The Harry Potter film has made its way back into the main papers of Britain for about the fifth time this week. Except, this time, its not so that the nation can see just how lovely Emma Watson looks with her pixie-crop hair and lacey black skirt (not to say she doesn't, though...).
This time, the latest release in the money-making machine that is the wizarding franchise Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been involved in a violation of Copyright. Though it's been suggested before that many of J.K. Rowling's ideas might be less than original, this time the feature length adventure has fallen afoul of the internet. It was reported today that an entire 36 minute long clip of the latest Warner Brothers film release has mysteriously leaked onto the internet ironically enough only a day before the films general release this Friday. Executives at Warner Brothers are reportedly less than impressed at how the footage managed to wind up being available for download on torrenting sites like BitTorrent.
"This constitutes a serious breach of Copyright Violation," said a Warner Brothers spokesperson. "We are vigorously investigating this matter and will prosecute those involved to the full extent of the law."
This would, in fact, make an interesting case to study over our recent Media Law classes on Copyright, and the fact that just because it is on the internet does not mean that it is Copyright-free. It will be interesting to see how the people that leaked this clip are tracked down, and how this will affect future Copyrighting of clips on and off of torrenting sites.
Showing posts with label Media Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media Law. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Media Law Week 8
Once more without Ian at the helm, we went over the Freedom of Information Act. The main reason we went back over this is because it is such a useful tool for Journalists to have that it helps to know as much about it as possible. Where subjects such as Defamation and Copyright are there to teach us to be careful in what we do and what to look for when undergoing our journalistic duties, the Freedom of Information Act is a useful addition to our various arsenals that we have.
To start with, the Freedom of Information Act works around the basis that we (i.e. the general public) pay taxes which in turn fund the government. Workers for the government are paid to produce documents filled with information and pictures that are useful. So, in effect, we are paying people to make this kind of information that we as journalists might need, readily available should we actually require it. Around 130,000 bodies and authorities are covered by the Act, to which there are over 100,000 information requests per year, which actually costs them around £34 million each year to answer them all!
Depending on who it is you ask, a lot of this number isn't actually journalists. Journalists only total up to 12% of the actual number of requests per year, and the rest tend to be general public (although, it is now thought that perhaps the number is slightly higher since these governing bodies are somewhat reluctant to give information out to journalists who might use it for some story that can have ramifications, and as such the percentage might be closer to around 45% with some journalists only claiming to be general public...).
One example of just how useful the Freedom of Information Act can be is how it was used during the Kingsnorth Climate Protest in August 2008. Because of the Freedom of Information Act, a request was fulfilled and it was found out that the "70" that were injured was actually about 12, and of that number only 4 needed any kind of medical attention (it turns out, one was in fact a particularly nasty bee sting...), which successfully disproved any prior claims made about the actual number of injured public. Politicians have claimed that the Freedom of Information Act has a "chilling effect" on the government because of ramifications that can occur.
The Freedom of Information Act gives you full access (within reason) to request information on anything EXCEPT:
--> When the cost goes over £600 (sometimes £450 for smaller bodies).
--> When the information is exempt, to which there are 2 kinds:
- Absolute, which applies to security services and court records.
- Qualified, which applies to ministerial communication and commercial confidentiality. There are actually 23 different possible exemptions under Qualified Exemption, such as when the information is likely to jeopardise National Security or if the information is intended for future printing.
Either way, the body you have requested information from must respond to you within 20 days, even if it is to say that they are going to take another 40 days to process your request and check that it does not contrast with public security interests. Ultimately, 60 days is the maximum that any authority should take over giving a definite response either way.
So, what happens if they say "No, you can't have the information", even if you think you should? There are various ways you can go about it from there, but the first step would be to have an internal review of the company to see if there are any other ways you can get hold of the information. If that does not work, then you can take your request to the Information Commissioner. After that point, you are entering the realm of going all the way up to the High Court to get hold of the information you need!
After this, we had a go at sending off our own request for information from a governing body that is covered by the Freedom of Information Act. The body that my partner and I decided to investigate was the Highway Council, and we wanted to know how many Speed Cameras were vandalised last year to the point that they had to be replaced. We will soon see if we hear anything back regarding the subject...
For more on this subject and many other Journalism subjects, go to http://www.winchesterjournalism.co.uk
To start with, the Freedom of Information Act works around the basis that we (i.e. the general public) pay taxes which in turn fund the government. Workers for the government are paid to produce documents filled with information and pictures that are useful. So, in effect, we are paying people to make this kind of information that we as journalists might need, readily available should we actually require it. Around 130,000 bodies and authorities are covered by the Act, to which there are over 100,000 information requests per year, which actually costs them around £34 million each year to answer them all!
