Statistics from defamation cases suggest the media and other defendants have fared relatively well in libel battles over the first six months of 2010.

Figures published in a blog by Inforrm, the International Forum for Responsible Media, show a significant proportion of libel claims have been struck out, and defendants have secured judgment or rulings in their favour in more cases than claimants.

But the statistics mask the real situation on the ground. As Inforrm acknowledges, they provide only a partial picture of what has been happening in libel claims generally.

In reality, local and regional newspapers are still settling libel claims and paying damages and costs for purely commercial reasons. They can rarely afford to defend borderline claims in court, particularly where claimants are represented by lawyers acting under Conditional Fee Agreements with an eye-watering ‘success fee’ uplift.

The Inforrm blog states: “The ‘headline’ figures are startling. Ten libel cases have concluded in court this year, with the claimant recovering damages or compensation in only two (20%).”

It notes five claims were struck out and one was stayed, while Boris Berezovsky’s libel action against a Russian broadcasting company bucked the trend as he won £150,000 in damages following a trial in March.

But the figures do not include the settlements or withdrawals that occur in the majority of libel cases. Most of the landscape is therefore missing from the picture they paint.

The blog had previously published the results of 69 libel cases heard by High Court judges for the period 2005–2009, including trials, court assessments of libel damages and preliminary issues, and summary disposals.

For that four-year period, it concluded: “On our calculations, of the 16 contested trials involving media defendants, the claimant won eight, the defendant won five, and three were inconclusive.” Defendants apparently fared worse prior to the apparent upturn in their fortunes in 2010.

But again, an analysis of just 69 cases over a four-year period provides merely an outline of what has really been happening on the ground. Only one of those 69 cases involved the publisher of a local newspaper (Newspost Ltd, publisher of the Dewsbury Post).

It is true that a new trend may be discernible in the court cases considered by Inforrm in 2010: judges appear more willing than previously to intervene and stop weak libel claims, with a view to avoiding disproportionate costs.

They are making greater use of the ‘abuse of process’ principle to halt unmeritorious claims and more closely scrutinising whether particular publications are actually ‘defamatory’ as alleged.

Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, has won a string of ‘meaning’ applications this year, successfully arguing its articles do not bear the overblown defamatory meanings alleged by the claimants.

On the other hand, a recent libel claim by a Russian businesswoman against The Sunday Times has highlighted newspapers’ broad potential liability for foreseeable republications of their articles by others.

More significantly, the former Labour government’s failure to reform CFAs before the end of the last Parliament by capping ‘success fees’ at 10pc (instead of the current maximum of 100pc) often leaves publishers threatened by disproportionate costs if they dare to defend cases in court.

Even if publishers have scored notable court victories so far this year, they are rarely able to recover their legal costs from unsuccessful claimants, and they can never recoup the management time lost in dealing with claims.

In a democracy that ultimately relies on local journalism as its watchdog at the grass-roots, we should be slow to believe our libel law suddenly poses less of a threat to publishers.