Gallery Gripes - Vision Mixer

We've been having quite a lot of problems the last few weeks with the WINOL and Sportsweek backgrounds being deleted from the memory card in use in the gallery. Essentially what this has meant is I've had to remake the backgrounds using former production editor Domonique Jenkins' blog on the subject when this happened around this time last year. It's a simple enough process which shouldn't slow us down if we're all aware of the problem and how to solve it.

With that in mind, here is the link to Dom's blog which features the backgrounds we've used and also the process you need to go through to make a background and put it in to the memory card for the green-screen.

Dom's Blog: http://domoniquejenkins.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/guide-to-putting-image-on-to-vision.html

WINOL Background:













Sportsweek Background:

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

Media Law - Regulation and Codes of Conduct

This lecture was our first with Ian Anderson, former News Editor on the BBC 10 O’clock News; so Dan, when you think your job on WINOL is hard, try and fathom how much of a step up it would be to do that on a national programme like the 10 O’clock News.

So to start it is important to remember that regulation and codes are not laws, but often are of the same or higher importance to journalists. With the shadow of Leveson looming large over the whole industry this is an extremely important time in regulation; the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) has been held up in ridicule, journalists are less trusted by the public than ever and newspapers are closing down faster than you can say News of the World. Regulation and codes must work in practice because if they don't then the public does not trust us; if the public doesn't trust us, where do our stories come from? Why do codes matter though? Well all professionals have codes of conduct which occupy the space between actual laws and what is right ethically; so if you break one of your codes of conduct you may not actually be breaking the law but you can still damage your career or even lose your job. Journalism is all about having the trust of the public so it's good to have these codes to guide us in areas like; how far can we go to get a story, what practices are legitimate and when do circumstances make a difference? The Jimmy Savile case which is currently playing out across the media has been extremely damaging to the bond between the BBC and the public. These codes are in place to stop bad practice in journalism in order to gain and maintain public trust.

There are 3 main codes for journalists to remember plus one other which I'll mention briefly later. For newspapers and magazines it is the PCC which of course is in transition at the moment. It's very difficult to define the PCC code at the moment but essentially it is a regulator which deals (or perhaps dealt?) with complaints submitted to them where a journalist has perhaps made a mistake which cannot be rectified by a simple apology in the next edition. Often the PCC has to be the middle man between the complainant and the newspaper, such as in this case, now resolved, where Gordon Brown MP complained to the PCC about something written in The Times about money given to MPs in addition to their parliamentary salary. Since the PCC is run by ex-press people pretty much, the question of how it can be fully independent is ever present. It also has no real power to regulate, offering as it does apologies and a slap on the wrist. The code and regulator for broadcasters is Ofcom who are arguably much less ineffectual than their newspaper regulating cousins. This is mainly because they have real power to regulate in being able to fine people or pull their programmes off air. Think back to the Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross saga, Ofcom fined the hell out of them and it eventually caused the pair to lose their jobs. This was nothing though in comparison to the breach of trust the incident caused. If you don't keep to the Ofcom codes though they can and will take you off air; they license people to broadcast and have no hesitation in giving with one hand and taking away with the other. In comparison to the timid PCC, Ofcom really can hurt an institution with its powers which have to be there to enforce impartiality as well as any legal issues. Impartiality is something which doesn't matter to newspapers, there is no requirement for them to be impartial, yet broadcasters have to be impartial or risk the wrath of Ofcom. Finally we have the BBC code of conduct, available for all to read here and which are, by all accounts, "a great tool for how to do your job well," as spoken by Ian Anderson in our lecture. I won't go into detail on the BBC guidelines as they will only affect you if you get a job with the BBC and since that's a little more niche than getting a job in journalism in general I'll leave it up to you as to whether you want to find out more.

There are times however when as a journalist it may be necessary to not adhere to these ethical rules. In the search for a story, how far is too far? In investigative journalism it may be necessary to secretly film someone or lie in order to get the story. This is obviously not ideal and the only real defence you can have for these sorts of actions is public interest. OK so the story could be true but if it is not in the public interest you lied and cheated to get the story and deserve to be reprimanded. If however it is in the public interest then you should be home and dry. The fake sheik stories in the long gone News of the World were a great example of investigative journalism where rather dodgy tactics were employed to break codes for good reasons. At the moment there is a consultation by the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) which is hoping to put a real answer to the question of whether the public interest served by the conduct investigated outweighs the overall criminality of the means of acquiring that information. If yes, run that story dammit; if no, you're going to jail lad.

Finally (oh you thought I meant finally when we were talking about the BBC? Well this is awkward) let's talk about the NUJ. OK so the National Union of Journalists hasn't been as strong ever since Murdoch came along but there are some journalists who still hold its 12 key points sacred. In most other codes there is a focus on privacy but there's a fair more laissez faire attitude to that in the NUJ code of conduct; you can read the whole list here but the one that all journalists should adhere to if they are to be respected and considered trustworthy is the protection of sources. If you are given sensitive information which is entirely possible as a journalist then it is your solemn duty not to reveal the source of this information if you publish the story which you gained from said information. Really though, as long as you make every piece of work you do FAST, ACCURATE and FAIR then you shouldn't have any problems. And how hard can that be?

