Tuesday, May 24, 2011

BBC News first named Ryan Giggs as the injunction-row footballer on Monday at 5pm. Earlier in the afternoon Laura Kuenssberg was telling viewers that, despite the footballer having been named in Parliament, the BBC was unable to repeat it on air. Meanwhile Sky News was openly reporting that Ryan Giggs was the footballer in question. This is from Newsround's bulletin just after 5pm yesterday -

Leah: First, we're talking secrets. Everyone's got them, but up until an hour ago if we told you this one we could be sent to prison.

Ricky: Yeah, that's because a judge ruled no-one was allowed to name a world-famous Premier League footballer who was trying to keep details of his life private.

Leah: It's got lots of people talking about what celebrities should be allowed to keep private, and in the past sixty minutes that's all changed. The footballer went to court to ban people reporting claims about his private life. He said it was no-one else's business. So nobody was allowed to say who he was - not on TV, radio, in the papers or online. If they did they could be fined or go to jail.

Ricky: But there was a problem - the Internet. It's easy to write whatever you like online, and lots of people did name the player. And today an MP called John Hemming used a special rule to name him as Ryan Giggs.

Leah: Making all this public is good news for people who think we should be told absolutely everything about celebs' lives - and role models. But it's bad news for famous people who think they have a right to keep some things private.

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