Media Law, Week 3, Qualified Privilege and other defences.

There are numbers of defences that journalists can take in order to avoid a costly libel action against their stories.

One of them, justification, as a defence means that a journalist has to prove in court that the libel statement is true. To justify their point they need to use relevant evidence. The reason for why justification is a difficult defence is because the claimant who started a defamation action against the publisher doesn’t have to prove whether the statement is true or false, it is in a publisher’s business to make sure they have a proof to defend their story.

Fair comment, however protects published articles which were just pure comments, rather that factual information. In order to be able to seek this defence, the comment has to be recognisable as opinion. It should not be perceived as factual allegation, but it has to be based on true facts. The subject commented on has to be a matter of public interest.

Qualified Privilege is a type of defence again libel taken in defamation actions. It is also available in situations where it is considered important that the facts should be known in the public interests. There are two types of QP: Statutory qualified privilege and Common Law qualified privilege.

Statutory qualified privilege can be used in certain circumstances, such as court reporting, public and council meetings reporting and reports of police statements. The published report has to be accurate, fair and free of malice. There is also a requirement for Statutory qualified privilege which states that the matter published must be a matter of public concern, the publication of which is for the public benefit.

However, Privilege at common law can be applied in situations where the law protects defamatory statements that are untrue, for the convenience of the public. For example, it applies when a person makes a defamatory statement in the performance of legal, moral, or social duty to a person who has corresponding duty or interest in receiving it.

The Reynold’s defence includes 10 points, which protect published material, which was then taken as defamatory, provided that it was a matter of public interest and that it was the product of ‘responsible journalism’

10 point test includes:

1.The case has to be serious- the more serious allegation, the more protection will be applied.

2.The nature of information

3.The source of information

4.The status of information

5.Evidence is essential

6.The urgency of the matter

7.A comment from the claimant is needed

8.The tone of the article- it has to be written in a balanced language

9.It has be to published immediately

10.A claimant has to have a chance to deny it.

The Galloway case:

The Daily Telegraph lost the case after making serious defamatory allegations against George Galloway, including elements of malice with no Justification, comment or QP. The reason for losing the case was that journalists failed the ’10 point test’, mainly because the paper did not put all its allegations to Galloway for him to deny before the information was published.

Here are just rough notes taken in the last law lecture. I also used McNae's- Essential Law For Journalists to help me write and understand the notes.

WINOL LIFE- October Edition

WINOL LIFE has finally arrived. (I know you all have been waiting for it!) Just a little background of the show for those who aren't sure what it is:

Winol Life is a studio based discussion where guests come in, watch a few video features that students have created, and then talk to our in-studio presenter about the feature in question. Often offering constructive criticism or just comments. A notable guest editor that has been on the show in the past is Laura Barton- features writer for the Guardian. This time we had an honour to have Sally Churchward as our in studio guest. Sally is a senior features writer for the Southern Daily Echo.

The first episode of the show went really well, considering it was our first time. However, editorially I would say it was just a trial and a learning curve for the whole team and me. We managed to make quite a few mistakes which I will try to improve and avoid next time.

The planning stage:

As I have mentioned before I am the producer of Winol Life, which means I am responsible for the whole show. It involves planning, organizing the style, inviting guests in, booking them a parking space if they are driving, creating the graphics and the script.

One of the mistakes I made this time was taking all the jobs by myself, instead of dividing them within the production team. Trying to be independent and almost selfish when it comes to work is definitely one of my faults. This is what will improve next time. So prepare for more work next time, guys!

In an email to Sally Churchward I explained the show and what the day was going to look like when she arrives. She seemed confident in her emails. After the show, when all the nerves and stress disappeared, I had a chance to have a longer chat with her. She said she was also quite nervous but enjoyed the experience and the show. We may see Sally back in Winchester when she comes with her photographer to write an article about us.

One problem that we had which was quite big and frustrating was the lack of sofas on the campus. I tried ringing around, tried the campus porters and I was unsuccessful, which meant that the show couldn't really happen as it was all about 'sofa discussions'. On Monday, a day before we were filming, Chris, Brian and I spent the lunch time running around the campus, looking for anything that looked like a sofa, or that could look like one. But that was also unsuccessful. I thought there was only one thing I could do. I went to talk to Tommy Geddes, the Deputy Vice- Chancellor, who has recently purchased nice, red sofas for the staff room at the university. They were perfect for our show. Thankfully, after having a nice talk with him and after asking nicely, he let us have two of his lovely sofas for Tuesday.

