The first thing to say about Newsdesk Law is that it is a learning aid. It does not pretend to be a text book. There are many media law text books each with hundreds of pages densely packed with information needed by lawyers, newspaper editors, radio station managers, reporters and sub-editors and, yes, journalism students.

The trouble for many learners is that very mass of detail makes it difficult to isolate and understand where the basic building blocks of libel, privacy, court reporting, freedom of information and copyright come in. Once people understand those basic building blocks all the finer points of law slip into place.

This is what Newsdesk Law provides -the key principles of media law explained in detail using actual case-histories to illustrate each and every important point.

Newsdesk Law is designed primarily for journalism students but we believe that the Libel and Privacy sections especially are of value also to people who already work in newspapers, television or radio and who need to brush up on the latest developments. Others who will find them useful are the citizen journalists who send blogs soaring out into the great wide world without perhaps realising how vulnerable they can be to claims for libel or summonses for contempt of court.