Right-wing writer Andy Ngo has filed a defamation suit against Guardian News and Media over a music review published online and in The Observer. In his review of the Mumford and Sons album Rushmere, critic Phil Mongredien mentioned that Winston Marshall left the band after he had “praised “alt-right” agitator Andy Ngo.”
The review was published on the Guardian’s website on 28th March (and remains online), and in The Observer’s arts supplement The New Review on 30th March. The Observer has since been sold, though Ngo is suing GNM as it owned the newspaper at the time of publication.
GNM has argued that the term ‘alt-right’ was used in quotation marks to indicate that it was a label applied to Ngo by others. The company also defined ‘alt-right’ as more radical than centre-right though not as extreme as far-right.
In a pre-trial High Court judgement released today, however, judge Guy Vassall-Adams agreed with Ngo “that alt-right would be understood by readers to refer to an extreme right-wing position”, and that this was presented in the article as a fact without evidence. Thus, he wrote, the meaning of the phrase was “plainly defamatory at common law.”
The review was published on the Guardian’s website on 28th March (and remains online), and in The Observer’s arts supplement The New Review on 30th March. The Observer has since been sold, though Ngo is suing GNM as it owned the newspaper at the time of publication.
GNM has argued that the term ‘alt-right’ was used in quotation marks to indicate that it was a label applied to Ngo by others. The company also defined ‘alt-right’ as more radical than centre-right though not as extreme as far-right.
In a pre-trial High Court judgement released today, however, judge Guy Vassall-Adams agreed with Ngo “that alt-right would be understood by readers to refer to an extreme right-wing position”, and that this was presented in the article as a fact without evidence. Thus, he wrote, the meaning of the phrase was “plainly defamatory at common law.”
