TV News Reporting Week 5

With Angus back in the classroom again, we went on to look further at the ways TV News is put together, and how to do it for ourselves.

When out on assignment, there are some useful things that you should always remember to do in preparation to make sure that everything you do will run as smoothly as possible:

1. Do your research - all the research that you can do and all the preparation you can do BEFORE you go out makes the whole process easier, so make sure you know what you're doing before you even leave.
2. Know the library of shots you already have.
3. Know where you are going - make sure you don't get lost!
4. Forward planning - it all helps towards making things run smoother in the long run.
5. Check your equipment - if your equipment isn't all prepared before you're ready to start capturing footage, then you're already in trouble!
6. Get Permission - there will likely be certain areas or people that you might not be able to shoot, but in order to get what you need you have to push these kinds of things as far as you can and shoot wherever you can (like public areas) without causing a disturbance.
7. Be Punctual - this really means being early for any interview you might have so that you leave plenty of time to set up any equipment you need and prepare any notes you might have.
8. Get Shooting - don't hang around when you arrive, just start getting any material you need as quickly as you can.

When you actually start capturing film, there are some things that you will want to remember:
--> Shoot in sequences - getting a number of different shots to edit together will make for a much more interesting watch, as will getting lots of shots of different angles and sizes of your shooting subject.
--> Shoot Long - this means when you are shooting anything, let it run for a little while so that you give yourself some breathing space when you're editing.
--> Remember Continuity - So when you're shooting, make sure you are keeping things the same from one shot to the next, and don't "cross the line" when shooting as this will confuse people.
--> Remember to shoot Cut-Aways - it may be regarded as a bit of a cheap trick nowadays, but if you shoot some cut-aways of general things to do with your story you can use these to cover your edits later.
--> Shoot in Thirds - which means when you're shooting something, make sure it is framed correctly. There will be more about this in the next session when we start using cameras in a more practical sense.

There is a lot of terminology that gets used in TV News Broadcasts, and I have listed some of the more common ones and their meanings here:
--> PTC = Piece to camera, or a straight on talking piece.
--> SOT = Sound on Tape (can also be called GRAB or CLIP also)
--> UPSOT = Sound Up on Tape (can also be OOV - out of view). This basically means a bunch of small little snippets of news that can be placed alongside each other to fill out a news story.
--> NATSOT = Natural Sound on tape (can also be referred to as Actuality or Ambiance).
--> VO = Voice over.
--> TALKING HEADS = Interview.
--> GV = General Views - this is basically any scenery that you can use to set your news story scene.
--> CUT AWAYS
--> SOQ = Standard Out Que, or what you would say to end the report.

There are certain things that should be remembered about different areas of shooting for news. Firstly, when doing pieces to camera, these should only be used when absolutely necessary and you should NEVER start off your report with one! It must also only be used when it can ADD something to what you are reporting on. These are useful if you want to place yourself in the action of what is happening so that it brings the story to life a little more if you are also part of it, but otherwise they should only be used if they are necessary. On top of this, it will always make a PTC more interesting if you use movement whilst doing so - for instance, if you are walking down a historic street that is about to be paved over to make a new car parking structure. But always remember that it looks much better if you start moving, THEN start talking and NOT the other way round!!

The best time to start writing and building up your story is when it is still all fresh in your mind, so it's best to start work on it as soon as possible after shooting. You can always write it and then put the pictures to it, or use the pictures to build up the body of what you would write, but either way one should compliment the other. Also, its right after shooting when the best time to report back to the editor is, as well as organising your graphics for the piece.

When you're writing the story, its best to keep it simple and use one idea per sentence, always keeping it fresh by using the present tense. Following on from this, you should always speak in plain English and simplify any large numbers or statistics you might have.

Through packaging it all together, you should be aiming to:
--> Tell a story using a sequence of your shots, and always start with the latest and best ones.
--> Don't name your interviewee when a caption will do it all for you. Instead, use that line to tell more information to the watchers.
--> Limit your "GRABS" to 20 seconds maximum, and a maximum of 3 Vox Pops.
--> End with something meaningful and not just cutting away straight from an interview.

After this, we went on to write our own version of TV Shot Scripts, which are what you use when putting your video story together. Down the left-hand side is a list of all your shots and what order they appear in, whereas down the right hand side you have a list of the sound clips and the script of what you are going to say in accordance with the order of the shots on the left. After going over this, we wrote versions of our own about whichever news story we wanted from that days papers. This proved to be a very interesting exercise, as it showed us exactly what kinds of things you have to take into consideration when putting a story together (i.e. what you can and can't shoot and what you have permission to do and what you don't, etc). Needless to say, this was an interesting exercise and I look forward to trying similar ones in future.

Media Law Week 5

Without Ian this week, we were studying into Confidentiality and Section 8 of the Human Rights Act, and ultimately how this affects us as journalists according to what we can and cannot report on.

Section 8 of the Human Rights Act entitles people to their privacy, and is a majority of what you need to know about private laws. Section 10 of the Human Rights Act is about the freedom of expression of personal opinions which, when it was originally conceived, was thought it might balance out Section 8. But when we talk about freedom of expression, this is obviously in reference to the population and not the presses.

We looked into what means a picture can lawfully be printed under without going against any Confidentiality laws. Public events count, but NOT when it involves such things like any kind of focus on individuals who do have privacy, and when there has been consent for the picture. On this note there are two different kinds of consent:

è Explicit Consent, in which there is normally some kind of signed release form for the pictures, sometimes in exchange for money.

è Implied Consent, in which a person might know they are getting photographed and are obviously ok with it, and will probably even make a pose for it. This obviously shows that they know they’re being photographed and don’t mind that it is probably likely to be printed somewhere.

This led us on to talk fully about Confidentiality and Secrets, and how they appear under the Official Secrets Act. “Official” Secrets include such things as:

·         Government secrets or any kinds of crimes

·         Anyone can be prosecuted for revealing state owned secrets without permission.

·         Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act is serious about the release of official secrets that could be used to help “enemies”. This includes, without permission, taking any kinds of photos of protected places such as Nuclear Power Stations or any other kind of place that is protected under the 1911 official protection act.

·         Section 2 focuses on disclosing secrets about businesses of the state like the Post Office or the Army, and these can be counted as state secrets.

There is also “Private” Secrets, which consist of:

·         Trade secrets and business secrets, which are there to protect from espionage.

·         We have a right to confidentiality from the legal age of 16, which means we have a right to tell someone something that we do not want told to other people, like Doctors or Councillors.

