Judith Townend

PhD Title: Journalism's Limits: Exploring How Defamation and Privacy Law Affects the Publication Process in England & Wales
E-Mail: judith.townend.1@city.ac.uk
Twitter: @jtownend

Judith's PhD focuses on legal restraints on the media, in particular, the pre-publication process, the interaction between media organisations and privacy/defamation law, and notions of self-censorship and the 'chilling effect'. Her research supervisors are Nicholas Hatzis (The City Law School) and Professor Howard Tumber (School of Arts).

Judith completed a degree in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge in 2006 and trained in journalism at City University London in 2006/7. She has worked and freelanced for a number of media organisations, before specialising in media reporting for the industry site journalism.co.uk. She currently contributes to several online publications and helped develop a series of 'Hacks and Hackers' events for the online data scraping start-up, Scraperwiki.

Her research interests include: injunctions, defamation/privacy law, legal data, open justice, online publishing and blogging, media ethics and accountability.

Publications

• Townend, J (2013) 'Closed Data: Defamation and Privacy Disputes in England & Wales', Journal of Media Law (forthcoming, June 2013)
• Townend, J (2013) 'Leveson online: A publicly reported inquiry', Ethical Space, Vol. 10, No. 1
• Bennett, D and Townend, J (2012) 'Scandal of selective reporting' British Journalism Review Vol. 23, Number 2
• Bennett, Daniel and Townend, Judith (2012) "Press 'Omerta': How Newspapers' Failure to Report the Phone Hacking Scandal Exposed the Limitations of Media Accountability"  published in The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial, edited by Keeble and Mair (Abramis 2012)
• Townend, J (2012), ed. Justice Wide Open. Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism Working Paper series
• Townend, J (2012), Justice Wide Open (An introduction), Internet Newsletter for Lawyers, May/June 2012
• Townend, J. (2011) 'Navigating digital publishing law without a 'night lawyer': an exploration of informal legal support networks', Cultural Policy, Criticism and Management Research 5: 27-46
• Townend, J. (2011) 'Battle of (t)wits? Using Twitter as a journalistic tool' in Face the Future: Tools for the Modern Media Age, Arima, edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble 
• Townend, J. (2010) 'The ethics of the 'blind story' and 'fair game' gossip', Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics, Vol 7, No 1 2010

Recent media publications

• 'Media and Law Review of the Year: Parts 1, 2 and 3', Inforrm Blog, January 2013
• 'Leveson and access to justice', The Justice Gap, 30 November 2012
• 'A dearth of data about defamation cases in England and Wales', Inforrm Blog, 25 September 2012
• 'Defamation Trials, Summary Determinations and Assessments: 2011 to 2012', Inforrm blog, 7 September 2012
• 'How open is the court at the Azelle Rodney Inquiry?', The Justice Gap, 6 September 2012
• 'Leveson's Legacy: Beyond Dusty Tomes and 21st Century Buzzwords', CGCS Media Wire, 14 September 2012
• 'How should privacy injunctions be reported?', Inforrm blog, 10 September 2013,
• 'An elephant in courtroom 73? Social media, regulation and the law', 10 August 2012, CGCS Media Wire
• 'Analysis: Privacy cases re-visited, a year on from Super Injunction Spring', Inforrm blog, 8 August 2012
• 'Twelve months of defamation and privacy in England and Wales', Inforrm blog, 4 May 2012
• 'Opinion: Legal and ethical issues for televising and tweeting court', Inforrm blog, Tuesday 24 April 2012
• 'Court short of basic information?', The Guardian, 5 March 2012
• 'Media Law Review of the Year 2011: Defamation, Contempt, Privacy and a Public Inquiry', Inforrm blog, 30 December 2011
• 'The law that wants to be free', The Guardian, 13 October 2011
• 'Old Firm sectarianism bill: Free speech threat', Index on Censorship, 30 August 2011
• 'Case law on injunctions is still the preserve of the few', The Guardian, 8 August 2011
• 'Are privacy injunctions a necessary evil?', Index on Censorship, 29 June 2011
• 'Privacy regime negates rule of law, says Mosley', PA Media Lawyer, 29 June 2011
• 'Superinjunction Spring: publicity issues in the Court of Protection', Inforrm blog, 8 June 2011
• 'Privacy Injunctions 2010-2011', Inforrm blog, 2 June 2011
• 'How many super injunctions and anonymous privacy injunctions are there?', Inforrm blog, 2 June 2011
• 'Lord Neuberger's report cuts through the superinjunction hysteria', The Guardian, 20 May 2011

Conference presentations

• Speaker, 'Open courts data, open justice… and the right to be forgotten?', first joint seminar of the DP Forum and NADPO (The National Association of Data Protection Officers), 4 June 2013
• Paper, 'Closed data: researching defamation and privacy disputes in England & Wales', Research Methodologies and Methods stream, SLSA conference 201
• Poster, 'Defamation's "chilling effect": Mapping the social articulation of a legal concept', SLSA conference 2013 [PDF]
• Presentations, 'From News Cycle to News Spirograph', Imagine Journalism in Ten Years' Time, Northampton University, 7 March 2013
• Paper, 'The right to receive information: broadening the public's access to media events', Media policy post-Leveson conference, Bournemouth University, 8 February 2013
• Presentation, 'Media law for community journalists and bloggers', Community Journalism Conference, Cardiff University, 16 January 2013
• Paper, 'The limits of journalism: self-censorship, organisational structures and notions of newsworthiness', Joint PhD symposium for media, communication and journalism, University of Westminster, 23 November 2012
• Invited participant, Policy Conference - EU Competencies in Respect of Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, Florence, 29 October 2012
• Paper, 'Leveson online: A publicly reported inquiry', Institute of Communication Ethics annual seminar, 25 October 2012
• Speaker, Terrorism & Security Research in the UK: Using and Understanding Legal Resources, Research Training at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, 15 June 2012
• Speaker, After Phone Hacking? Fourth Annual Conference of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University Westminster, in association with the British Journalism Review. London, 30 May 2012
• Panellist, Rebellious Media Conference, London, October 2011
• Participant, Annenberg-Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute, July 2011
• Speaker, Face the Future journalism conference, Coventry University, November 2010
• Speaker, Is World Journalism in Crisis? Coventry University, October 2009
• Speaker, Institute of Communication Ethics annual conference, Coventry University, October 2009

Teaching

• Guest lecturer at Kingston University London, Coventry University, University of Lincoln, City University London and Southwestern Law School, UCL
• Weekly social media and community journalism seminars for the MA Interactive Journalism, City University London
• Media law seminars, School of Journalism, City University London
• Visiting lecturer, School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster

Online

She has recently written articles for www.guardian.co.uk, Index on Censorship, the INFORRM media law blog, the Justice Gap and the CGCS Media Wire, University of Pennsylvania. Her online work can be found at http://meejalaw.com and http://jtownend.com