Depending on who it is you ask, a lot of this number isn't actually journalists. Journalists only total up to 12% of the actual number of requests per year, and the rest tend to be general public (although, it is now thought that perhaps the number is slightly higher since these governing bodies are somewhat reluctant to give information out to journalists who might use it for some story that can have ramifications, and as such the percentage might be closer to around 45% with some journalists only claiming to be general public...).
One example of just how useful the Freedom of Information Act can be is how it was used during the Kingsnorth Climate Protest in August 2008. Because of the Freedom of Information Act, a request was fulfilled and it was found out that the "70" that were injured was actually about 12, and of that number only 4 needed any kind of medical attention (it turns out, one was in fact a particularly nasty bee sting...), which successfully disproved any prior claims made about the actual number of injured public. Politicians have claimed that the Freedom of Information Act has a "chilling effect" on the government because of ramifications that can occur.
The Freedom of Information Act gives you full access (within reason) to request information on anything EXCEPT:
--> When the cost goes over £600 (sometimes £450 for smaller bodies).
--> When the information is exempt, to which there are 2 kinds:
- Absolute, which applies to security services and court records.
- Qualified, which applies to ministerial communication and commercial confidentiality. There are actually 23 different possible exemptions under Qualified Exemption, such as when the information is likely to jeopardise National Security or if the information is intended for future printing.
Either way, the body you have requested information from must respond to you within 20 days, even if it is to say that they are going to take another 40 days to process your request and check that it does not contrast with public security interests. Ultimately, 60 days is the maximum that any authority should take over giving a definite response either way.
So, what happens if they say "No, you can't have the information", even if you think you should? There are various ways you can go about it from there, but the first step would be to have an internal review of the company to see if there are any other ways you can get hold of the information. If that does not work, then you can take your request to the Information Commissioner. After that point, you are entering the realm of going all the way up to the High Court to get hold of the information you need!
After this, we had a go at sending off our own request for information from a governing body that is covered by the Freedom of Information Act. The body that my partner and I decided to investigate was the Highway Council, and we wanted to know how many Speed Cameras were vandalised last year to the point that they had to be replaced. We will soon see if we hear anything back regarding the subject...
For more on this subject and many other Journalism subjects, go to http://www.winchesterjournalism.co.uk
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Media Law Week 7
This week, we looked once again at Copyright, but a bit more in-depth than last week. Copyright is a huge part of the journalism know-how, just as Defamation and Libel are, so it makes sense to cover this subject in depth a bit more.
Copyright is there to protect your intellectual property. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 is used, as McNae states, to protect "the product of Skill, Creativity, Labour and/or Time". It also describes a breach or infringement of copyright as "making beneficial use or exploiting someone else's intellectual work without permission". However, as explained before, you cannot copyright "ideas", until they become a tangible piece of work that you have created yourself.
So what exactly does Copyright protect? Copyright can pretty much protect anything and everything that is the product of original work, but it mostly applies to any works that are in print, film or music as these are creative substances that people are more likely to want to copy in the first place. But anything that can be deemed as original work can be subjected to Copyright. And why should we care about Copyright? Because without Copyright protection, journalism itself would never have flourished as everyone would simply be reprinting the general news over and over again. Copyright itself maintains exclusivity which gives the product value to people. This generally means that if something is Copyrighted, then it is the only kind of whatever it is (or at least, the only version). So, for example, Star Wars is Copyrighted, which means no one else can write a script set in a galaxy far, far away, shoot it and market it under the name Star Wars, which is what makes Star Wars itself so good because there isn't anything copying it. There may be parodies of Star Wars (i.e. The Family Guy Star Wars episodes, or Robot Chicken Star Wars), but they are either a) So far from the original idea that they themselves become an original idea based around an existing one or b) have already paid Lucasarts for likeness rights to their characters and storyline to be used in something that isn't directly copying Star Wars.
This leads me into the issues of who gets paid what. In the case of music downloads, that relates back to copyright and creative control of a product from the artist, which is why many free downloading sites have now been privatised, and the reason that some file sharing sites are still functioning is because the files that are there for sharing have originally been purchased as per normal standards, and are simply being shared to other people that want it without paying for it. Of course, this hardly makes it right, but it does start off with the artist being paid for their work in the normal manner. Though I'm sure eventually these file sharing sites will also be taken down, and the music industry will begin to recover losses from such sites.
