Blog - Quickies

A few media lawyers in this town have taught me a great deal about how to do hard-hitting journalism without spending the rest of my life in court.

One of them, Barry Gibson, died on Tuesday (March 24) in his office of a heart attack. He was 60 years old.

Gibson, a partner at Farris, was a soft-spoken, self-effacing man with a wicked sense of humour. Whenever I got the idea in my head that all lawyers were arrogant, I would remind myself: "Well, there's always Barry Gibson. He's a nice man."

He was also keenly intelligent. Many years ago, he told me that his dream job was to become the managing editor of the Province newspaper. This was in the days when the Province was still a feisty tabloid. Gibson would have made it even feistier had he gotten the opportunity.

I learned many things about media law from Gibson, though he probably wasn't aware that he was a great teacher. Here are just three of the tidbits of information I gleaned from him:

* Unions file a lot of defamation suits. Often, these suits are against media outlets, but they also sue each other, particularly during competing organizing drives. Be careful in reporting one union's allegations about another union.

* The most important issue is determining the likelihood of a person filing a lawsuit. Some executives will sue over what you say about them. Others will sue over what you say about their families.

* Watch out for story slugs. Even if the article is bulletproof, a crafty lawyer will nail you during examination for discovery by asking about the slug—which is the term used internally to describe the story. If the slug is "crooked politician", it will be easy for a plaintiff's lawyer to argue malice, which wipes out all defences in a defamation case.

Gibson was perhaps best known as the lawyer for the Vancouver Sun, but he worked for many other media outlets over the years, including the Georgia Straight and Vancouver magazine.

He was also extremely knowledgeable about wrongful dismissal, once winning a $300,000 award for the former CEO of B.C. Transit.

One of my family members was once dismissed from a job unfairly. I called Gibson because I knew he was the best.

I was ready to hire him, but he told me not to worry about that. He asked about the circumstances and within five minutes, he gave me all the information I needed to know. For free. Gibson was that kind of guy. He will be missed.

People who knew Gibson are welcome to share their memories in the comment space below.