·         Family Secrets, which means privacy amongst relatives. This includes interviewing someone’s parents to get information about them without permission, however this does not work both ways as children are allowed to reveal information about their parents, and siblings can do this similarly to each other within certain parameters.

Breach of Confidentiality occurs if:

è A person passes on information which has the necessary quality of confidence (i.e. how important or revealing the information is).

è AND that information was provided under circumstances imposing an obligation (i.e. it was told in trust)

è AND there was no permission to pass on that information

è AND the revealing of this information and breach of confidentiality causes actual damage or detriment.

There are now clauses that are put in place in workers contracts that will protect Trade Secrets from being revealed. These are commonly referred to as Gag Clauses, and are normally put in place to stop workers from talking about information that is contained in contracts of employment, or revealing secrets important to that companies trade.

One incident of breach of confidentiality was the case surrounding Princess Caroline of Monaco who was photographed whilst shopping and claimed that it was a breach of privacy and took the photographer to court. This resulted in an injunction against any unapproved pictures of her unless it was during a “Clear Public Duty” she has to do, such as handing over the European Cup. So this just goes to show how breaches of privacy and confidentiality can be so easily encountered unless research and permission into the subject has been taken care of!

Introduction to Journalism Week 5

After the normal weekly deconstruction of the tabloids and broadsheets, and discussing how The Daily Express is also owned by the same people that own OK! Magazine and how they will usually report on similar subjects (i.e. celebrity personality weddings and the like) but in different way that appeal to different demographics, thusly selling items on two different fronts and doubling their profits. In things like this, people like Wayne Rooney (Shrek-like as he is) represents a huge celebrity personality as he is on TV a lot of the time, and therefore appears across all kinds of papers and all kinds of mediums. Because of how recognisable he is, any news that is associated with him will instantly become more interesting than regular news. This is exactly the kind of Celebrity Effect that takes place in the News.

This principle of Celebrity Effect on the news mostly applies to what markets and sources you are trying to appeal to - as in what kind of news and information applies to which demographics. But it is safe to say that a Celebrity Effect will always enhance reading possibilities.

After this, we went on to study the correct ways in which to write a news story, and how these are structured to create the best kinds of delivery of information possible. We started by looking into the structure of a news article, and how the delivery of the information is relevant to the importance of the information. This relates back to last week’s Friday lecture on Writing for Online News and the Pyramid system of how the information appears or should appear in an article:

*HEADLINE + INTRO + PICTURE --> These are the most important part as it is what sells the paper as a whole. To put it into a film related parallel, this is the one line pitch that sells your entire film script. --> You DON'T write the headline first, as that is a completely separate job to do because the headline brings the reader in, so it should be written last as the part of the article that sells it to people.

*There are three main types of intro to an article:
à Simple Summary
à A 'Washingline' intro, which are very uncommon.
àA Drop-Intro, which is used more for features as was explained last week.

For the full summary of the Pyramid Theory of Article Writing, you can see my post from last Friday’s lesson where I explained the different steps of the Pyramid. However, to reiterate:

è The 1st para is the Who/What/When/Where and the "who" should have the persons function as well (as in what they do and how it is relevant to the article, unless it’s not absolutely necessary).

è The 2^nd para is the Why. This should mostly be the reasons behind what has happened and who it has happened to. Phrasing it with something like “the move follows...” helps, but basically this is delivering the solid reasons for why the thing you’re reporting on has happened.

è The 3^rd para is the quotes of the article. Quotes should always be just comments from people about the situation you are reporting on, so then all the facts of the article are coming straight from you the writer! So for the most part, a quote would consist of a general comment like “it was a horrible accident,” or “I’d never want to be part of that again,” basically stating the general situation of whatever you’re reporting on so that its actually you that can deliver the stone cold facts and not someone else!

è The 4^th para is all about the details, and you should be putting in as many facts as you can into as short a space as possible! Just details, details and more details packed into one paragraph!

è The end should finish with a big “But...” in the sense that this is where you would put contrary information, or other quotes or any kinds of facts that will be able to give you Qualified Privilege from your article. If you need to, you can also look back on my post from last week’s Media Law lecture on the definition of Qualified Privilege and how this can affect and protect you!

Sentences in an article like this normally consist of about 8 to 10 words, and there are normally about 3 sentences in 1 paragraph. And bear in mind that the reason you are reporting on these news stories is to try and make something that is true be something that is also interesting at the same time, so use the facts of the situation to tell an interesting story that will get people excited about what you have to say as opposed to just delivering straight facts!

Radio Broadcast Week 5

This week we began looking more in-depth at Packages, and how they are put together, structured and written before we start work on our own package for assessment.

Packages consist of the following:

è A cue from the presenter of the show.

è An introduction and conclusion from the reporter.

è Various Audio Cuts

è Normally, some kind of music bed

è All of these packaged together in a way that flows naturally and gives the information to the listener in an easy way.

When writing the package material, you should always consider the Layout, the Purpose and the Language:

è Layout means how the script of the package is set out. This means that it should always be printed out and double spaced, on separate sheets of paper (so as, obviously, to not make noise when you have to read the next part), and the directions for who reads what on the left hand side of the page as appropriate.

è Purpose means that the package should have a specific direction which includes news, drama and be part of a commercial production.

è Language means that you should remember that you have a specific target audience, and you should use language that appeals to that specific audience. So, you should keep the language you use during the package informal, using shorter sentences (meaning if it isn’t important, or isn’t part of what you’re trying to say, then leave it out!) and avoid using any clichés, flowery language or empty adjectives like “fine”.

The cue sheets that are normally used before introducing a package on-air are highly important as they help a presenter introduce the package in the right kind of way, and are used for getting into and out of programme items like packages or recorded or live interviews. Cue sheets are normally set out in the following way:

TITLE: This should be the same on the cue sheet as it appears on the audio file.

CUE: What the presenter reads before playing in the package, and is normally a teaser for the content and gives very little away.

IN: The first words of the recorded package

DUR: The duration of the recording written as a time signature (2’30”), and must be ACCURATE!

OUT: The last words or sounds of the recorded package.

BACK ANNO: This is the back announcement from the presenter closing off the programme item

So, when we were given a pre-recorded package about a feral cat that fell asleep in a car manufacturing oven and narrowly escaped being burned alive, the cue sheet I wrote to accompany it looked something like this:

TITLE: Lucky Tabby

CUE:  Whoever said that cats don’t have 9 lives clearly hasn’t met one particularly lucky tabby that narrowly escaped a hairy situation, as John Smith will tell you.

IN: “The 6 month old tabby...”

