Public Interest Defence Essay

The public interest defence was created by the deformation act 2013, to protect defamatory material. The concept of public interest can be a vague term. What one might consider public interest someone else may not? For example, some people believe celebrity gossip is the public interest. The public recognises the term public interest and it is used as a defence for media intrusions of privacy. Everyone has the right to privacy, but sometimes this is not the case. Depending on the person or the organisation this can be invaded depending on the degree of the public interest. In order for something to be in the public interest, the subject has to be of interest for a collective amount of people not just for an individual. The breaches of exposing privacy would be exempt if it was to be to expose crime if an investigator was to breach someone’s privacy but they were exposing crime, which would be of public interest, and then this would be acceptable. Protecting the public health or safety of the public is also an exception, protecting the public from being misled. Also disclosing someone’s failure or likely failure by any obligation they have. In order for these reasons to become except the publication will need to justify why this would

The Leveson inquiry practices ethics of the media; they made a set of recommendations so the same thing will not happen again. The inquiry was set up as a result of the mobile phone hacking scandal of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler. The lawyer of the Dowler family describes the Leveson inquiry as a “game changer.” Many agree that there is the difference between the right to privacy and the right to a freedom of expression, but the difference of opinions is with the term public interest. The Leveson inquiry aim is to have ethical standards while having the freedom of the