Living Marxism was a British magazine originally launched in 1988 as the journal of the British Revolutionary Communist Party. It was later rebranded as LM in 1992 and ceased publication in March 2000 following a successful libel lawsuit brought by ITN. It was promptly resurrected as Spiked, an Internet magazine.
''Living Marxism's'' aims
Living Marxism's introduction summarised its outlook as follows:
Views
Views expounded with regularity in LM included "fear culture", for example by questioning the then media coverage of AIDS as a predominantly homosexual disease in the West. Its critique covered media coverage in Africa and the developing world in the context of Western intervention, underdevelopment and poverty. It debated environmentalist claims that limiting consumption was a progressive view. The magazine raised concerns about the left's rejection of scientific thought and critique, especially of medicine, biotechnology and nuclear physics. LM writers critiqued the media portrayal of the civil wars in Rwanda and Bosnia by questioning the use of the term "genocide" to describe the conflicts. It has been stated by environmentalists such as George Monbiot and Peter Melchett that the group of writers associated with LM continue to constitute a LM network pursuing an ideologically motivated "anti-environmentalist" agenda under the guise of promoting humanism. Writers who used to write for Living Marxism reject this as a "McCarthyite conspiracy theory".
ITN vs. ''LM''
In the first issue where the journal was renamed LM, editor Mick Hume published an article by German journalist Thomas Deichmann which claimed that ITN had misrepresented the Bosnian war in its coverage in 1992. The publishers of LM, Informinc Ltd., were sued for libel by ITN. The case initially caused international condemnation of ITN as one of LMs critics, the journalist George Monbiot, who wrote in Prospect magazine: However, Monbiot continued: The article "The picture that fooled the world" argued that ITN's footage in which an emaciated Bosnian Muslim man stood behind a barbed wire fence was designed to portray a Nazi-style extermination camp while Deichmann claimed: "It was not a prison, and certainly not a 'concentration camp', but a collection centre for refugees, many of whom went there seeking safety and could leave again if they wished". However, an examination of the substance of this case by a professor of cultural and political geography at Durham University argues that the key claims made by Deichmann and LM are "erroneous and flawed". The libel case went against LM and in March 2000 the magazine was forced to close. Reporters Penny Marshall and Ian Williams were each awarded £150,000 over the LM story and the magazine was ordered to pay £75,000 for libelling ITN in a February 1997 article. Looking back Hume commented in The Times: In contrast, Professor Campbell of Durham University summarised his study of the case as follows:
s strange as existing British libel law is, it had an important and surprisingly beneficial effect in the case of ITN vs LM. The LM defendants and Thomas Deichmann were properly represented at the trial and were able to lay out all the details of their claim that the ITN reporters had "deliberately misrepresented" the situation at Trnopolje. Having charged 'deliberate misrepresentation', they needed to prove 'deliberate misrepresentation'. To this end, the LM defendants were able to cross-examine Penny Marshall and Ian Williams, as well as every member of the ITN crews who were at the camps, along with other witnesses.. They were able to show the ITN reports to the court, including the rushes from which the final TV stories were edited, and conduct a forensic examination of the visuals they alleged were deceitful. And all of this took place in front of a jury of twelve citizens who they needed to convince about the truthfulness of their allegations. They failed. The jury found unanimously against LM and awarded the maximum possible damages. So it was not ITN that bankrupted LM. It was LM's lies about the ITN reports that bankrupted themselves, morally and financially. Despite their failure, those who lied about the ITN reports have had no trouble obtaining regular access to the mainstream media in Britain, where they continue to make their case as though the 2000 court verdict simply didn't exist. Their freedom of speech has thus not been permanently infringed.
