This is the argument being put forward by The Libel Reform Campaign, following a spate of high profile law suits – most notably, that of Simon Singh. Simon, a well known science writer has spent the past two years under the media spotlight as his infamous libel battle with the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) unfolded. In 2008, Simon wrote an article for The Guardian, where he alleged the BCA promoted “bogus treatments” for certain infant conditions like asthma, colic and earache. When he refused to make a retraction or apologise, the BCA launched legal action against him.

Last week, we met up with Simon Singh to discuss his case. He told us how, despite winning the lengthy lawsuit, his victory had been bitter sweet, leaving him with a two year career void and legal bills of £60,000. Simon’s law suit sparked uproar within the science community and supporters are now calling for a reform of the UK libel laws.

His case has highlighted the weaknesses in UK libel laws. The extortionate costs involved mean that those accused are often forced to back down, withdraw and apologise for material they believe is true, fair and important to the public.

With the current libel laws journalists face an unpopular ultimatum: self censorship or the risk of hefty legal fees. It seems to me, that this goes against everything journalism represents. The best works of journalism are those that spark debate and controversy, after all, it’s a journalists job to leave no stone unturned – why should they apologise for this?

Held at stunning venue One Marylebone, there was no shortage of delectable cocktails and canapés whilst we mingled with the rich, famous and influential, armed with cameras and a Flip Video.

Highlights of the night included meeting the lovely Diversity who threw some serious shapes (but only after posing for some photos with us!), and Emma being saved by none other than Radio 1 presenter Reggie Yates as she traversed the stairs! What a gent. It was all over far too quickly, though we were sent to the after party armed with goody-bags containing some beautiful jewellery, chocolate and a copy of Drapers’ latest issue to name but a few items. Lucky us!

Congratulations Drapers for such a successful event, though there were some sore heads in the office this morning!

Given the billions already being spent on the food health claims approval process, it’s worth remembering what the purpose of the EFSA is: to provide a high level of consumer protection and more informed consumer choices as well as to harmonise national regulations.

So where is the consumer in all this?

As confused as ever and, according to American research for the FDA, generally unable to discriminate between different types of health claims. Worse still, consumers tend to think that a ‘qualified’ claim with a disclaimer indicating only moderate or weak scientific evidence is actually more convincing than an ‘unqualified’ claim indicating scientifically strong evidence. This same research also found very different levels of understanding and response from consumers according to the way in which claims were worded or presented, with or without visuals. What a surprise!

How did we come so far and learn so little? More than seven years ago I gave a presentation to a functional foods conference entitled “Take 4 tblsp of broccoli x3 a day”.  It highlighted consumer confusion over proliferating and conflicting food health claims, the dangers of over-medicalising food, and the need to reconcile conflicts rooted in a culture gap between science and marketing.

These tensions are still evident in the whole debate surrounding EFSA and will always present a major challenge to regulators and politicians caught in the middle. A review is undoubtedly necessary if the system is to win back trust and, above all, help consumers make better informed and healthier food choices.

Meanwhile, consumers aren’t holding their breath; they need to eat every day. So they’re making their own trade-offs between taste and health, picking and choosing their own way through bewildering information with the help of their own trusted sources of information, which many actively seek out for themselves.

Working in food marketing communications, our job is to help them, with or without legal rules. The enduring skills needed include making complex issues simple, providing enough but not too much (or partial) science, being emotionally as well as rationally appealing – and bringing relevance imaginatively to life with people, visuals and inspiring (celebrity) role models. Plus ça change!

Much like dating, forming perfect brand partnerships can be a bit of pot luck. Everything looks good on paper - audiences are matched, promises are made, contracts, products and services are exchanged and off you go. At least in theory…

In actual fact it is the X Factor style spark that really makes for the brand love-in and gets you bang for your proverbial buck. Never has this been truer than for our client Flip Video. All about capturing different perspectives and behind the scenes footage of life, Flip needed to find a partner that had access to creative, urban communities and shared its passion for sharing the moment in a memorable way. We didn’t just want ‘brand ambassadors’; we wanted to build a Flip movement.

Enter Secret Wars, the world’s premier live art battle. Working in a similar way to Fight Club, Secret Wars battles take place across the world and are organised and promoted through word of mouth. Hosted in the darkest corners of cities across the world, from a basement bar in London’s East End through to a deserted meat market in Malmo, these events are about street artists creating live art in a competitive and yet cool environment.

