A blogger is being sued for defamation by the RCI-affiliated Quality Vacation Club (QVC) for criticising it on his website Insights and Rants.

This is of huge interest to be, because I often write about good and bad service in my Orchids and Onions section of my blog site. Personally, I feel that if you don’t open your business to public scrutiny and comment, you should question your business practises and integrity very closely.

According to Independent Online,

Donn Edwards was phoned by a telemarketer last year and told that he had won a car. All he would have to do to claim his prize, he was told, was attend a prize-giving ceremony in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.

When he and his wife arrived at the venue, they discovered that the prize-giving ceremony was a QVC marketing presentation at which he and his wife, and the other “guests”, were told to choose a key, after the airing of a video, to determine if he had won the car. He had not.

Edwards wrote about his experience, and his unhappiness about being misled, on his blog.The result of this is that QCV are suing him for damages of R461 500.

Pamela Stein, a partner at legal firm Webber Wentzel Bowens, said the blogger would be able to defend his actions on the basis of fair comment.

“The right of fair comment, along with truth for the public benefit, is one of the fundamental rights of free speech,”

“I have no doubt that commentary that is in the consumer’s interests is in the public interest.”

It will be a very sad day if RCI win this court case. Freedom of expression, and the right to tell the truth are fundamental rights. If RCI are concerned about Donn’s views, they have every right to respond, to comment and to tell their side of the story. However, in my opinion, a large organisation suing a single person that is unhappy is not the approach to follow.

The full artice is on IOL.

The Facebook support group is here.

Notes from the Cape – Ethics and Policy (Draft version 1)

This is a working document, so feel free to enter into discussion and provide me with suggestions regarding any changes or omissions.

Code of ethics

• Unless otherwise stated (or obviously public-domain), all content (including images) is my own work. I will credit other sources where applicable.
• I will disclose anything people might consider a conflict of interest.
• I will tell the truth. I will not lie.
• Commentary will be accurate and fair.
• When accuracy of material or sources is uncertain, it will be clearly mentioned.
• Weblog entries, quotations, headlines, photos and all other content will not be misrepresented or used out of context.
• Information that is known to be inaccurate will not be published.
• Where content is found to be inaccurate, it will be promptly fixed.
• The right of reply will be granted to anybody who disagrees with any content.
• Comments will never be deleted, except under the following circumstances:
  • They are spam.
  • They have no relevance to the blog to which they refer.
  • They constitute any form of hate speech.
  • Unnecessary bad language.
• Others opinions and viewpoints will be respected.
• I acknowledged that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention.
• I will respect your privacy. If an entry reasonably offends your sense of privacy, it will be removed.
• I will not grant special favours to advertisers, or to anybody sending me promotional material.
• Any breech of this code will result in the offending entry being corrected immediately.

Disclaimer

• I am not a professional journalist. This document is a working document, and may be updated from time to time.
• Commentary on this site constitutes a personal viewpoint, and should be read as such.
• Anything that you do as a result of reading this blog is your own responsibility and is done at your own risk.
• I absolve myself from any responsible whatsoever for any actions resulting on this blog being read.
• This weblog is provided for entertainment and informational use.

Sources Material on this entry is a mixture of the authors’ own views, as well as sourced from the following sites:

• A Bloggers’ Code of Ethics (cyberjournalist)
• Blogging policy examples (Charlene Li)
• David Meerman Scott’s Social Media Guidelines

And finally…

• Please feel free to use and adapt this document for your own use. However if you do so, please let us know.
• This is a working document, so feel free to enter into discussion and provide us with suggestions regarding any changes or omissions.