DUR: 2’30”

OUT: “...8 remaining”

BACK ANNO: Reports have said that Scorcher is making a full recovery and will have quite the tail to tell.

This led us into our first piece of assessed work, where we will be putting together a package of our own of any kind of story we like. The package we create has to be more than 3 minutes and less than 5, have a minimum of 2 interviews and be edited together in a broadcast quality package. The subject matter, however, is entirely up to us and can be anything that we like.

For my chosen package, and in light of it being Halloween this week, I have decided to create a package on The History of Zombies, and how likely it is that a Zombie Plague could happen. As research for this package, I hope to be able to include:

è The origins of the legends and how they have changed with Pop-culture, and why we are so afraid of them.

è How the effects of Zombie movies have changed over the years and they have been reflective and representative of a changing society and social trends.

è Vox Pops of Zombie film fans and what these films mean and represent to them.

è The medical side of a Zombie Apocalypse, and whether science is capable of implicating such effects, and whether they are able to cure them at the same time. This will also include the possibilities of virus outbreaks and whether similar effects to Zombification can actually occur through certain viruses.

è An interview with a professional in a scientific field of virology or epidemiology (Viruses and epidemics), and what their opinion on the situation would be.

è And finally, whether it is the fear of bio-engineering that is most prominent or the fear of the unknown that the appeals of these films lie.

With any luck, I will be able to achieve the right kinds of interviews to make this package exactly what I want it to be, and I will give you a progress update of how the process is coming for next weeks instalment!

TV News Broadcast Week 4

We were without Angus Scott this week, so Brian took over the lesson in his absence and we went over some highly useful Writing Skills. As journalists, basic writing skills should be a given. But advanced writing, and writing under house styles can be a very different deal indeed, as some journalism companies will require a different style of writing compared to what you might be used to. So practicing different styles of writing for different forums will always help for a range of journalism skills.

Firstly, we studied the styles of BBC News Online. We discussed how we thought that this particular brand of the news was deliberately built to be dull and talk in a blatantly straight style of delivery, and that this is the general “House Style”.

The “Drop Intro” is a delayed introduction to the article that builds up the story by prolonging the release of information in the article. This is a widely used trick that is used to draw people into reading the story more because it starts off with a headline and then the “Drop Intro” delivers information in a suspended way. In order to write a story in a shorter way that is a quick delivery, it’s better to think of how you would tell the story if you were telling it to one of your friends over a phone call. This kind of thinking acts as a filtering system for the information – one single piece of information can define your entire day and go to the top of your agenda for telling people about your day, so why wouldn’t it be the same for your article? Filter out anything that isn’t important, and leave in the interesting facts that not only other people would want to read, but that you would want to read as well.

Writing the news consists of six main elements: Who/What/When/Where/Why and How. All of these elements are important for delivering the correct and accurate facts of the story, but the way the story is built up is more like a pyramid:

At the top

There is the intro.

Short and sharp and

The latest information.

This is called the TOPLINE

And it must be absolutely fantastic

On the second bit of the pyramid is the

Elaboration of the information already delivered

The third part is all about the chronology of the event

And lastly the fourth part goes into more detail and ties up any loose ends.

Basically, the system works best by delivering the key information in a short, sharp and to the point way that hooks people in, before expanding more and more on the details, but working backwards from most important information to least important.

When writing any kind of news, you have to remember that it is about people, and therefore you have to find a way that any story best relates to humans. Also, it doesn’t do well to be passive, as you need to find an angle that works whilst thinking about your demographic and how it will apply to them.

If there is a particular thing you would like to say in an article, but cannot say it yourself, it’s always best to try and find someone who will officially quote it for you. Obviously, this is not meant in the sense of anything defamatory, but more in the sense of using emotive language which you should usually refrain from using. If there is a particularly, emotionally gripping phrasing of an event you would like to use, you can quote someone else’s opinion of it and use that as part of the article. This then adds “colour” to your words.

It’s always good to get the better information across first and not hold out on the readers in order to get them to keep reading, as they will likely lose interest. You should also avoid using adverbs and adjectives whenever possible, and above all if you don’t understand something that you’re putting into an article, then the likelihood is that neither will the readers, so why put it in? Leave it out if you wouldn’t read it yourself!

We then went on to talk about the Fatal Errors System, a set of rules that are likely to land you in pretty hot water should you ever fall foul of them. Basically, these consist of things that (if you have any kind of common sense anyway) you wouldn’t do as a journalist, like printing a story which has any kind of malice, dishonesty or causes disruption or disrepute. Obviously, all of these are on the Winchester Journalism website as well, so these are things that should be looked over if you’re ever unsure.

After we did an exercise putting all this into practise by taking the information from a police story and turning it into a short story of our own, you realise just how tough it is to stay within all these parameters that have now been set. It’s in the phrasing, and what information best fits where, and avoiding overly dramatic use of language as is the normal temptation of ANY creative writers!

Finally, we looked into SEO, which is Search Engine Optimisation. This is always useful if you run your own blog and want to appear high in any search engine terms when people search for a specific subject that you are blogging about. The best way of having any kind of SEO is to link together with other websites so that people will find your website a lot more easily from other pages, and that way you generate more traffic to your site.

Media Law Week 4

Today’s session was a continuation on from last week’s session on Defamation and Libel, and how we as journalists can be protected whilst doing our jobs. This means we were talking more about Privilege as a main defence which will stand up in courts and tribunals, and why it matters as our protection. Privilege allows us as journalists to write or broadcast material which may be defamatory, or untrue, or even both at the same time. It give us protection from being sued.

There are two types of Privilege:

è Absolute Privilege – what is written in parliament, as long as it is Fair, Accurate and Contemporaneous.

è Qualified Privilege – your notes or reporting which can be used as evidence. This is a more day to day defence and more likely to occur in normal situations.

These reports must be Fair, Accurate, without malice and on a matter of genuine public concern. So they can not in any way be small and petty claims.

As per the last few weeks, we were given a scenario that would put into practice the legal theories of which we are currently working with. In this week’s session we were using a scenario of a being at a council meeting and the various quotes from the people involved in the council. We were asked which quotes out of the ones that were used in the scenario would be counted as being safe to use in an article on the council meeting (which revolved around the placement of wind turbines), to which the accurate would be all of the quotes except for the last one, as the last one was taken down outside of the council meeting and contained defamatory statements during a point when official notes were not being taken. Upon being asked who else we would call, it came t light that the person who is in charge of putting up the wind turbines in this fictional scenario is not at the meeting, so what the likely course of action would then be would be to make a call to this person (in this case, Mr John Wagstaff) and put to him the defamatory comment that was made after the official meeting had ended and ask him for any kind of official response to this. Since you are asking him for an official response to an unprintable defamatory comment, his response will be O.K. to be printed as it is an official quote from a source.