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

Media Law - Copyright or Copywrong?

This week's law lecture was taken by a guest lecturer, Peter Hodges. An expert, if not THE expert in copyright law (who some long term readers may remember visited once before). Having started on the other side of copyright as a music producer which helped him when he made the transition to the BBC advising on the use of music and other copyrighted materials in BBC programmes. Copyright isn't too difficult to define but it has changed over the years since its first use in 1640 with Paradise Lost. It can cover all manner of things, not just music and films but even this blog. Although it's been updated often throughout European law and with the advent of the Internet it matters hugely to us as journalists because we should be thinking about our own rights. To protect your work you need to have it published. You can't just write it down and let that be that because if it isn't published then it isn't covered by copyright. Some rather obscure things can be copyrighted; for example the Eiffel Tower when illuminated at night is copyrighted because the lighting company has the copyright on the lighting configuration. Insane.

Copyright doesn't last forever though and the laws about how long copyright lasts are quite specific. For a literary piece of work like a book it is covered during the life of the author and then 70 years after that, for music the same rules apply except it is 50 years after the death of the author. In the case of films though, the normal rules apply but it continues to stay in copyright for 70 years after the death of the director, the screenwriter and many others. But what can a person do to protect their work? Well the simplest thing is to prevent it being copied. That's why you often see on DVDs a little symbol saying copy protected or similar. Watching a film in the home you don't need to clear that copyrighted material but if, for example, you had the film on your website or played music underneath it which isn't yours, you could be prosecuted. The performance still has to be paid for. There is an exception though and it is the glorious world of 'Fair Dealing'.  Fair dealing is essentially the acceptable face of taking and using copyrighted material. You can use anything you like for research or public study but you're probably wondering how much of a song or how long can a clip from a film be if I use it on my hipster blog. Well the good news is yes you can under the fair dealing usage of comment and review. How long you can use a piece of copyrighted material for is up for some debate however. In the WINOL Games series I produced last year with course mate Ewan Kennerell we had to come up against fair dealing quite regularly; here's a typical episode. We were told by Peter Hodges that up to 2 minutes would have been acceptable so it's a real relief to know that every episode we made of WINOL Games was totally safe legally. In news you can also use fair dealing but it doesn't cover photos and is much harder to prove that the material is safe under fair dealing.

"But what about live broadcasts?" You're probably not saying. Well in a live broadcast if there is music playing and it is included incidentally, there's nothing you can do about it. It's live. But record the live broadcast and rebroadcast it at a later date without clearing that music and you're in trouble. Basically, everything is copyrighted. Even Happy Birthday is copyrighted! And all artists, authors, movie makers, photographers have the right to be credited. Always remember though that there is no copyrighting ideas. If someone says, "let's have a show that does football highlights," Gary Lineker is unlikely to head round to your house and tell you to stop ripping off Match of the Day.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

P.S. Previous copyright blogs 1 and 2

The 2nd Law

Not just a Muse album but also an incredibly cheesy way of introducing the second week of law blogs.

This week it was Confidentiality and Privacy. Two subjects close to journalists' hearts but with one in particular sliding out of relevance rather rapidly, (try saying that three times fast).

We'll save the best 'til last then and start with confidentiality which is really a technical term for secrets. Obviously it's more complicated than that but at its root, something confidential is often something secret. For example, let's pretend a hospital is fiddling its numbers, causing patients to suffer; if a hospital worker were to tell a journalist this it would be quite clearly something which is secret but definitely something which is confidential. It is often in cases like this where confidentiality is of the utmost importance and sources need protecting that we look to the journalism code of conduct. Much has been made in the last few months and even years about the character of journalists, arguably we're worse than lawyers and politicians now in most peoples eyes, but yes, we do have a code of conduct. One of the most sacred and important parts of said code of conduct is the protection of sources. Where do people think stories come from if not sources? And if we go around whistle-blowing on the whistle-blowers then who will trust us? We as journalists need to be prepared to go to court and even jail to protect our sources. Outside of journalism Bill Goodwin is probably not all that well known but to journalists he should be considered a hero. As a young, up and coming reporter on a business trading magazine he broke a story using his sources that quite frankly angered the company he was writing about. They took him to court and he was asked again and again to identify his source; he wouldn't do it. Goodwin was eventually cleared and the story revealed to be completely true if memory serves me but it is for his dogged protection of sources that he deserves to be remembered.