So, what happens if you breach Copyright? What can happen? Breaching Copyright will cost you:
--> Money
--> Embarrassment and Stress
--> And above all, your Reputation for Competence.
So overall, its probably not worth it!
Some companies will be likely to charge you for using their archive footage if you are running a piece that requires it, but if it is part of your already (hopefully) extensive library of footage. However, to get round this, what will sometimes happen is production companies will release trailers of a film due for release that can be used by other mediums and companies without Copyright infringement in the weeks leading up to the films release. This way, the companies using it can do so without paying for it and without breaching Copyright laws, and the production companies get further advertising on more mediums than they would otherwise have done. Essentially, Win-Win.
Papers have been "lifting" other papers stories for years, but this is only under the laws of Fair Dealing, which we discussed last week. The usage of material under these fair dealing laws must be:
--> Fair
--> Accurate
--> In Public Interest.
This being in place allows a wider reporting of current stories, criticism and reviews, and even obituaries of actors and filmmakers that have died, so that their best work can be played in memory of them. However, one thing to remember from all of this is that photographs are NOT subject to fair dealings, as it is very difficult to use part of a photograph to portray what you need. These, you have to get on your own!
The danger areas where it is most easy to breach Copyright is through mediums such as Facebook and YouTube, as lifting videos and photos from these would be breaching Copyright. YouTube itself might not hold the laws for Copyright over the videos, as it is mainly a publishing medium, but the people who put the videos up on YouTube DO hold some Copyright leverage as it is their creative property. Though, because this is the Internet, it becomes slightly more difficult to have a tighter grasp over your creative product, so putting it on the Internet in the first place means that you are loosening your grip on your product to a certain extent already.
The best ways to stay safe from Copyright issues is to recognise issues early , so contacting rights holders is always the place you should start, though this does take time. And when in doubt, don't lift any material without referencing to a superior first!
For more information on this subject, and other Journalism subjects, go to www.winchesterjournalism.co.uk
Copyright is there to protect your intellectual property. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 is used, as McNae states, to protect "the product of Skill, Creativity, Labour and/or Time". It also describes a breach or infringement of copyright as "making beneficial use or exploiting someone else's intellectual work without permission". However, as explained before, you cannot copyright "ideas", until they become a tangible piece of work that you have created yourself.
So what exactly does Copyright protect? Copyright can pretty much protect anything and everything that is the product of original work, but it mostly applies to any works that are in print, film or music as these are creative substances that people are more likely to want to copy in the first place. But anything that can be deemed as original work can be subjected to Copyright. And why should we care about Copyright? Because without Copyright protection, journalism itself would never have flourished as everyone would simply be reprinting the general news over and over again. Copyright itself maintains exclusivity which gives the product value to people. This generally means that if something is Copyrighted, then it is the only kind of whatever it is (or at least, the only version). So, for example, Star Wars is Copyrighted, which means no one else can write a script set in a galaxy far, far away, shoot it and market it under the name Star Wars, which is what makes Star Wars itself so good because there isn't anything copying it. There may be parodies of Star Wars (i.e. The Family Guy Star Wars episodes, or Robot Chicken Star Wars), but they are either a) So far from the original idea that they themselves become an original idea based around an existing one or b) have already paid Lucasarts for likeness rights to their characters and storyline to be used in something that isn't directly copying Star Wars.
This leads me into the issues of who gets paid what. In the case of music downloads, that relates back to copyright and creative control of a product from the artist, which is why many free downloading sites have now been privatised, and the reason that some file sharing sites are still functioning is because the files that are there for sharing have originally been purchased as per normal standards, and are simply being shared to other people that want it without paying for it. Of course, this hardly makes it right, but it does start off with the artist being paid for their work in the normal manner. Though I'm sure eventually these file sharing sites will also be taken down, and the music industry will begin to recover losses from such sites.
So, what happens if you breach Copyright? What can happen? Breaching Copyright will cost you:
--> Money
--> Embarrassment and Stress
--> And above all, your Reputation for Competence.
So overall, its probably not worth it!
Some companies will be likely to charge you for using their archive footage if you are running a piece that requires it, but if it is part of your already (hopefully) extensive library of footage. However, to get round this, what will sometimes happen is production companies will release trailers of a film due for release that can be used by other mediums and companies without Copyright infringement in the weeks leading up to the films release. This way, the companies using it can do so without paying for it and without breaching Copyright laws, and the production companies get further advertising on more mediums than they would otherwise have done. Essentially, Win-Win.