There are two levels of Qualified Privilege:

è with or "subject to" Explanation or Contradiction - which means you are obliged to publish any contests on the privilege.

è without Explanation or Contradiction - which obviously means that you are entirely legal in your privilege.

Privilege Part 1:

è The public proceedings in a legislature anywhere in the world.

è Public proceedings in a court anywhere in the world.

è     "            "            of a public inquiry.

è     "            "            of an international organisation or conference.

Privilege Part 2 (more relevant to what we are learning):

è subject to explanation and contradiction.

è public meetings (as in the scenario) - subject to explanation and contradiction, and the area we are most likely to be involved in. - Local councils, committees, tribunals, commissions, inquiries, etc.

è Associations will have different statuses, but will still fall into the same area.

è Findings or decisions are covered as privilege.

è Proceedings in these situations are NOT covered.

"Pressers" are public meetings that are now properly designated as such thanks to the Lords case in 2000 and the case involving The Times and a board of lawyers that means that any notes taken at these can be counted as official notes and therefore privilege. Any written handouts that are given out as well are also counted as privilege and can be used.

Summed up, Privilege must consist of notes and facts that are:

è FAIR, ACCURATE, and CONTEMPORANEOUS.

è WITHOUT MALICE.

è A MATTER OF PUBLIC INTEREST.

è Only if you are GENUINELY FAIR MINDED.

è There is NO Privilege outside of main proceedings!

Interestingly enough, McNae states that “a defamatory matter shouted out in court by someone not part of the proceedings will not count as privilege. But if the shouted comment is by someone who has given evidence as a witness in that case, privilege would protect its inclusion in a court report, provided all the defences’ requirements were met”. Meaning as long as they are part of the actual case that is happening, if someone were to shout out something that could be defamatory or libel you are allowed to take that into your notes and be protected from doing so!

Introduction to Journalism Week 4

The second session of Introduction to Journalism was more of a follow up to the previous weeks lesson and discussing the headlines and news agenda of the papers and how they relate to the current events. When discussing the differences between how the papers operate and to what demographic they appeal, we took the first example of The Independent, and how it has a very close circulation around the A, B, C1 classes, but suffers from competition with other, better funded papers with a larger amount of advertising space even though "important" people (i.e. people in power and are wealthy) pretty much get them delivered to them everyday.

The angle that The Independent was taking on the Government budget cuts was "policy", with the headline of "Fasten your seat belts, Britain." The Independent sees its audience as wannabe leaders of the world, who will likely have a higher class opinion on a lot of things, mostly revolving around the way the country is being run. It also prides itself on being a "Murdoch-free" zone, which can't be said for other such papers.

The Times sees itself as the "journal of record" in the sense that they record the really important information from history. So, say for example, historians were to look back over history for a record of events passed, The Times would be thought of as a record of information about the important stages of history. and example of this is the story that ran in today's Times about the newly discovered galaxy, which also appeared in only a small amount of other papers today. The Times may be a Murdoch-run paper, but it starts to go downhill someway into reading it and starts to appeal to a more Daily Mail oriented audience with its advert content. It should be mentioned at this point that you can normally assume any papers audience class by seeing what kind of cars are advertised in the paper, as cars are normally (if, somewhat stereotypically) an indicator of what a persons income is and therefore what class category they fall into.

"Screamers" (exclamation points) should only be used when headlines are joking or being sarcastic in some sense,  and not being used to jump off the page, as was displayed in today's The Sun.

The Today Show on Radio 4 was also discussed, and the reason behind why they lead into the football news at exactly 8:20 (10 minutes after they start the show). It is apparently believed that this is the point at which anyone of any importance who might be listening (i.e. The Queen herself) would go to the bathroom, and so this is the time they put on the football news. The Today Show tends to have an appeal towards a higher class of people, but they are more likely to take the rip out of most subjects they talk about.

It has been widely speculated that the best written paper currently on the market is The Telegraph, even though most of its stories tend to revolve more around crime stories rather than general news from around the world, or current budget climates.

We then moved on to talk about WINOL, or Winchester News Online, which we will be working on more in the second semester of the course. We viewed some news stories that were online on the site and discussed how they were reported differently from normal news in order to appeal more to a strictly student audience base. The news stories that were reported on were very concise, direct and to the point in their appeal to students and how the news stories would affect them, which is good because this clearly shows how they are appealing to their main demographic.

Television tends to be a good retail of the news, but not as a wholesale form of getting information in the way that papers can deliver, as they give a more widespread view of the information which is entirely un-condensed.

Finally we discussed how punctuation and grammar are a huge deal in the journalism industry, as one simple mistake can set you behind when people send letters and e-mails to you pointing out the spelling mistakes and you have to reply to each of them before moving on with any news. So there can be huge ramifications for small mistakes if you are not very careful!

Radio Broadcasting Week 4

This weeks session saw the continuation of last weeks work come to fruition when we stepped into the radio studio to write and record our five-story news bulletins. This included the previous weeks audio capture and editing, plus another 4 stories from this weeks news and one or more new audio captures of a different style from what we captured last week.

Personally, I began to struggle to find a relative interview with someone that I could legitimately tie into the current news, but after a stroke of luck a fellow member of the class let me interview them in a true form relative to the story of Government Spending cuts currently being undertaken.

The other stories that I decided to use as part of the whole bulletin I would work on with another member of the course (sometimes, pooling efforts together does get a better outcome than struggling by yourself and coming up with sub-standard material!) were:

* The story of Mary Bale, the lady who was caught on CCTV throwing a cat into a wheelie bin, being fined £250 for her actions, and the following actions that were taken as well. The Sun obviously took a pretty pun-tastic approach to this subject, in the sense that they were mostly pretty much poking fun at the situation and how infamous it was on YouTube in amongst bringing the facts and numbers of the situation, whereas The Guardian saw it in the light of a very much more serious court case and how this links back to animal rights. Both managed to bring the facts to light though, and that was necessary for what I needed for the bulletin.

* The study of how children now account for one third of the overall admissions to the NHS for eating disorders, which has now increased 11% since the last year. This is one story I managed to go out and get vox pops for, despite not being allowed to interview an actual pediatrician at the local hospital instead. However, this story turned out very well in the end, and I'm happy with the audio I did manage to capture for this. The story itself stems from a study into the NHS about how many people were being admitted to hospital for eating disorders, in which it was found that out of two and a half thousand admissions, nearly 900 were under 18, of which 367 were children under 14 and 31 were children under 10.

