In my formative years, anything prefixed with ‘super’ was instantly a whole world of awesome.
Superman: a building leaper of such awesomeness, he makes ‘parkour’ specialists look like arthritic Daleks. Super Mario Bros: ape-fighting Italian plumbers with porn star moustaches and a knack for rescuing princesses – the epitome of ‘super’. Superfly Guy: S-Xpress’s banging follow-up tune to the equally fantastic, though less impressively-titled Theme from S-Xpress.
It took a first morsel from a packet of Super Noodles – a taste experience not dissimilar to licking a lamppost – to make clear that being ‘super’ wasn’t always a good thing.
The advent of ‘super-injunctions’ reduced further the inspirational power of the prefix unless, of course, you’re the type of person eagerly awaiting the first cinematic outing of ‘Quantitative Easing Man.’
Nevertheless, they are increasingly prevalent, and providing a new challenge for an embattled news media.
Like quantitative easing, a super-injunction is an almost impenetrable concept: in simplified terms, it’s like a series of legal obstructions deployed by wealthy individuals or institutions, constructed in the form of a Russian folk doll.
The practice first reached wider attention through media coverage of the Trafigura episode: the oil trading business used a super-injunction to prevent journalists from even writing about the existence of a prior injunction which had gagged them. Social media eventually helped bring the underlying story (alleged toxic waste dumping) to light, but the power of such legal chicanery was plain to see.
Similar super-injunctions have been employed since with varying degrees of press coverage: one involving someone who may or may not have been a former bank boss springs to mind. Naturally, there are others that have attracted no attention whatsoever which, presumably, we have to describe as being ‘the successful ones’.
Super-injunctions make the job of an investigative journalist a darn sight more difficult. Potential stories that may have been in the public interest could be suppressed not by nifty public relations, nor by the legal restraints already in place for the journalistic profession – instead, those with the financial wherewithal to employ expensive representation can simply nullify any debate. The threat of imprisonment just for referring to an element of a possible news story provides a further disincentive for a journalist.
The combination of wealth, restricted freedom of information, and insinuations of cover-ups has given super-injunctions a bad name. They are perceived as something that has to be acted upon.
John Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley responsible for exposing the afore-mentioned banker/non-banker injunction, this week launched a personal inquiry into the severe and questionable nature of super-injunctions (as an aside, Hemming joins phone hacking campaigner Tom Watson MP in tackling iniquities affecting the media world – it’s quite exciting to see our local MPs spearheading campaigns of such national significance).
Super-injunctions, therefore, aren’t getting the best press at the moment. Especially if the press you’re reading is tabloid sized (present company excepted, naturally).
For UK tabloids with a greater reliance on prurient scandal to boost circulation, super-injunctions are about as welcome as an invitation to pick up the bar tab at William and Kate’s wedding reception. Last weekend was a case in point, as Imogen Thomas and Helen Wood featured prominently on the nation’s newsstands. Both have allegedly slept with famous married men, but legal manoeuvres have prevented identity-leakage of these dastardly bounders.
It’s important to note that neither item of gossip involved super-injunctions.
These papers have cannily associated such gagging orders with discussion on super-injunctions, occasionally within the same news story.
As super-injunctions are seen as a blight on press freedom, the term is being bandied about freely in the tabloid media. It’s not quite right though. The media remains free to speculate about the nature of the alleged slap ‘n tickle – they’re currently just not allowed to name names.
It’s misleading.
That’s not all. Fears over the power of super-injunctions are linked to a potential for miscarriages of justice, or to journalists facing the threat of imprisonment for revealing criminal practice. The fears are not really about whether naughty Mr X was pleasured by saucy Ms Y. It’s hard to swallow tabloid suggestions that gagging orders used by celebrities protecting their privacy are the equal of draconian measures employed to hide corporate wrongdoing.
One could further argue that the tabloids would be wise not to get too bogged down in this area of privacy law – there’s certainly one Sunday newspaper that must be getting sick of seeing the blues and twos parking up outside its reception…
Hopefully, the thigh-rubbing elements of the UK’s media won’t skew the growing debate on super-injunctions. It’s an issue that appears to be troubling the legal profession: Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, is chairing a committee on the matter and is due to report before Easter.
John Hemming has already brought to light the pressures these injunctions may have on our political representatives (MPs have the Parliamentary privilege to refer to certain details within a super-injunction – for now). The PR profession will have its own thoughts on the usage of such legal obstacles: in terms of corporate crisis management, a super-injunction sounds like a real labour-saver, but as was seen with Trafigura, attempts to circumvent such an injunction can provide a far bigger public relations challenge.
However, it’s the media itself that will face the biggest challenge, which isn’t helpful as the industry has enough on its plate at the moment with falling advertising revenues, social media muscling in on its territory, phone hacking scandals… basically, the media’s in need of someone who can pull them out of this kerfuffle. Y’know, some kind of hero. What about Super… actually, perhaps we’ll pass on that one.
* Keith Gabriel is a Birmingham-based PR account manager. Any views expressed are his own and do not represent his employers
