Comments on: Embargo: Yes or No?

By: Lex Ferenda » Better to fade away than to burn out?

Lex Ferenda » Better to fade away than to burn out? — Mon, 28 May 2007 18:59:00 +0000

[...] a perverse glee in ‘getting around’ publication bans (a fun and less serious example is early publication of Canadian electoral results, as discussed before - or indeed the great Irish one of finding a drink on Good Friday) so that has [...]

By: skdadl

skdadl — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:43:54 +0000

Forgive me for not having read the decision yet, Daithi, but from the summary, I still find it difficult to imagine how effective such regulation can be in the future. Mainstream publications will probably need to be careful, but think of the vast numbers now loose on the forums and the blogs. Sure, most blogs have modest little readerships, but we have seen that around specific issues (the Libby trial, eg), suddenly everyone knows where to go all at once, and I should think we’ll be seeing that phenom more and more. And no, most bloggers aren’t ambitious enough to pull together the full list of results — but a few will be.

The situation isn’t as bad as it once was because we have some staggered opening and closing hours now, I believe, although as you say it’s hard to do that neatly across so many time zones.

I don’t think I’m bothered by the decision (Fish sounds so Canadian, doesn’t he?) — I just can’t quite grasp how it will work for long.

By: Daithí

Daithí — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:07:23 +0000

If you want a reason to dislike Abella (whose views I don’t know that well; perhaps you could fill us in on what she’s done wrong?), you could try (para 130): “Similarly, Atlantic Canadians who rely on the Internet as their primary source of news are denied any election news from their medium of choice since the transmission of election results over the Internet is prohibited until the end of the blackout.”

I don’t understand this at all. Atlantic Canadians have always been denied this news through radio or TV, so why does the fact that some of them choose the Internet change the issue? The Internet-reading Haligonian is treated the exact same as the CBC-watching Newfie. Surely the law is either justified or not? She is appealing to technology as a reason but I don’t get how choosing to use the Internet changes the ‘rights’ of the end user.

By: Eoin

Eoin — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:59:28 +0000

See also Michael Geist, who has a wonderful coda, from Abella J’s dissent. He says that her most:
“telling quote, however, is the following from a Reform MP in 1996:

It is important to realize, and anybody who looks at the transcripts of the committee will see that no convincing evidence was provided to the committee that this is creating a serious problem in the functioning of our democracy. . . I asked the various witnesses whether there was any documented evidence or any serious academic study on whether knowing the results in other parts of the country had either of two effects: caused people not to vote or it caused them to vote differently than they would vote otherwise. There is precious little evidence that either of these things are true.

The MP was Stephen Harper.”

I suppose this means I’m going to have to start agreeing with Abella J. Bother. I have heretofore found that an almost unerring means to orient myself in Canadian jurisprudence was to disagree with her. Or, this might just be a statistical anomaly. I shall content myself with that thought for the time being, and continue to observe her decisions.