Papers have been "lifting" other papers stories for years, but this is only under the laws of Fair Dealing, which we discussed last week. The usage of material under these fair dealing laws must be:
--> Fair
--> Accurate
--> In Public Interest.
This being in place allows a wider reporting of current stories, criticism and reviews, and even obituaries of actors and filmmakers that have died, so that their best work can be played in memory of them. However, one thing to remember from all of this is that photographs are NOT subject to fair dealings, as it is very difficult to use part of a photograph to portray what you need. These, you have to get on your own!
The danger areas where it is most easy to breach Copyright is through mediums such as Facebook and YouTube, as lifting videos and photos from these would be breaching Copyright. YouTube itself might not hold the laws for Copyright over the videos, as it is mainly a publishing medium, but the people who put the videos up on YouTube DO hold some Copyright leverage as it is their creative property. Though, because this is the Internet, it becomes slightly more difficult to have a tighter grasp over your creative product, so putting it on the Internet in the first place means that you are loosening your grip on your product to a certain extent already.
The best ways to stay safe from Copyright issues is to recognise issues early , so contacting rights holders is always the place you should start, though this does take time. And when in doubt, don't lift any material without referencing to a superior first!
For more information on this subject, and other Journalism subjects, go to www.winchesterjournalism.co.uk
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Media Law Week 6
Once more without Ian this week, we instead briefly went over two different subjects consisting of Copyright Law and the Freedom Of Information Act.
Firstly, Copyright Law applies to intellectual property which is yours until you sell it to someone else. Until that point, Copyright Law protects your intellectual property from being stolen, copied or otherwise used without your prior consent. When you do sell it, you give away your beneficial rights to it, as it is then no longer your property. However, of course, there is no copyrights on ideas. The best examples to use for copyrights is for Film scripts - when you first come up with an idea for a script, there can be no copyright for it because it is not yet a tangible property. However, once you write the script and start putting it into production, you can officially have it copyrighted as your own intellectual property, and will therefore be protected against any kind of copying or theft of your creative brainchild. This is a very common process, especially in the film industry (hence the example) and can usually mean that your productions are legally secure until you give up such beneficiary rights through selling your product. Also, if you are creating something to be used by someone to to be used on something else, the product then becomes property of the person you have been paid to write it for.
Just because something is put up on the internet does not mean that it is available to everyone. The internet may be a free forum, but that does not give people the right to theft. Nowadays, some pictures or downloads have electronic watermarks programmed into them which can then be traced back to you, so when using other peoples documents from the internet its always helpful to purchase them or get permission for their use if you're using them for official journalistic reasons. So the only totally safe way to do it, is to do it yourself.
In cases of fair dealing, some companies agree with each other that they can use a certain amount of each others materials provided that they don't make it available to other people. As an example, say that one TV company might want to use some clips of another companies football match (say BBC News wanted to use clips from a game that was covered by Sky Sports), Sky Sports might be willing to let the BBC use some of their clips provided that they don't show the entire game, credit tghe clips to Sky Sports and that there was a voice over on the clips as well, so its not the original sound. This is a typical example of fair dealing. Another version of this, but slightly changed, is called creative commons - this is when you might have permission to freely use pictures or a certain amount of material in exchange for credits or links to the company. This is most typically used in Reviews, so for instance in the case of Film Reviews a production company such as Paramount or Universal might allow you to use a clip of their latest release as part of the review as long as you provide links to their sites or credit that it is indeed their company releasing the images. This way, the company gains publication, and you gain a well rounded review!
After this, we then went on to discuss the Freedom of Information Act. The FOI Act is a statute that requires any publicly funded body to publish any information asked for on demand. an example of this comes from journalist Matthew Davis who constantly asked hospitals for a league table of the most sued hospitals, which he eventually got and then sold to The Daily Mail for a considerable amount of money to run as a newspiece. Obviously, this mostly applies to information that is allowed to be made public, and restircts the divulgence of information they can't reveal under national security and/or other secrets. As a journalist, you are able to write to the Council or their FOI officer for information you might want/need for an article you are producing, and they have to, by law, answer your request within 60 days. Of course, dependant on the information you are after, the reply after the 60 days might well be a notice to say that your request is still being processed and that you "will be contacted soon, and thank you for your time", but if it is information you know you can get then you can keep requesting them for it.
Some other places you can go for access to certain information is whatdotheyknow.com and the Sunlight Project, which is a project assisting people in gathering information on known criminals. These are incredibly useful places to go to in a pinch.
