No offence (4)

Confirmation has appeared here over the past two days, if I needed it, that lots of people do not really believe in free speech.

Why trouble the courts?
Picture: mcdowell

Richard of Orléans will forgive the thought that he would not be everyone's choice to lecture on the importance of expressing opinions without the least hint of rudeness.

No, I have not seen the Irish News article in full. I gave the flavour of it, as best I could from perusal of news reports (using sources I regard as usually dependable), and made it clear that the review contained further criticisms.

I do not even know if the article can be viewed on any news databases, given that it led to a libel action and newspaper librarians tend to get jumpy in such circumstances. Added point: you can read more about this in Roy Greenslade's blog at the Guardian Media website.

But my argument did not rest on the precise nature of the criticism. I was more concerned with the principle.

Take away a critic's right to criticise and you may as well empty whole shelves of public libraries, forbid serious discussion of any artistic, sporting or other human endeavour and ban Simon Cowell from the air. Well, maybe the last reference wasn't my strongest point.

The blogosphere seems, at first thought, an odd place for people to be applauding ferocious penalties for those who express views they find unpalatable.

But when you study some of the more obscene libel awards made particularly but not always by juries, it is not so surprising after all.

Since Britain, I am pleased to say, is still a newspaper reading country, many of the jurors taking part in the exercise are likely themselves to be avid consumers of the press.

Bill Taylor refers to critics on major Canadian papers (this is an amended reference; see my comment) making repeat visits before a stridently critical restaurant view appears and this seems eminently sensible and fair.

The fact that it would still not be enough for some, more concerned with clipping the wings of journalists, rather supports the opening lines of this post.

No offence (3)

On a chilly evening in Le Lavandou, we dined alone at L'Auberge Provençale. There were no other customers, the empty tables making a mockery of the owners’ efforts to create a bright, welcoming ambiance.

Voltaire: Ulster needs you
Picture: Jaime2k6.

The meal – we both chose from a set menu, with rougets as starter followed by magret de canard – was simple but excellent, with a pleasant bottle of Provençal red, from the Domaine de l'Angueiroun just three miles away, to accompany it.

Every attempt was made to make us feel comfortable; the first question when we booked was whether we’d like to sit by the log fire. The bill – 79 euros, which also included a bottle of Evian and a shared dessert – was reasonable enough to send us away satisfied that we'd had value for money.

The owners would be pleased with the above words. If this blog were widely read in Le Lavandou, they might even print them out and stick them on the wall, though it would mar the decor.

But what if our experience of L'Auberge Provençale hadn’t seemed so good? What if the mullet had tasted rubbery and the duck slices been so hard you could have bounced them on the table, unconcerned about the risk of knocking over the wine bottle, so awful were its contents?

Would I be as entitled to say as much, in a newspaper or magazine or on line, as I clearly was to report more favourably?

Does anyone seriously believe the answer to that question is other than Yes?

Sadly, a jury of good men (and women) and true in Northern Ireland saw things a little differently. They have just awarded £25,000 in damages, plus m’learned friends’ costs, against the Irish News after a restaurateur complained that a review was defamatory, damaging and hurtful.

The Irish News, in my experience, is a decent daily paper. It is traditionally read by Ulster's nationalist population but is unrecognisable from the days when death notices for terrorists would be enclosed within thick black borders and few Protestants would think of buying a copy.

Its food critic, Caroline Workman, sounds as if she is something of an authority in her field, having had some training in London restaurants and edited the Bridgestone restaurant guide.

She described her visit with friends to the west Belfast pizzeria as "hugely disappointing". The pate did not have much flavour, the flesh of her squid was a grey, translucent colour and her cola drink tasted unchilled, watery and flat.

There was plenty more she did not like about the meal and her rating, one mark out of five, was said to translate as "Stay at home".

The restaurateur considered the review a "hatchet job" and warmly greeted the jury's verdict as evidence that justice had been done.

On the face of it, the verdict is no such thing.

For all I know, there may be no finer place to eat in Ulster than this pizzeria, whatever the reviewer felt.

Nor do I especially blame people for taking advantage of libel laws that are loaded so heavily against the press. Declaring what others might see as an interest, I should add that another Ulster jury did once award damages against my then employers over an article I had written.

The story is told so as to demonstrate that the human desire to censor is not restricted to Muslims who resort to French law in the hope of punishing a magazine for publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

That case should never have been allowed inside a courtroom. At least it now stands a good chance of being thrown out, after the prosecutor argued for the dismissal of criminal charges.

But what conclusion should we draw from the case of the pizzeria and the scathing food critic?

If we accept that Ms Workman is telling the truth when she says the review represented her honest opinion, the logic of the outcome is plain: only a dishonest opinion or none at all would have been acceptable in the eyes of Northern Irish justice. And that seems unacceptable in any part of the world that regards itself as a democracy.