Glasgow socialist MP Tommy Sheridan and his wife Gail Sheridan appeared on the screen at the Society of Editors conference. And BBC Scotland lawyer Alistair Bonnington had some theories about why the politician was successful in his libel action against the News of the World, writes Stephen Brook.
On video, we witnessed scenes from outside court during Sheridan's case against the paper, which he famously won, being awarded £200,000 in damages by the jury. "Eighteen witnesses gave evidence for the News of the World but the jury gave Sheridan the full amount that he claimed," said Bonnington.
In an attempt to explain, Bonnington recounted a phrase often invoked in Scottish criminal lawyer circles about the calibre of witnesses in many a trial. Lawyers frequently labelled them "poofs, whores and comic singers. The group that appeared on behalf of the News of the World, couldn't help but remind me of that phrase."
Bonnington said that Scottish juries, like English juries, do not like tabloid newspapers. "They may buy them, but they don't like them when they see them up close." He then criticised Scottish newspaper groups for their lack of willingness to fight court gagging orders.
"The fact is we are the only people that go down and object, the newspapers hardly ever join in. Please, would you join us, because it's a lonely job."
Bonnington had a very clear view that the public likes privacy. "The public don't really continuously want to know who is shagging whom."
And what about papers that make their livelihoods from such stories? "I think that is coming to an end."
Kevin Dunion, the Scottish Information Commissioner, says that the way that freedom of information use is changing and he gave an insight into his thinking in several key FOI cases in Scotland. The police force argued Land Rover would cancel all its contracts with emergency services if its contract with the police commissioner over the cost of his Land Rover was released. Dunion ordered the release of the data and most newspapers reported that the police commissioner landed a good deal.
Much more difficult was whether to release mortality rates for Scottish surgeons. Dunion felt that the information was professional information not personal. But he realised that interpretation of the information could be damaging if newspapers ran league tables about operations, particularly if surgeons would decline to take on dangerous operations. "You cannot blithely ignore that," Dunion said.
He released the information, with a warning against newspapers drawing inappropriate conclusions from the data. Not a single Scottish newspaper published a league table or ran a headline about the worst surgeon in Scotland. "The concerns were not ill-founded but were shown not to be borne out in practice," said Dunion.
Press Complaints Commission chairman Sir Christopher Meyer, said that he doubted that the government will ever introduce a privacy law, reminding us that a draft white paper for a privacy law had been written during John Major's premiership, when Meyer was press secretary.
It died a death because no-one could adequately define privacy and the Lord Chancellor's department refused to fund legal aid for people wanting to bring privacy cases.
"The likelihood of any government going down that path is remote indeed," said Meyer. But he warned that the legal situation on privacy was "chaotic". "Maybe the only coherent body of jurisprudence on privacy is the PCC," he said.
He then warned the media that it had to make self regulation on privacy work because the alternative could be far worse. "It is beholden on journalists not to act in a way that makes the PCC look toothless," Meyer said. "If we leave a vacuum there, nature abhors a vacuum, God knows what will move in there." European Union regulation was a possibility, he warned.