Confidentiality though has become a little niche since 2000. The European Human Rights Act is what caused it and the two most important articles for journalists to remember are Article 8 and Article 10. Article 8 concerns the right to privacy and Article 10 is essentially freedom of speech which is why it is so important to journalists to have a good understanding of what can be protected under it. A journalist also needs a basic understanding of the difference between statute and common law. If statute was the only kind of law then you could probably get a law degree in a couple of months, fortunately (or unfortunately if you're a law student reading this for some reason) common law stops that by being absolutely insanely complicated as it is the law made by judges over the years in past cases. This means that despite statute laying down the main laws, any slight changes made by judges in their handling of cases and their sentencing can have huge legal ramifications down the line. You don't need to do a law degree and understand all the ins and outs of common law, I reckon even lawyers would admit they don't know absolutely all common law, but just have a understanding of the dangers this presents. Similarly you don't need to understand every point of Article 8 and 10 but just to understand the dangers and the defences. The Leveson enquiry may return a verdict that calls for what will amount to fixing the regulation of journalists, but this would not be needed if all journalists could recognise the dangers present in law.

Remember when I got all obsessed about secrets a few paragraphs ago? Well there was a reason, and it's as follows. Sometimes a journalist can come across something like the Official Secrets Act which, whilst designed to protect national security, can be a real thorn in journalists' sides as it completely takes away our trusty public interest defence. Although you could possibly claim a defence under Article 10 or perhaps ask them to show how the information you published actually damaged national security, you'd be walking on thin ice. Not to be confused with common law, there is such a thing as common law secrets which essentially gives us the right to have secrets and to pass those secrets on with the expectation that it won't be passed on to others, (Bill Goodwin again). For something to be a breach of confidence it has to have four things present. You are in breach of confidence if you pass on info which:

1. Has "the necessary quality of confidence" (eg is important and not already known) - "not just tittle tattle." AND
2. was provided in "circumstances imposing an obligation" (eg - when a reasonable person would think  it would be kept secret). AND
3. There was no permission to pass on the information. AND
4. "detriment" is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information.

If any of the above are missing then the information is NOT confidential, in law at least, and it can be revealed without breach. An example would be a doctor telling someone they have an STD, let's say it was a politician who he was talking to, if the doctor tells a journalist this then they cannot publish this information without a breach of confidence, it would be defamation and I haven't got time to do that blog now. All in good time. It is not a very recent case now but the Michael Douglas case where wedding photos were published by a forgettable gossip mag (I genuinely have forgotten, oh the irony) that were taken by an unofficial photographer. The judge in the case called privacy "a fundamental value of personal autonomy." The key thing to remember about this case though is that it is a privacy case because they were taken by an intruder. Had the photos been taken by a guest at the wedding and leaked by them it would have been a breach of confidence. Pictures of the young girl who ran off to France with her teacher are now sailing dangerously close to the wind. When the search was on it was possible for journalists to print pictures of her under public interest and qualified privilege defences but now... be careful.

Journalism is selling words for money but that should never mean you compromise your legal safety. An important case to remember here is the continuing saga of Princess Caroline which has come to define privacy over and over again. In the original case photos of the princess eating in a restaurant were published. I could comment on the cult of celebrity and why anyone would want to see those photos anyway but this is a law blog so shut up. Those photos were a breach of her privacy but why? She's famous, surely she expects it. No. Not how it works. She was sitting inside the restaurant at the back, clearly trying to conserve her privacy, not performing a public duty so she had the expectation of privacy in this case. Publishing photos of her would be - and was - a total breach of privacy. There isn't a public interest defence here. This ruling essentially meant that an activity can be private even it occurs in a public place and the person concerned is famous. It doesn't always work that way for ol' Caroline though as this more recent example shows. Personally I don't want to see pictures of Princess Caroline but anything about her daughter is welcome as far as I'm concerned.

What our mate Carol (can I call you Carol?) should have done is whack an injunction on everything that moves like everyone with the money and the lawyers does these days. When a journalist has a juicy story, the person or group the story concerns has the right to reply, that is the journalist must let them know the story is about to break if they are to be free from defamation claims. Unfortunately this means the person can go "Right..." and grab an injunction hot off the presses from Lord Justice Eady or similar. An injunction against one is an injunction against all, so if I took out an injunction against you for threatening to print the extremely damaging story that I am completely and utterly terrified of wasps then no one else can print that story either as the injunction stops them too. What journalists took to doing in the early days was reporting the fact that there was an injunction so, using the wasp example, "A student journalist has taken out an injunction... etc," and that would be enough but now we also have super injunctions which prevent even the mentioning of the original injunction. This was what happened in the now famous Ryan Giggs saga. Giggs had taken out an injunction preventing journalists from saying he had been a bit naughty but then also took out a super injunction preventing journalists from saying he'd taken out an injunction. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you're Ryan Giggs) it all got published on Twitter, tweeted and re-tweeted, breaking the injunction and making a farce of the whole affair (poor choice of words there). It was a similar issue in the Max Mosley case where the newspapers reported that Mosley had indulged in some weird sex orgies, knowing it was true but thinking they were safe anyway because surely he wouldn't take them to court and drag that considerable dirty laundry through the public washing machine... too many metaphors spoil the broth. Well it turned out that they vastly underestimated Mosley as he did take them to court and is still taking people to court.

Finally I want to finish with the PCC definition of Public Interest as often it is the last refuge for journalists.

It is as follows:

The public interest includes, but is not confined to:

i) Detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety.

ii) Protecting public health and safety

iii) Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.