I was listening to a phone in program last night and the listener that came on was having a real go at a politician. He was calling him all the nasty names ever invented. It made me wonder what the law is when this happens. Is the radio station liable or the presenter or the contributor?
I will preface this by saying that I am not a lawyer or in the legal profession in any way but I did a bit of digging around and came up with some aspects of the law in the UK but I recommend that you get some real legal advice.
Firstly the listener who rings in and contributes probably has no idea of the law of defamation, libel, slander or contempt in any respect whatsoever and probably does not even care. So it must come down to the radio station to make sure that the producer and the presenter of any show where the general public is invited to take part, need to have an excellent knowledge of those aspects of the law.
The producer needs to screen the people coming on and stop them appearing if they are sure that they are going to say defamatory things. The presenter needs to be ready at all times to interrupt a conversation or cut it off completely if the danger line is being crossed.
Libel really seems to have no exact defintion and the court often has to decide whether a comment is libellous or not. Having said that a general description might be that is something is said that harms the reputation of someone either in a personal or business area it could be libellous. If it is true and the person has sufficient evidence to stand up in court and prove prove that, it is not libellous.
One particular tricky area is in the consumer programs that I love to listem to. Someone has been sold something that does not work and the shop will not replace it or give the money back. The person comes on and says something like “that shop is useless, it should be shut down”.
It would appear that, in these circumstances, as long as the program offer the shop the opportunity to come on and state their case, nothing is likely to follow from the call.
Finally, if it is decided that a defamatory statement has been made, it is the radio station that is liable. They are the entity which actually published the words.
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