Was LM bullied into oblivion.

Abstract

The LM libel case in which ITN successfully sued the left-wing magazine ended in March, with LM ordered to pay £375,000 in damages. The result has been to farce the magazine into closure. The case raised some fundamental issues about press freedom, reporting methods, the role of a magazine like LM, F.nglish libel law and, indeed, the nature of modern journalism.British Journalism Review belie11es the case is of such importance that we in11ited the two main contestants to put their case. MICK HUME, &Jitor of LM, and RICHARD TAIT, &Jitor-in-Chief of ITN present their arguments:Was LM bullied into oblivion ... LM magazine closed in April, after the High Court awarded ITN and two reporters a total of £375,000 in libel damages over an article we published in 1997 about their famous pictures of an emaciated Bosnian Muslim and a barbed wire fence at the Bosnian Serb-run Trnopolje camp. The verdict was bad news for me, as LM editor, for the magazine's co-publishers Helene Guldberg and Claire Fox, for all of LM's friends -and for everybody else