The fifth episode of the CFOM podcast has just been launched on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. In this episode of the podcast, we talk to three experts about the impact that Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are having on press freedom in the United Kingdom.

SLAPPs are costly lawsuits brought by wealthy individuals or organisations – or by governments – to stop journalists from investigating stories of corruption or other wrongdoing. The idea is they intimidate journalists or impede their work to such an extent and with such heavy legal costs, that they halt their reporting. SLAPPs have gained prominent attention in the press in recent years following a number of high-profile court cases and, while these cases have been brought to public attention, there are concerns that these are just the tip of the iceberg.

In this podcast episode, we speak to: 

  • Fiona O’Brien – UK director of Reporters Without Borders 
  • Susan Coughtrie, director of the Foreign Policy Centre think tank and co-chair of the UK Anti-Slapp Coalition
  • Peter Coe – Associate Professor in Law at the University of Birmingham and a member of the Council of Europe’s Expert Committee on Slapps

We talk about the impact that SLAPPs are having on press freedom, journalists and how we can tackle them moving forwards. Click below to listen to the podcast on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Speakers

Pete Coe is an Associate Professor in Law at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, an IAS Fellow at Durham University, a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Reading, and an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and Information Law and Policy Centre, University of London. His research interests fall within the broad field of Media Law. In 2022 he was appointed by the Council of Europe as an independent member of the Council’s Expert Committee on SLAPPs. As a member of the Committee, he contributed to the recently approved Recommendation on countering the use of SLAPPs. Additionally, his work on citizen journalism, press freedom and regulation led to him being invited to join the Impress Code Committee to support its review of its Standards Code for journalists, and between October 2021 and January 2022 he was engaged by Impress to draft its new Standards Code. During 2021-2022, upon invitation from the International Academy of Comparative Law and British Association of Comparative Law, Pete acted as the UK’s National Rapporteur on Freedom of Speech and the Regulation of Fake News. As well as publishing in leading journals, Pete’s monograph, Media Freedom in the Age of Citizen Journalism, was published by Edward Elgar in 2021. He is the co-editor, with Professor Paul Wragg, of Landmark Cases in Privacy Law, which was published by Hart in 2023, and the co-author, with Rebecca Moosavian, of Principles of Defamation Law, which will be published by Edward Elgar in 2025.

Susan Coughtrie has been the Director of the Foreign Policy Centre, an international affairs think tank, since January 2023. Susan joined FPC in 2020 to lead the Unsafe for Scrutiny project, which examines risks and threats to journalists investigating financial crime and corruption. The findings of this research led Susan to co-found the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition in January 2021, which she continues to co-chair. Susan is also a member of the UK Government SLAPPs Taskforce. Susan has previously undertaken a variety of consultancy work in the media sphere, having previously worked at the international free expression organisation ARTICLE 19 from 2012-2018, and as an advisor to the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) from 2019-2022.

Fiona O’Brien is the UK Director for Reporters Without Borders, known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF), which works for the freedom, pluralism and independence of the press. She was previously a foreign correspondent in Africa and the Middle East, and course director of the MA in Journalism at Kingston University.