He claims to have revealed too little information in his reporting for it to be possible to identify the complainants. The court disagrees. Really I just see his word against theirs.
I'd like to see some more specific details so I could form my own view, or at least hear the view of a disinterested third party that's seen the relevant posts.
He didn't name anyone, but at the time I thought he provided more than enough information to identify one one of the complainants. Although I'm not au fait with the SNP there were details about situations, people, and roles that seemed more than specific enough for people to work out.
I don't think it was deliberate, and he is probably ignorant about how easy it can be to de-anonymise people. However he should have been more sensitive to these issues.
Perhaps so, however selective exercising of media contempt laws when it is not clear cut case ( i.e. naming some one directly) is suspicious and looks a lot like overreach .
The timing (he cannot now testify in the Spanish case on spying on Wikileaks) and quantum of sentence combined with supreme court refusing to hear his appeal all does not indicate the system had the best interests for protecting the witness but more like they wanted to silence him/ media and send a message .
It's unusual, but not the only recent case in the UK. A notorious right wing campaigner called Tommy Robinson was jailed a few years ago (but released), and there was a very unusual case with a juror.
These were both in England, which may explain the 50 year thing.
Edit: actually I'm wrong, the article says:
"Murray is the first person in the U.K. to be incarcerated for media contempt in over a half century."
If we restrict it to what 'media' might mean I suppose Tommy Robinson was freed on appeal. And a Mail journalist got away with a suspended sentence.
The court could ask an independent without inside knowledge of the case to read his reports and check whether or not they can identify a protected person as a result.
It's true that the judge can't publicly state "Look, the third sentence in paragraph four at this URL gives the victim's initials, a week later in paragraph seven he said the complainant worked in such-and-such government agency, and here he tweeted that it was the individual's 47th birthday. There is only one person who fits these fingerprints, and their identity is obvious to anyone with a passing familiarity of that individual." That would invite everyone else to go read paragraph four, paragraph seven, and the tweet, and to search out this secret. Or more likely, that the individual is named directly and repeatedly in the post, and Craig named them because their name and their involvement is on public documents, but that they've decided that he's not allowed to name them.
But you'd expect them to explain that reasoning behind closed doors, and then to more publicly deny his rebuttal, unless there is no such individual.
I'm just learning about this now and don't know enough to have an an opinion, but "his word against theirs" (the court's) should not be the basis for a conviction.
I'd like to see some more specific details so I could form my own view, or at least hear the view of a disinterested third party that's seen the relevant posts.