* My colleagues story about the heritage of Winchester, and how the UK has been voted into the Top 4 in the list of countries with the most interesting heritage and history. This also had an audio cut of an interview with a lady who works at the Winchester Cathedral and what makes it so unique.

* And lastly, another story from my colleague about how The X Factor has now been granted funding for another three seasons after it was alleged to be axed after this years season.

Editing the bulletins together was very interesting, as it was another excuse to get to grips with Audition, except the task today was more about editing multiple audio segments together to create a full news bulletin, ready for broadcast.

Using the radio studio was a change from the norm, as it was very interesting to see how you would broadcast these kinds of bulletins from a live setting as opposed to a pre-recorded situation where it can be polished slightly more, and edited ahead of going on air.

Hopefully, and it would be nice if we could, we will get the chance to do more work in the radio studio as it would be interesting to compare the difference in working with pre-recorded bulletins and how we would function when put on the spot to broadcast live and to mix and fade in music around our bulletins or packages.

Introduction To Journalism Week 3

Technically the first lesson of the semester for this module (as in previous weeks our time was somewhat occupied with doing shorthand instead), this is the module that will teach the bare bones and essentials of journalism and journalism theory.

To start with, we discussed the Agenda of the news, and by this we mean the running order of the news and how it applies or differs according to specific audiences. For instance, a National Audience might be interested in the latest developments of the Chilean Miners story, whereas a more niche audience would be interested in different subjects. The difference between Broadsheet and Tabloid agendas usually consist of different priorities, except in cases where the news is so wide-spread, it becomes news that affects everyone i.e. the Chilean Miners. The Tabloids agenda is normally similar to that of the TV news agenda, whereas the Broadsheet agenda is the official "doings" of society, and generally the same as the BBC's agenda which would mostly consist of parliamentary news (which normally gets set by the BBC or The Times), or larger affecting news stories.

The audiences and demographics of each kind of news is reflected in the style, content and coverage of each of the papers. The Mail, for instance, with its health scare stories and general stirring up of troubling subjects cater towards a more female-oriented demographic than The Times’ news and political coverage might do.

We were told that “The business of Journalism is turning information into money”, basically meaning that bringing the information to the people that want it and are willing to pay for it is the kind of writing that we should be aiming for. However, the concern of this is selling it to people in large numbers, and how to shift and sell all this information when there is an audience for each different kind of information. The trick is to find a market that you can write for that has an appeal, and write in a way that appeals to every person in that market.

The key for most papers is finding a common ground that relates easily to its readers. This can consist of a basis from subjects such as: England, TV, Sex, etc. Its these kinds of stories that sell because it is what people have in common and are interested in – things that are British or affect Britain, things involving or surrounding issues that are from or affect Television, etc... So, in the case of The Daily Mail, who we have now established has a large appeal to a female oriented demographic, the style and coverage will appeal to that demographic. However, in order to widen their net, there is a balance in their appeal to men as well by including content coverage of gadgets and sports as well. In this way, The Daily Mail has an appeal, but is not exclusive to, a wider audience. In contrast to this, The Daily Star is almost exclusively centred on male interests and there is little to no appeal for women, as well as little to no coverage of current events. Another example would be The Financial Times, which has a much lower circulation than a lot of other papers as it caters to a much more direct market than the others with its specific coverage and niche appeal.

That was all about the Broadsheets, but the Tabloids are almost like frozen TV, and the demographic for them tend to be people who are normally watching TV a lot of the time and rely on it to get most of their information about the outside world. In this sense, Tabloids are very visual, and contain a lot of images reflective of their content, much like a visual news package would. Broadsheets tend to appeal more to people who don’t have the time to get their information from the TV and need another means of doing so.

Essentially, this introduction will show us a lot about the different functions of the papers, and how their style and coverage appeal to different demographics.

TV News Broadcast Week 3 (Lesson One)

The first lesson in a new module (which, it’s worth mentioning, is being taken by Angus Scott) definitely got off to a good start this week. In this section of the course, we aim to be studying the way that TV News is put together, structured, edited and prepared before finally being released to the viewing public. TV News is a whole different world from Radio Broadcasting in the sense that, obviously, TV relies on the use of visuals as well as sound to tell the story. This means that TV News is multi-sensory and allows audiences to connect more to the important news stories as they don’t just want to hear about what is happening in the world, but they want to be able to SEE it as well, which leads to them caring more about what is going on in the news.

Certain visuals and pictures of events have the ability to stick out in people’s minds and instantly remind people of exactly what the event was, and these are normally iconic, ground-breaking events with visuals and pictures that are equally as iconic. In fact, it has been suggested that still pictures of certain events are able to stir up more memories and be more effective than actual, moving film.

We dabbled into the question of whether 24 hour news is actually killing big news stories, as when they are constantly running people lose interest if there are no new developments, or whether it is actually managing to bring people closer to the news than ever before, bringing powerful news stories to the people AS they are happening.

After watching a reel of the biggest news stories of the last 50 years, we decided that one of the key moments in news from that reel was the report on famine in Ethiopia, not just because it was a groundbreaking report from a foreign country, not just because of the material of the report but also because of the fact that this then led on to spawn Live Aid and many hunger charities and water charities, all of which stemmed from this one iconic news report on famine.

News has moved on so much in the last few years, in content, colours, how things get reported on and where from, and the focus of modern news stories has shifted towards a more “personality”-led news basis – basically, people want to watch news about people they know and recognise. Not necessarily just celebrities or Hollywood A-Listers, but people they know the faces and the names of including sports personalities, MPs and members of Royalty. Modern news stories are centred a lot more on recognisable people and pop culture personalities, and that is mostly down to the fact that there is a visual recognition to them in the news stories – we are seeing pictures of their faces and hearing their names used more and more in the news.

The trick to writing gripping news stories now is to find an angle that involves people, as it’s now the humanity side of the news stories that people are now, as a trend, becoming more and more interested in. Take for instance, the latest story of the Chilean Miners – the story is a human interest story and it makes for attention grabbing news because it revolves around survival and re-uniting families. The structure of the news piece itself starts off with the latest news first, as it’s the updates of the current situation that people are obviously most eager to know. The news piece then moves on and deals with the events of the story that have led up to that point, and what is happening to them now. It shows all of the miners together in a room, and that means that the audience can then quantify exactly what the news piece is about i.e. the amount of people that were trapped, what they look like, who they are, etc. Essentially, the news report about all of the Chilean Miners being safely rescued from the mines is about the humanity of the situation, and that is what a majority of the audiences want to see from this piece, and is the reason they are watching it to begin with.

