ITN launches libel action

ITN has begun a High Court libel action against a magazine which criticised an award-winning ITN report about a Bosnian detention camp.

The three-week case is expected to attract worldwide interest as the credibility of television news comes under scrutiny.

LM magazine - formerly known as Living Marxism - which denies libel, is being sued over its claim that ITN distorted footage from the camp in a report in 1992.

The magazine has pleaded justification in stating that ITN manipulated images of the camp to produce harrowing pictures of an emaciated Bosnian Muslim prisoner at the Bosnian Serb-run Trnpolje camp.

An LM article, printed in February 1997, headlined The picture that fooled the world, said the image was created by "camera angles and editing". It said the barbed wire which appeared in front of the prisoner did not actually exist in the camp.

High-profile support

In court, Tom Shields QC, representing ITN, described the article as a "highly damaging attack on the reputation and professionalism of ITN and its journalists".

The news broadcaster says the article, written by German journalist Thomas Deichmann, said the camp was a collection centre for refugees and not a prison.

However LM is expected to argue that the case raises important freedom of speech issues.

It has already won support for its action from leading writers including Doris Lessing, Margaret Drabble, Fay Weldon and Auberon Waugh.