Daniel Clarke awarded The Times Newspapers and Doughty Street Chambers Media Law Fellowship
Doughty Street Chambers Barrister Daniel Clarke was recently appointed the 2018/ 2019 Times Newspapers and Doughty Street Chambers Media Law Fellow. He has spent eight weeks working with the Times Newspapers Ltd. (TNL)’s legal department, advising journalists on all aspects of media law, and working closely with the expert in-house team on cutting-edge legal issues concerning newsgathering and public interest investigative reporting, including source protection and undercover work.
The Fellowship
The Fellowship is in its third year. It is awarded to an established junior practitioner with expertise in media law. The Fellow receives an award of £15,000 and spends eight weeks working with the expert in-house legal team at TNL.
In an article in today’s Times, available here, Pia Sarma, the editorial legal director for TNL and deputy general counsel for News UK, welcomed the collaboration, saying, “It is invaluable to in house lawyers to instruct counsel and outside lawyers who understand how newspapers work. All too often barristers’ advice is dry and abstract… At TNL we have fought some tough legal battles and won, with counsel on our side but fewer junior lawyers now take the plunge and with fewer cases going to trial it is hard for them to acquire the experience. The junior lawyers we work with are the silks of the future.”
She added: “We are very grateful to Doughty Street for their generous collaboration on our scheme. Their juniors have brought fantastic skills to the newspaper’s legal team and we enjoy working with them”.
The article also quotes Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, who said: “TNL has a well-deserved reputation for pushing the law by defending its journalism. The Times and Sunday Times have won significant victories before the courts in recent years concerning their public interest investigative reporting and newsgathering, and their in-house legal team is second to none. TNL and Doughty Street Chambers worked together to create this fellowship as part of TNL’s placement scheme, designed to develop and nurture new talent in media law. Many barristers who act in media law do so exclusively, but there are huge benefits to media organisations in working with barristers with wider expertise, in areas such as inquest, criminal, employment or public law. The fellows have the opportunity to work with TNL’s legal team and talented journalists at close quarters for two months, and TNL is able to draw upon their breadth of expertise.”
The Fellowship is part of Doughty Street Chambers’ ongoing strategy to support and further develop media law expertise. You can read more about the Media, Defamation and Freedom of Expression team here and the International Media Defence panel here.
Daniel Clarke
Daniel has a particular interest in media law since he worked as a Bindmans paralegal, before coming to the Bar, on the case of Miranda v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 255 (Admin), the judicial review challenge to the lawfulness of the detention of David Miranda under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in connection with the disclosure of documents to the Guardian newspaper by Edward Snowden. Later, during his judicial assistantship at the Court of Appeal, he worked on two cases relating to proceedings for committal for contempt of court in relation to publication of information on social media: Attorney General v Harkins [2013] EWHC 1455 (Admin), relating to breach of the injunction prohibiting the revelation of the new identities of the killers of Jamie Bulger (made by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, exceptionally against the world at large, in Venables v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2001] Fam. 430); and Attorney General v Davey [2013] EWHC 2317 (Admin), relating to internet research and a Facebook post by a juror in relation to an ongoing criminal trial. He also regularly deals with anonymity issues arising in his housing, community care and police work, in relation to children and vulnerable adults. Daniel said:
“The Fellowship provided me with a valuable insight into the day-to-day operations of The Times and Sunday Times and the work of their in-house legal department. It was also great fun. I was able to gain experience across the whole range of the department’s work, from pre-publication advice to dealing with post-publication complaints and litigation, and including both urgent work in reaction to the daily news agenda and longer-term work with journalists on investigative projects. A particular focus of my work was on issues relating to reporting restrictions in the criminal courts. This included being instructed to represent The Times in an application to vary a reporting restriction order at the Old Bailey and working with the CPS to improve the procedures for information-sharing in relation to reporting restrictions.”
Jesse Nicholls and Keina Yoshida
Daniel is the third Times Newspapers and Doughty Street Chambers Fellow. In its inaugural year, Jesse Nicholls was the 2016 Fellow. He has particular expertise in open justice and reporting restrictions, and has acted for the media in cases such as R v Alexander Wayne Blackman (Marine A) [2017] EWCA Crim 326; [2017] EMLR 17 and Blue v Ashley [2017] EWHC 1553 (Comm); [2017] 1 WLR 3630. He has recently published an article, available here, on ‘Open Justice and Developments in the Law on Anonymity, Access to Material and Reporting Restrictions’ (2018) Judicial Review, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 200 – 224. Jesse’s practice also encompasses public law, human rights, inquests and civil actions against the police, and he has acted in a number of complex and high-profile cases such as the Hillsborough and Grenfell inquests.
Keina Yoshida was awarded the 2017 Fellowship. Her media law cases include acting for Times Newspapers in Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council v M, F, G ( A Child) [2016] EWHC 2260, successfully ensuring that this case concerning alleged grooming and child sexual exploitation was heard in open court, and acting for the Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI), ARTICLE 19 and the Mass Media Defence Centre, intervening before the European Court of Human Rights, in Butkevich v Russia, App No 5865/07, 13 February 2018, an important case concerning the arrest and ill-treatment of a Ukrainian journalist when he was covering protests taking place in St Petersburg during the G8 summit of 2006. In addition to media law, Keina has expertise in international human rights law, public law and inquests. Keina holds a PhD from the LSE and sits as an Advisory Board Member of the LSE’s Centre for Women, Peace and Security.
