convicted of several counts of corruption and associated crimes and sentenced to prison.
More recently, in 2006, Michael Crowley wrote an article which criticised Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear. Subsequently, never to rise to provocation, Crichton added a character to his next book (‘Next’), called Mick Crowley – a child molester with a small penis (I kid you not). I can’t find reference to a subsequent libel case but all it really achieved for Crichton was to bring more attention to the original article written by Crowley – and the subsequent article by Crowley where he described the “literary hit-and-run”.
Crichton used a weapon to hide his defamation, one of the few in the writer’s arsenal if he really wishes to make a ludicrous statement obvious to the reader. It was first detailed in The New York Times in 1998 and is known as the ‘small penis rule’. That being that it discourages lawsuits. If you use a character to defame a real life person, and then give that person a small penis, no male is going to come forward and say, “That’s me”!
In all of these cases, the simple fact is that one side is always lying, and it isn’t always the same side. The media are just as guilty at cooking up crap as alt-meds are at cooking up evidence. If we want freedom of speech, we should respect it not abuse it. And if you want privacy, try not to sleep with five prostitutes in black leather outfits where people can photograph you.
Of course, the best position to be in of all is that of the winner – and that doesn’t always involve a lawsuit. As Crowley put it; “let me suppose a corollary to the small penis rule. Call it the small man rule: If someone offers substantive criticism of an author and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he’s conceding that the critic has won.”
Well said; small dick.
[Sign up to the petition to keep the libel laws out of science - go to Sense About Science]
No comments:
Post a Comment