Another problem that we had was a technical issue in the gallery on the day. The gallery was a total mess when we walked in on Tuesday morning and took at least 3 hours to sort it out and even after sorting it out some things still didn't work. Dave, our technical person, was with us for at least 30 minutes trying to sort out the vision mixer which refused to work. This prevented us from having a proper rehearsal before Sally came in. This built up the tension, stress and nerves. People weren't too sure what they were doing as it was our first go at WINOL LIFE. Sally arrived at 11.00 am, I went to meet her at the university's reception and gave her a short tour of the news room. I talked her through the show again so she knew what to expect.

The post production was simple. I had to cut out one package as we ran over 15 minutes. I reduced the show to 14 minutes which was ok, but not great. The show as a whole was too big to be uploaded on YouTube, it took me and Chris 3 hours to work how to prevent the upload from keep failing. Finally, we compressed it in Final Cut Pro and made it smaller. That, however, ruined the quality of the show. While uploading onto YouTube the quality became even worse and the show is out of sync. It is not a huge issues, other than that Winol Life looks professional.

The show went quite smoothly. We only had one run through and then we went live. I was really pleased with how easy it was to film and how well we seemed to work as a team. Even if it wasn't perfect, we still put the whole, really complicated show together. It is complicated because we use all the studio cameras, we have a guest in the studio, we run all the packages and we have only one take.

The presenters: Hannah Keegan and George Berridge did and excellent job. They knew the script well and they were confident. The reporters: Zoe and Becky, as well as Ewan and David were also brilliant with their answers. Great job guys!

Therefore, despite all the mistakes, and technical difficulties, the show could have gone MUCH worse than it did. I think the organisation was brilliant, the team work was great, and if there was no stress or nerves, everything would seem to be more at ease.

We will be making mistakes in the next episodes, but that's the way to learn! I am more than sure that the number of mistakes we reduce more and more and the last show will be simply perfect.

Thank you to everyone for your help and hard work. Thanks to Sally for joining us and giving great feedback.

Now, it's time for you to see the show and decide whether you can spot many mistakes (Other than the out of sync. issue). Feel free to give feedback, as it is really important for me to know what I can improve for the next episode.

Media Law- Libel and Defamation.

'Law exists to protect the moral and professional reputation of the individual from unfair attack'.
My understanding of Defamation is a false statement of published or spoken facts about a person, company or organisation. It can lower their reputation or make other people think less of them without justification. 

The following examples show how reputation can be lowered and therefore, when a statement becomes defamatory.

• Exposes them to hatred, ridicule or contempt
• Causes them to be shunned or avoided
• Discredits them in their trade, business or profession 
• Generally lowers them in the eyes of right-thinking members of society

Journalists have to be extra careful with their statements, as they can be sued for anything that can’t be proved. For example, if a publisher tells a story about a person who is a liar or a cheat or in financial difficulties, the statement can easily be considered as libel unless the publisher has a defence, such as evidence.

Another ‘tricky’ thing that Journalists have to take special care of is words that carry more than one meaning. (English can complicate your life sometimes!). There are statements such as Inferences, which can be read/understood by someone in a wrong way. They have secondary meanings, a person could read them ‘between the lines’ and then can make a wrong conclusion.

The statement, however, can be protected by defence in libel law. A claimant has to show the court three tings when suing for libel:

1. The publication is defamatory,
2. A defamed person has been identified
3. It has been published to a third party.

It is quite similar to Slander, which is the type of defamation with no permanent record. Normally it's a spoken statement. It requires defamation and identification but NO publication to a third party. For example, it can be seen as a form of conversation.

Journalists need to remember that the defamed person doesn’t have to prove that the statement is false. If it is defamatory then it is obvious that the statement is false, however if the journalist can prove their facts than that’s their evidence, therefore, defence. The defamed person doesn’t have to prove intention or any proof of actual damage. All they need to do is to show the false statement.

There are four main defences that journalists can use:

1. Justification- The defamed person needs to prove that defamatory statement identifies them. On the other hand, the publisher needs to prove that the publish statement is true, by using essential evidence.

2. Fair comment- A statement has to be an honest opinion based on fact. No malice should be included. The subject commented on must be a matter of public interests.

3. Absolute privilege – It’s a complete answer and bar to any action and defamation. It doesn’t matter whether the words were true or false, or spoken maliciously.

4. Qualified Privilege- which is a specific protection against an action of defamation given in the first place to judges, lawyers, and witnesses in court cases. It is also a defence where it is considered important that the facts should be freely known in the public interest.

There are a few situations where defence cannot be used. This is when reporters:

• Haven’t checked their facts,
• Haven’t ‘referred up’,
• Haven’t put themselves in the shoes of the person or company they write about,
• Got carried away by an exciting story
• Haven’t bothered to wait for their lawyer’s opinion.  