When creating a news piece for TV broadcasting, it is your words that should reflect and, more importantly, emphasise the pictures being shown. You don’t just want the narration to be an audio description of what the audience is already watching; you want it to make them feel what everything is like during the making of this breaking news. It should add to the experience of the news story, and add an emotional and humanising element. It is important to remember that the whole report isn’t a one person piece to camera, either – these should only be used when it is important to do so, either to start up or round off the report, or whenever this visual device will add to the story or involve you directly, making you part of the story yourself. Visual shots at the end of the piece also help create the right kind of tone you want to set with the piece. These make the most impact by utilising the things that aren’t in the foreground, i.e. the lack of people left at the mining site and everything being packed away.

The best way to learn how to structure pieces like this is to deconstruct the way other reporters make their stories, and think about why each shot, interview and speech is used and why they appear in the order they do. And it’s these stories that make the most impact once they are aired on News Networks around the globe.

I think that the TV News Broadcasting module is going to prove very insightful over the next few weeks and will indeed change the way I currently view the news, as I will likely be looking at the different ways each news story is structured from start to finish.

Media Law Week 3

This is the lesson in which we started to get to the really important, spicy stuff of the module. The section in which most journalism-related court cases happen, and the aspect of journalism most people are likely to get caught on and get in a lot of trouble over - Defamation and Libel.

Defamation and Libel are key areas to know about for any journalist, as it is an easy trap to fall into at any time, and it’s all down to what and how things get printed in your articles. Although it has been a while since there was a notable libel or defamation case that has had a lot of coverage from the press anytime recently, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened on a large scale before. Such cases that have happened have been when ITN and Channel 4 news alleged that Dr Joe Rahamin of Devon was no good at his job in 2001. The preceding court case of defamation of his name in a public forum won Dr Rahamin £1 million in damages! Cases involving defamation and libel can result in numbers up to and including numbers like these, and in the case of famous celebrities, can result in figures higher than this. So its easy to see how cases involving Defamation and Libel can be a huge deal for the courts, and even more for any journalists involved (whether they're reporting on it or being accused of it!).

Another case, this time involving a high-name celebrity, in which defamation was a case taken to court was when a US Celebrity News magazine was taken to court by Britney Spears (who, let us not forget, does appear semi-naked in her videos a lot of the time in deliberately erotic ways...) when she tried to sue them for damages of up to $10 million after they wrote a comment/article on her sexual behaviour. As predicted, the court case failed, and no damages were paid. This goes to show firstly that anyone can sue anyone at any time over anything they find to be defamation. Secondly, cases involving people who are easily recognizable to the public can heighten the costs of damages to an incredible extent, AND they are more likely to sue BECAUSE they are more recognizable. And thirdly, it is proof that celebrities are NOT always above the law!

One case from a celebrity that did stick was when Heather Mills sued The Daily Mirror in 2002 and collected £50,000 from the case, and is now reporting a world record of £50 million in various damages to her name from her ex-husband Sir Paul McCartney. As an interesting note, it is impossible for Defamation or Libel cases to be taken to court over someone who is deceased - Dead people have no reputation to lose! Therefore, any defamation of someone who is deceased will be null and void. However, writing something about someone famous or with a good name to deliberately cause trouble or start violence IS cause for Libel.

Libel lawyers offer a very strict way of operating and are there to keep journalists safe from such kinds of cases. Libel lawyers know exactly what kinds of defamation can occur regularly and know how to defend against such cases of defamation and libel. The key is to know when a routine story becomes defamatory - for instance, the example we got given of a routine article contained a quote from someone which accused someone on the council of embezzlement, which would instantly be considered defamation.

A critical defence in any case or accusation of defamation or libel can be what is known as "responsible journalism". This consists of talking to both sides of the article in order to give accurate representation of each aspect of the article which you are writing. This way, all areas are covered, and no-one involved in the article is able to defend with "I was never spoken to" or anything along those lines. Responsible Journalism, and proof behind all your statements, is sometimes one of the best defences in any libel case there can be!

McNae states that the key things to remember on defamation include such things as:

è If what you are writing about "tends to..." (i.e. if there are any implications of any kind)

è Lower whoever the article involves in the estimation of right-thinking people.

è Causes them to be shunned or avoided.

è Disparages them in their trade or profession.

è Exposes them to hatred, ridicule or contempt.

These are all things which are considered to be classical definitions of DEFAMATION.

Unintentional defamation is still possible to occur, no matter how careful you might be. In one case, a journalist was taken to court over defamation of a man named Artemis Jones, and entirely different man than the Artemis Jones that was referred to in the article that was written, but an Artemis Jones none-the-less. This, as it turns out, can still be illegal defamation.

Something else to be very considerate of is Reputation and Meaning. Reputation is something precious, especially if you are someone in public life, or have money or both, whereas someone’s "meaning" is when they would be interpreted as a "reasonable man" i.e. what they are as a person and what they stand for. Each of these can be easily jeopardised by a libellous article without accurate proof, or “responsible journalism”, and without assessing the whole context of the final written piece. McNae raises the famous case of Lorel Gowry and how in one particular article, due to a bad phrasing of one sentence, there was a clear innuendo that implied that he was snorting cocaine in his free time. Of course, this was only implied due to the phrasing of the sentence, but because a reputation is key to some people, you have to measure up how likely they are to sue over something like this unless you are sure.

The key to identifying risk of defamation is to remember the simple equation of:

PUBLICATION + DEFAMATION + IDENTIFICATION = LIBEL!

So essentially, printing a defamatory statement about someone you’ve actually identified in your article WILL lead to cases of libel. In these instances, defences against libel can be such things as:

è Justification – i.e. “It’s true and I have proof that says so”

è Fair comment – an honestly held opinion based on facts or privileged material in the public interest (privileged material here meaning previously used material like court notes or interview records).

è Absolute privilege – court reporting notes which are Fair, Accurate, and Contemporaneous

è Qualified Privilege – quotes from the public or the presses.

è Bane and Antidote – where any kind of defamation is removed by the context of the material (say, if the material was a mock report to begin with).

è Apologies and Clarifications – sometimes saying sorry and clearing up your meaning is the best route!

è Reynolds Defence – the defence created by Albert Reynolds when he was under allegations of having misled parliament, but proof of responsible journalism won the case, as long as the material was in the public interest.

