The Guardian and The Times discuss their view of former MP George Galloway's victory in his libel suit against The Daily Telegraph. The Daily Telegraph had published documents, found in the Iraqi foreign ministry, which suggested that MP Galloway had accepted pay from Saddam Hussein. The Galloway case can be seen as a sequel to an ongoing battle between the media and "persons of public interest," as the Guardian puts it. The first episode of the series of libel suits was marked by the case Reynolds vs. Sunday Times in 1999, in which The House of Lords "recognized a duty to impart information in the public interest and said that in certain circumstances the defence of qualified privilege could be made, provided that the newspaper met certain journalistic test as to the nature, tone and source of the reporting and sought to verify that they were publishing," recalls The Times. In the present case, The Daily Telegraph had argued for a resolution of the conflict based on the jurisdiction of the Reynolds case. Instead the judge concluded that The Daily Telegraph had not met the standards of responsible journalism as outlined in the Reynolds Case.
