Communications Law Commons^™

The Recent Decline And Fall Of Freedom Of The Press In English Law, Vaughan T. Bevan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A television company broadcasts a program criticizing a nationalized corporation and disclosing documents passed to it secretly by one of the corporation's employees. The corporation asks the television company to reveal the identity of the employee. The television company refuses and eight of nine judges ultimately decide that the refusal is unjustified.

That, in essence, is the story of British Steel Corp. v. Granada Television, Ltd. If this situation had arisen in the United States, legal consequences probably would be unremarkable in view of the law's considerable experience with such matters. The novelty posed for English law, however, and the …