We’ve armed the artists with Flip cameras so they can film behind the scenes footage, artist profiles and audience reactions as they make their way from city to city (not all of the footage is suitable for public consumption!). Not only do we have the usual branding at the events but, more importantly, we can use the content across all media, from Facebook and Twitter through to Metro and MTV.

Watch this space for how the partnership develops in the coming months but in the meantime check out Secret Wars on Facebook and watch the videos on the Flip UK fan page.

Although I didn’t realise it before the news broke, the closure of the most-grown-up-yet-most-childish gaming magazine has been inevitable for a while. With PC gamers tending to be web-savvy, sales of PC Zone have fallen dramatically in the last few years and the time has come that it is no longer profitable.

It may sound strange to be saddened by the closure of a PC games magazine, however PC Zone is one with a fan base who read the magazine for its wit and quality of writing as much as the games news.

The formula of brutally harsh reviews where other magazines were too gutless, excellent engagement with readers (more recently in the form of online gaming ‘Fight Clubs’), wonderfully inventive features and dark humour ensured it has been a cover-to-cover read of mine for about 12 years.

To put the ballsy humour into perspective, this is the magazine that helped launch the career of Charlie Brooker, whose comic strip Cruelty Zoo got it pulled off the shelves of W H Smith.

Other memories that spring to mind when reminiscing on the 17-year history of the magazine are the test in which staff played games whilst becoming increasingly drunk to see how it affected their performance, and the magazine carelessly failing to warn buyers that the cover disc was filled with super-gory demos before being slapped with an 18 rating and joking about it.

September’s issue will be the last; however mourning subscribers will be praying for an online edition of some kind. Stiff upper lip and all that – maybe this is the shock I need to get with the times.

To coincide with the milestone, we commissioned a survey investigating young people’s (16-21 year olds) concerns about the recession. Check out our coverage in The Daily Telegraph, Press Association, News of the World… and, of course, the Coronation Street Blog!

The change of UK government and the new coalition’s plans to substantially cut public sector IT budgets saw Quantum quickly offering advice on how to optimise budgets by streamlining data storage and backup to be greener.

Quantum was also featured in Channel Pro with a compelling article about the returns on investment to be gained from deduplication technology and gained widespread coverage in other target channel publications such as CRN, Channel Insider, Channel Register and Channel Info.

Engaging with influential bloggers is an important part of the work we do and last night Paula and I attended an Arcadia fashion blogger event for client Flip Video.

The private room at The Ivy had been adorned with Macs flashing up the websites and blogs of Arcadia’s brands such asTopshop, Burtons and Dorothy Perkins.

We gave a new Flip MinoHD to each blogger and encouraged them to film content, demonstrating how to upload video content to their blogs. An edited video of a recent Miss Selfridge fashion shoot was playing on loop to show the kind content that can be captured.

We got speaking to the infamously anonymous Disney Roller Girl, who was very keen to start vlogging. Men’s style blogger Style Salvage and over-40’s fashion blogger Thats Not My Age were equally as excited when they found out a Flip was awaiting them at the dinner table. There was also “traditional” media in attendance, such as Angela Buttolph, Editor of Grazia Daily (pictured here with Grazia Fashion Editor-at-Large Melanie Rickey), who spent the latter half of the dinner quizzing each blogger on their personal style with her new Flip cam.

Over the past couple of months the Flip team have been working with ITN and Save the Children, on a project looking to track progress made in rebuilding Haiti, all through the eyes of Haitian children. The aim was to show how learning new skills (like filming) can help the kids deal with life moving forward and give them a sense of achievement.

Working with award winning camera man Dave Harman, who recently won a Bafta for his filming of the earthquake, we provided 6 Ultra HDs for the project. He and the Save the Children team then took the Flips to Haiti, taught the kids how to use them and then captured the resulting footage.

It was agreed that Save the Children would then use this content on its website and ITN would produce and broadcast three special reports over the coming year.

As you may have seen, the first feature resulting from our ITN/Save The Children partnership was broadcast on last Tuesday’s News at Ten. This is the first of three news features; the second will be broadcast in the coming weeks and will show what the children have filmed about their life in Haiti.

In addition to these broadcast features, ITN (who produce the news programme) have also set up a microsite that captures all the behind the scenes details of the project, with comment from the children themselves and Save the Children: www.itv.com/news/filmingtheirfuture.

Donations to Save the Children can be made at http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/donate.htm