This is a lot of rough notes and definitions, but they are one of the most important law rules that a journalist needs to know in order to be able to report and never be sued.

McNae’s- The essential law for journalists helped me write up these notes. 

Winol Week Two

It was the second week in our new roles. I imagined that the bulletin would have gone much better than in our first week, yet I was wrong. Rachel Hepworth was our guest editor this week. She patiently watched us all get ready for the bulletin and then she gave us many useful comments and tips in the debrief. I think we all learned a lot from her notes.  

There were several issues that affected the bulletin as a whole. The biggest mistake we made this week was missing the deadline. Instead of going Live at 3.00 we went live 15 minutes later. This would be a huge issue on a real TV channel and it would probably never take place. Angus Scott, one of our lectures and ITV sports presenter has told us before never to go live at all if we don’t make it for 15.00 pm on the spot. However, this hasn’t been anyone’s fault in particular. I think there was a misunderstanding in the gallery, as well as technical difficulties, such as the lack of talk back, incomplete packages and just general chaos. Jack, our new production editor took on too many jobs. As well as overseeing the bulletin as editor he decided to direct as well, which made it impossible for him to notice little problems, such as pressing the record button at 3.15, as he was concentrating on counting down the VT and cueing in the presenter. Therefore, I think everyone tried to get involved too much into controlling the Gallery, as it just seemed like a little bit of a mess. We need a little bit more discipline in there, but also organisation. The production team didn’t do anything till after 12.00 by that time they were late for headlines, therefore the rehearsal didn’t take place till late which caused the bulletin miss the deadline.
This week my role was to play VTs from the machine. I managed to set an OB kit in the news room for our breaking news story which we couldn’t use in the end because the lack of sound from the news room. We had Felicity in the studio with the presenter instead.

The presenters- Hannah and Sam did a very good job despite the stress and technical problems. They were both confident and sounded great. The only thing I would say is the handover. I think the presenters should have a relaxing chit chat about upcoming sport packages to ease the stress and tension.

The content of the bulletin was good, but yet not quite excellent. We keep having problems with the headlines. Rachel said that they are good; however they didn’t attract her enough to want to watch the rest of the bulletin. This is something the team really need to work on- the right clips and words. Another thing that needs improving which Rachel and Angus agreed on was our script. They are nowhere near as good as TV scripts. The style of them is also wrong, but this is due our script machine being broken. Usually in the scrip you need to have: a slug, package duration, out words and a link. There should be 5 copies of it as well, 2 for the presenters and 3 in the Gallery.

Overall, well done for putting a lot of good effort everyone, let’s try to improve those little mistakes and the bulletin will be perfect once again. 

Reporting Crimes and Courts

Knowing criminal law is an essential skill for all journalists, as they have to know exactly what they can and can’t include in their reports in order to make them accurate, fair and to avoid committing contempt of court.

All journalists are at risk of being sued for their stories, therefore it is important that they know how to avoid that risk. Prejudice is one of the main things that can put them at high risk. Prejudice means ‘pre-judging’ something; if a reporter makes a statement about a person or an event based on false beliefs or before knowing the case well, they are most likely to be rightly sued for their report. It is important for reporters to get their facts right and to get to know the story well before reporting on it, as well as staying objective and open minded, trying not to pass the judgment too quickly.

Standard of proof in criminal law

For anyone to be convicted of a criminal offence, guilt must be admitted or proven in court ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
The court journalists can start reporting on the case when it becomes ACTIVE. That happens when the police make an arrest and when the person gets charged. However, the case is not active when an arrest is made with no evidence. In that case the suspect can only be kept under arrest without charge for 24 hours. By law, if they have not been charged within that period, the person has to be released.

The pre trial reports include 7 points of what a reporter can include in statements. That includes:
- Names of defendant, ages, addresses, occupation.
- Charges faced or close summary.
- Name of court and magistrates’ names
- Names of solicitors or barristers present
- Date and place to where the case is adjourned
- Any arrangements as to bail. ( Bail is a system by which a defendant is given his/her liberty until the next court case)
- Whether legal aid was granted.  

Criminal charges are divided into three main categories. Reporters are expected to be able to tell the difference between them, as each category requires different rules for reporting. There are some details that the Automatic reporting restrictions don’t allow to include in reports on some hearings at magistrates court. Journalists need to be able to distinguish those restrictions.

1. Indictable-only offences, which are the most serious crimes, punishable by the longest prison terms.  Possible sentence of 5 years or more. Examples for this type of crime would be murder, rape or robbery.

2. Either-way offences- such charges can be dealt with either at a Crown court or at Magistrates court. Magistrates can decide whether a particular case is a serious one which needs to be dealt with in Crown court, or if the magistrates can deal with it

3. Summary offences are very minor ones compare to the other two, they include crimes such as common assult, drunkenness. These are also relatively easy to deal with and they stay with Magistrates court.