More on this in next weeks lecture, and at http://www.winchesterjournalism.com/
Firstly, Copyright Law applies to intellectual property which is yours until you sell it to someone else. Until that point, Copyright Law protects your intellectual property from being stolen, copied or otherwise used without your prior consent. When you do sell it, you give away your beneficial rights to it, as it is then no longer your property. However, of course, there is no copyrights on ideas. The best examples to use for copyrights is for Film scripts - when you first come up with an idea for a script, there can be no copyright for it because it is not yet a tangible property. However, once you write the script and start putting it into production, you can officially have it copyrighted as your own intellectual property, and will therefore be protected against any kind of copying or theft of your creative brainchild. This is a very common process, especially in the film industry (hence the example) and can usually mean that your productions are legally secure until you give up such beneficiary rights through selling your product. Also, if you are creating something to be used by someone to to be used on something else, the product then becomes property of the person you have been paid to write it for.
Just because something is put up on the internet does not mean that it is available to everyone. The internet may be a free forum, but that does not give people the right to theft. Nowadays, some pictures or downloads have electronic watermarks programmed into them which can then be traced back to you, so when using other peoples documents from the internet its always helpful to purchase them or get permission for their use if you're using them for official journalistic reasons. So the only totally safe way to do it, is to do it yourself.
In cases of fair dealing, some companies agree with each other that they can use a certain amount of each others materials provided that they don't make it available to other people. As an example, say that one TV company might want to use some clips of another companies football match (say BBC News wanted to use clips from a game that was covered by Sky Sports), Sky Sports might be willing to let the BBC use some of their clips provided that they don't show the entire game, credit tghe clips to Sky Sports and that there was a voice over on the clips as well, so its not the original sound. This is a typical example of fair dealing. Another version of this, but slightly changed, is called creative commons - this is when you might have permission to freely use pictures or a certain amount of material in exchange for credits or links to the company. This is most typically used in Reviews, so for instance in the case of Film Reviews a production company such as Paramount or Universal might allow you to use a clip of their latest release as part of the review as long as you provide links to their sites or credit that it is indeed their company releasing the images. This way, the company gains publication, and you gain a well rounded review!
After this, we then went on to discuss the Freedom of Information Act. The FOI Act is a statute that requires any publicly funded body to publish any information asked for on demand. an example of this comes from journalist Matthew Davis who constantly asked hospitals for a league table of the most sued hospitals, which he eventually got and then sold to The Daily Mail for a considerable amount of money to run as a newspiece. Obviously, this mostly applies to information that is allowed to be made public, and restircts the divulgence of information they can't reveal under national security and/or other secrets. As a journalist, you are able to write to the Council or their FOI officer for information you might want/need for an article you are producing, and they have to, by law, answer your request within 60 days. Of course, dependant on the information you are after, the reply after the 60 days might well be a notice to say that your request is still being processed and that you "will be contacted soon, and thank you for your time", but if it is information you know you can get then you can keep requesting them for it.
Some other places you can go for access to certain information is whatdotheyknow.com and the Sunlight Project, which is a project assisting people in gathering information on known criminals. These are incredibly useful places to go to in a pinch.
More on this in next weeks lecture, and at http://www.winchesterjournalism.com/
Sunday, 31 October 2010
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:
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:
Breach of Confidentiality occurs if:
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!
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!
Saturday, 23 October 2010
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:
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:
Privilege Part 1:
Privilege Part 2 (more relevant to what we are learning):
"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:
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!
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!
Saturday, 16 October 2010
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:
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:
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:
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:
Once again, the key to avoiding any kind of legalities in journalism is recognising risk:
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!
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!
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!
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
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!
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!
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Media Law Week 1
I'll be the first to admit that I haven't had very much experience with Media Law lessons before. In fact, my experience of Media Law doesn't extend too far past College A-Level standards, which mostly covered the basics of Copyright, OFCOM and the likes. So, for anyone in these classes that is feeling a little daunted by any of this (especially after just having done 4 hours straight of Teeline Shorthand as well!), rest assured that these lessons will obviously be new to quite a few other people too.
So, my attempt with my blog is to simply share what I have picked up from the lessons myself in the way that I see it, and discuss everything from there. I'm assuming that these Media Law lessons will be mostly kept to intensive lesson work and then further studying outside of lessons will consist of chapter readings from textbooks, as that is what was explained to me at the start of the course.