So, as an example of my own, say that I were to put in print “Justin Beiber is a talentless, vacuous tw*t who can’t sing, can’t dance, has stupid hair and doesn’t know what ‘German’ is.” That would absolutely be defamation in the highest, as it’s my opinion of him, I’ve put it in print and I haven’t gotten his side of anything in an interview. However, if in court I were to present the evidence of a radio interview with him in which he stated “What does ‘German’ mean? I don’t know what that is”, then the fact I’ve said that he doesn’t know what ‘German’ means would be true. Though I could still get sued for the fact I’ve called him “a talentless, vacuous tw*t” on the basis I have no other evidence to back that up with.

Another major case of defamation/libel was when the BBC famously reported on the Oryx Company being linked to Osama Bin Laden and laundering money. The report had to be abandoned after it became clear that no responsible journalism had been done and the BBC had been so eager to jump on these allegations for a report that they had not been to the company in the first place at all. They were so sure that the Oryx Company was behind the money laundering for Bin Laden that they felt no need to check the facts on the company, and the case could have cost the BBC up to £10 million in damages and legal costs!

The cases in which you are likely to have no defences are when:

è You have not checked your facts.

è You have not “referred up”.

è You have not put yourself in the shoes of the person or company you are writing about.

è You get carried away by a “spicy” scoop.

è You are not bothered to wait for a lawyer’s opinion.

è “When in doubt, leave it out!”

Once again, the key to avoiding any kind of legalities in journalism is recognising risk:

è Who am I writing about and could they sue?

è Is what I’m saying potentially defamatory in any way?

è Do I have a defence?

è And remember that lawyers never mind being asked anything, so if you have access to one, make sure that you take advantage of having them around!

And that closes off the session on Defamation and Libel – definitely one of the most interesting sides to media law, but also one of the easiest to fall into, so it will always pay to know as much as possible about this side of the journalism laws!

Radio Broadcast Week 3

Week 3 of Radio Broadcasting proved to be very useful, as were the last couple of weeks. Combining a good mixture of theory and practice, we covered the range of aspects that make up the theory of radio broadcasting.


Comparing the difference between how the News on radio is presented according to the demographic of each stations audiences proved eye-opening, and its easy to see just how much a news story can change from audience to audience. The Radio 4 news report was clearly specific to a somewhat older listening group, whereas the structure of Newsbeat on Radio 1 us deliberately set up to capture the attention of the younger demographic and deliver the important parts of the news story in a shorter time stretch than the Radio 4 news report. This is clear evidence of how delivery of the news differs in style according to whichever demographic they are most likely to appeal to.

Moving on from this, we went on to study exactly what builds up certain different programs on the radio, key differences between them and how these can change from demographic to demographic. Such studies included:

*Looking into Bulletins and how they affect the way we take in news stories. Normally, they are about 2-5 minutes long and give a general overview of the news stories including the Headlines, and cover the basic information of the news stories with all the important elements. They also normally include a voice piece on the story, a two-way with another reporter and various kinds of audio cuts to pack as much information into as short a time-frame as possible.

*Magazine programs and how they have a narrow or wide range in information, but generally have a specific remit. They often cover issues which are both Topic and Timeless....

*Topical Issues relate to current events whereas Timeless issues relate more to a story which can be played on air anytime as they are non-related to current issues.

*Packages normally include an introduction from the news reader and a closing statement on a news story, a sound bed, audio cuts like interviews or vox pops, and are then all 'packaged' together to create a finished article.

We went on to talk about the general formats of the radio, and how stations use formats to "fulfill their remit to the listener". This ensures a broad demographic coverage and that there are clearly defined and refined product, and clarify their market position for advertising.

This then related to what we went on to talk about, which was the Classing System for different demographics (or the A, B, C1, C2, etc Class System), what kind of class people fit into which category and how that affects the style, structure, demographic, content and format of ANY given Radio Station or Show. Essentially, it is a form of categorization that also acts as a measurement of what kind of content and style the Radio Station is likely to carry with it.

With that, we set about the practical side of the weeks lesson, and we made a start on putting a news package of our own together. The task at hand is to choose a story of any kind from the current news or papers, and capture some audio (whether it would be vox pops or actual interviews) in relation to that chosen news story in order to combine that next week with more recorded material to create our own News Package. The task is to remember the integral parts of how news packages are put together, including how they are presented and how the audio cuts fit into them, and how to grab the listeners attention and maintain it for the duration of the report, and put it to use in our own productions.

The subject of my report is the news story about how children now account for one in three admissions to hospital for eating disorders, and I immediately went straight out to visit a hospital to see if I could talk to anyone professional from there and get a recording from them that i could put to use. As it turns out, it is a lot harder than it seems to ask someone in a certain profession to speak to you officially, as i never ended up getting an interview or Q&A with any kind of official pediatric doctor. Instead, I ended up improvising and spoke to some parents and nurses with children about their opinions on the subject and ended up with plenty of usable audio cuts and, after some editing down of the material I had managed to gather, had my fully ready audio cut ready for the session next week.

The practical side of the project certainly seems to be effective, as learning the theory in the lectures and then immediately putting that knowledge to use seems like the best way of retaining what I have learned, and next weeks session should prove to be interesting when the final news package comes together.

Media Law: Week 2

So, the second week of Media Law started to expand on a lot of the teaching points that were made in the first week to a much greater extend and became much more in-depth. The subjects covered in this weeks lesson ranged from The Risks of Prejudice and what can and can't be used in an article depending on how far along a court case is, all the way through to which parts of the court have the authority to distribute out different punishments and deal with which kinds of cases.

For the most part of the first hour of the lesson, we were working on an exercise that proved to be quite interesting, as we were working on writing a newspaper article about a fictional robbery incident. We were first asked to write out an article using as much information about the incident as we liked, so it was good to see the different creative ways people phrased their articles, but it was also interesting to see how much information you can use comparing between before and after a case gets taken into a court. This is mostly due to the fact that anything that was said before or happened before a case enters the courts is information on the incident, but after the incident enters a court that information is considered evidence and can no longer be used in print.

To start with, my own version of the article read as follows:
"Mrs Ivy Jones, 62, never expected to be held at gunpoint when she went into work at her Cross Stores post office shop in Kings Somborne, Winchester, this Thursday. But, at 10am, that's exactly what happened. By a man wearing a Batman mask.
Det. Insp. John Evans is leading the case in finding the masked robber and his sidekick who escaped with £4,090 from the shop, but only after shooting Ivy and her husband John's dog Millie.
Police say that the masked thief and his accomplice escaped in a Silver Mondeo with the money after forcing Mr and Mrs Jones into a cupboard, leaving them shocked, shaken, but thankfully unharmed. Police urge people to not approach the men, as they are considered armed and dangerous."

