Oliver Kamm writes:
Paul Waugh of the Evening Standard writes an excellent political blog, which I enjoy reading. But he’s inexplicably veered into nonsense on the question of bloggers’ anonymity.
His starting point is the decision by Brooke Magnanti to out herself as the blogger and former call girl Belle de Jour. I’ve read Ms Magnanti’s blog: she writes well, and I admire her pluck in deciding to go public in order to spoil the plans of “an ex-boyfriend with a big mouth lurking in the background”.
But Waugh goes beyond this case. He says:
“In Nightjack’s case, I still cannot believe that The Times decided to embark on a disgraceful and pointless campaign to out him. Having found some clues about him, the paper inexplicably decided that this was some great issue of media freedom. The Times’ legal team then refused to back down rather than lose face.
Read more in the Times Online.