The first lesson seemed like a pretty clear overview of the rest of the module - a new subject each week, and obviously each subject is of importance to us as journalists as they cover various areas of journalistic law that affect us both directly and indirectly from the things that we write and from the industry as a whole.
From my understanding (and my notes...), this is how the lesson panned out:
*The 12 weekly sessions consist of - Outline of the legal system (which is now done)
- Reporting crime and the courts
- Defamation and Libel
- Qualified Privilege and our protection
- Confidentiality and protection for secrets
- Freedom of Information
- Copyright
- Investigative Journalism
- Codes of Conduct (PCC, Ofcom, BBC)
- Recent Cases and how Law is Evolving
- Breifing and revision for written test
- Unseen class test - 1 hour.
*Blogs - we use our blogs to display the fact that you have a grasp of the information from the lessons and that there has been reading on the subjects covered... which you are now reading. Obviously.
*It is safer and better to know a lot of the legal side of journalism --> the key skill is learning how to recognise risks.
*"The Crown" is the state - everything in law flows from this point.
--> Criminal and Civil Law
--> People sueing each other - individuals vs individuals.
--> Supreme Court - Judge cases such as MP's expenses, etc
--> Court of Appeal
--> High Court
--> Crown Court
--> Magistrates Court / County Court - Tribunals.
*Media Law is about the struggles between restrictions and freedoms of writing.
*"Public Interest" - a very debateable term!
All of the definitions of each stage of the court system can be found on Page 8 of the Essential Law for Journalists book, so that would defintiely be a very useful page to have especially if you're like me and have nearly no superior knowledge of anything to do with the court system! Essentially, this should be a very useful module to do, even if it is somewhat daunting to anyone who hasn't covered any subjects like this before.
Personally, I think that the most useful subjects to cover out of these (for me, at least) are the ones on Defamation and Libel, Copyright and Freedom of Information as no matter what kind of journalism you're heading towards (case in point, me heading towards Music and Film journalism), these are still some key points and probably the ones we are most likely to get tested on (as well as aspects of Law and how these affect these subjects).
Anyway, next week my notes will be going up again, so come back then for another lot of something like this!
So, my attempt with my blog is to simply share what I have picked up from the lessons myself in the way that I see it, and discuss everything from there. I'm assuming that these Media Law lessons will be mostly kept to intensive lesson work and then further studying outside of lessons will consist of chapter readings from textbooks, as that is what was explained to me at the start of the course.
The first lesson seemed like a pretty clear overview of the rest of the module - a new subject each week, and obviously each subject is of importance to us as journalists as they cover various areas of journalistic law that affect us both directly and indirectly from the things that we write and from the industry as a whole.
From my understanding (and my notes...), this is how the lesson panned out:
*The 12 weekly sessions consist of - Outline of the legal system (which is now done)
- Reporting crime and the courts
- Defamation and Libel
- Qualified Privilege and our protection
- Confidentiality and protection for secrets
- Freedom of Information
- Copyright
- Investigative Journalism
- Codes of Conduct (PCC, Ofcom, BBC)
- Recent Cases and how Law is Evolving
- Breifing and revision for written test
- Unseen class test - 1 hour.
*Blogs - we use our blogs to display the fact that you have a grasp of the information from the lessons and that there has been reading on the subjects covered... which you are now reading. Obviously.
*It is safer and better to know a lot of the legal side of journalism --> the key skill is learning how to recognise risks.
*"The Crown" is the state - everything in law flows from this point.
--> Criminal and Civil Law
--> People sueing each other - individuals vs individuals.
--> Supreme Court - Judge cases such as MP's expenses, etc
--> Court of Appeal
--> High Court
--> Crown Court
--> Magistrates Court / County Court - Tribunals.
*Media Law is about the struggles between restrictions and freedoms of writing.
*"Public Interest" - a very debateable term!
All of the definitions of each stage of the court system can be found on Page 8 of the Essential Law for Journalists book, so that would defintiely be a very useful page to have especially if you're like me and have nearly no superior knowledge of anything to do with the court system! Essentially, this should be a very useful module to do, even if it is somewhat daunting to anyone who hasn't covered any subjects like this before.
Personally, I think that the most useful subjects to cover out of these (for me, at least) are the ones on Defamation and Libel, Copyright and Freedom of Information as no matter what kind of journalism you're heading towards (case in point, me heading towards Music and Film journalism), these are still some key points and probably the ones we are most likely to get tested on (as well as aspects of Law and how these affect these subjects).
Anyway, next week my notes will be going up again, so come back then for another lot of something like this!
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