Winol is back! Week 1.

After a very long and productive summer, I am back to join the rest of the WINOL team for the last time.  It feels strange thinking that it has already been a whole year since WINOL became a huge part of our lives and after Christmas we will no longer be a part of it.

Surprisingly, the term started completely differently to what I imagined. I was expecting panic, running around, screams and arguments because of frustration of not working cameras or computers. However, the first week back was very calm. The new members of the team seemed relaxed and prepared for the hard work. They also seemed curious of what it was all going to look like, especially that they never had the essential training on how to make a news package. Last week’s bulletin was only a dummy edition in order to let the second years get used to the equipment, getting the interviews, having balance in their packages and getting to know the editing system.  I thought the bulletin went really well production wise, there were no technical difficulties, everyone seemed to know what they were doing, Domonique was a good director. Domonique and I tried to pass on all the knowledge we have about the Gallery and the studio to the new production team, who picked up everything easily.
The reporters met their deadline and the script was in on time, which didn’t happen very often last year. This term looks very promising so far. Of course, there were little mistakes made by reporters, such lack of white balance and some of the shots were out of focus, some content was lacking balance. These mistakes were essential last week, as that’s the only way you can learn how to produce a decent package. The content wasn’t brilliant, but we definitely had worse in previous bulletins. The aim of the dummy edition was for the new ones to get an idea of what a package should include. Well done everyone for trying hard.

My role on WINOL this year is Features Producer, alongside with Domonique. We share the role but have different jobs. Domonique is responsible for in studio, regular shows which we produce on Tuesdays, such as Sportsweek, whereas I plan, organise, produce, edit and upload a number of editions of WINOL LIFE and other special projects. I need to attend every features conference and discuss ideas for WINOL LIFE show with the Features Editor, Katie. As Features Producer my aim is to get trains on the Outside Broadcast kit, which we can use on the 25^th of November in the Performance Gym. I am also planning to select a number of features students who can get trained on advanced technical equipment such as gib and dolly with me, which could be useful in perfecting WINOL LIFE, making it look more professional.

This week, starting from Monday I had a feeling of confusion from other members of Winol team, about their roles especially. I think it may be because we are all used to our old roles and being reporters and producers, which is more productive in terms of creating content, rather than having editorials roles, where we are responsible mostly for legal issues and overseeing the content that our new reporters produce. I think this feeling of confusion is going to pass soon when get used to our new roles and when we discover what exactly our particular role involves.

This week is going to be a real bulletin, which is going to be watched by out first guest editor this year – Rachel Hepworth from ITV Meridian. Good luck everyone :-)

Media Law, Week 1 Lecture 1- Hierarchy of Courts.

‘The media are the eyes and ears of the general public’.

Law in the UK allow citizens to ‘free press.’ Some of them, especially journalists are aware that this kind of freedom, especially freedom of expression, must have some strong restrictions by the law. There has to be a balance between the media being free to expose wrongdoing and an individual being able to defend themselves from baseless attacks. Therefore, the UK law provides the law of defamation – LIBEL and SLANDER- which tries to get that balance.


The Hierarchy Of Courts in England and Wales.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) consists of four countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Some law applies throughout the whole of the UK and some applies in only one, two or three countries. In our first Law lecture we talked about the hierarchy of courts in England and Wales in order to help us understand their importance.

HOW CRIMINAL LAW IS ENFORCED IN ENGLAND AND WALES

If a crime has been committed, the police are being informed in order to conduct an investigation. If, after arresting and interviewing a person, the police believe that the person committed the crime, that individual is charged. A report of the case is then sent to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

If the case has been considered successful by the CPS and if it would be in the public interest to do so, it will start criminal proceedings against the suspect, who becomes the defendant in the case. In court, the CPS bears the burden of proving, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant committed the crime.

Minor offences, such as speeding, are heard by Magistrates’ Courts. Many towns in England and Wales have their own Magistrates’ Court, where cases are heard by three magistrates. Magistrates do not need any legal qualifications, and they are advised by a Clerk, who is a qualified lawyer. Magistrates do not state reasons for their decisions.

Very serious offences, such as murder and rape, are heard in the Crown Court. The Crown Court is based in about 90 centres throughout England and Wales. A jury consisting of 12 people chosen at random from the local population will decide, without giving reasons, whether the defendant is guilty of the offence.

Some intermediate offences, such as theft, may be tried in a Magistrates’ Court or the Crown Court.


References:
McNaes, page 3.
http://www.ilex.org.uk/about_legal_executives/the_uk_legal_system.aspx