At this point, everything is fine because all the details used are true and there is no chance of any occurring prejudice. This also means that the more details that get released about the incident, the higher chance there is that there is a certain amount of incorrect facts, or facts that will then change, or prejudice.

However, as events progress, there is less information that you are allowed to have in the article. For instance, if the robbers were to be charged with the crimes they committed, certain information is then considered evidence and only the absolute facts of the situation (i.e. names, dates, places or the Who, When, Where of the incident) will be allowed into print. Therefore, the article changes as such:

"A man has been charged with armed robbery today, and another has been charged with conspiracy. The two men were involved in a robbery this morning that left Ivy and John Jones shaken and their dog Millie dead. The men escaped wearing Batman masks, with £4,090 in cash."

You'll notice that certain phrasings and facts change to reflect the current situation. Now, there can be nor elaboration of facts, no accusations of any kind, and the situation is treated with somewhat more integrity than before, as it has now become a serious court case.

The subject of the trial will be the main points of the news story (again, this brings us back to the Who, What, Where facts). The main body of the news story would act as evidence in a trial, and therefore can't be used since they have been charged and taken into trial. So therefore, you would need to think of the following before writing a new article:
--> What material will be UNCONTESTED in court?
--> Sometimes, things will lend themselves to journalistic cliches, and this is down to a narrow amount of usable information.
-->By the time it reaches court, there is only a certain amount of information that can actually be used, and this is the undeniable facts of the case.

When a case becomes legally active, it is restricting on what you can put in an article. To know this, it is useful to know when a case becomes legally active. This happens when:
--> Police make an arrest.
--> there is an issue of an arrest warrant.
--> Magistrates issue a summon.
--> someone is charged with the crime.

What can then be printed or said will change between what tabloids are reporting, so the coverage of any court case will differ from outlet to outlet depending on which aspects each tabloid is most likely to report on. So, for instance, The Times might report on the fact that it was an elderly couple that got robbed, where as The Sun might report on the fact that the men robbed them in Batman masks. The focus of the article is dependant on the style of the outlet.

In cases where there is a detention without charge, things tend to change. The rules for detention without charge is that:
--> Police normally have 24 hours to question the suspect.
--> this can be extended by 12 hours by a senior officer if there is suspicion of withheld information.
--> a further 36 hours can be given if Magistrates agree.
--> but times of detention CANNOT exceed 96 hours.
--> A terror suspects limit of detention, however, is 28 days.
--> Police bail is a short term, paid release to which the suspect returns later to face court charges.

Another interesting point of any trial is which categories of offence they fall into (which, by the way, can also be an undeniable fact of the case unless they decide it should be changed):
--> Indictable-only: can result in possibly 5 or more years
--> Either-way: usually in charges involving assault, these cases can go to Magistrates or even Crown court.
--> Summary: Not too huge of a sentence, and will mostly stay with Magistrates.

The powers of the Magistrates courts are varied, but consist mainly of the following:
--> 6 months in jail and fines upto £5000.
--> Suspended sentences.
--> Community Orders.
--> Binding Over - an order to keep the peace and be on good behaviour or there is a penalty fine.
--> ASBO's - or Anti-Social Behavioural Order.

So this leaves us with the questions of exactly what we CAN use in an article by this point. Well, the information that is most useful in a article that can tell readers the most about the case (that you CAN print) consists of information from the pre-trial reports. This can include a number of things, such as:
--> Names of defendants, ages, occupations, etc.
--> The charges they are faced with or a close summary of them.
--> Name of the court and the Magistrates leading the trial.
--> Names of the solicitors or barristers present at the case.
-->Date and place to where the case is adjourned.
You will notice that all of these are the undeniable facts of the case, which means there is very little to no speculation over the proceedings, which keeps journalists away from printing anything that can be read as prejudice.

Certain cases can last for weeks or even months at a time, which means that sometimes journalists have to pick which days are going to be the best to get coverage of the trial in order to get the most information from the trial. One way of keeping up to date with what is happening with the trial proceedings is to keep in contact with someone on the prosecuting team. This way, you are able to get information about which days will be the most useful to get coverage of and which ones won't be. Different stages of the trial will be more useful than others as well. The key stages of any trial are:
--> Prosecution Opening.
--> Key prosecution witness.
--> Defence Opening.
--> Key defence witness.
--> Judges summoning up.
--> Jury sent out, deliberation and verdict.
--> Sentencing.
It will obviously be useful to cover certain stages more than others as there will be stages of the trail that give more information on the case than others, so it's useful to know which stages are likely to give you the information you're looking for depending on what your kind of coverage is.

There are rules that must be stricly followed for reporting from court. Some of these may seem like common sense, but a couple are things you might not think of straight away that can have serious consequences. Some of these rules are:
--> FAIRNESS in the coverage. This means giving an unbiased report of the proceedings and not bending any truths to suit the style of your article.
--> ACCURATE representation of what is happening during proceedings. If something happens during the trial that you put into an article, make sure it actually happened the way you remember it!
--> CONTEMPORANEOUS - it goes without saying really that anything you report on from the case should be reported as soon as possible. You can't report on one days events 2 weeks from that day (for one thing, by that point it would be old news anyway and something more interesting might have occured!), so make sure everything is as up-tp-date as possible.
--> NO ELECTRONIC RECORDING! Any electronic recording of any kind in a court case is not allowed, and if it is found out that you have you are held in contempt of court and can face upto 10 years in prison. Recording of a case is considered evidence of the trial, and removal of that from the court is removal of evidence, which is highly illegal.

With cases involving Children or Young people, certain new rules apply. For instance, anyone is legally juvenile until they are 18 and Under-18's have the priveledge of anonymity during a case - so beware of accidental identification, as that can lead you into even more trouble!

Also, it is not just Young people that can be given ASBOs - they apply to people of any and ALL ages! ASBOs have only been introduced within the last 10 years, but it already seems like they are on a downtrend as it is now the "done thing" amongst certain groups of people to be given an ASBO. A "badge of honour", as some might call it. An ASBO is a Civil Order from a Magistrates Court to appear for court charges, and they are designed to prevent repeated behaviour of harrasment or disturbing the peace. All of this can also include exclusions from certain areas or places (i.e. shops, clubs, parks, streets...) and can even incur curfew orders as well.

And that wraps up Week 2 of the Media Law module. I'll blog again next week when we discuss Defamation and Libel, which should prove to be very useful to all areas of journalism!