Courting Controversy

I didn't blog last week and if by some strange quirk you are a regular follower of my blog then you may wonder why. Well the reasons are twofold; we put on our huge Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner Debate, which I took part in on the day of last week's lecture, and also the last two weeks of lectures were on court reporting so I felt it would be beneficial to just put my thoughts on both lectures in to one single, easy to digest blog.

When talking about court reporting, the most important thing to remember in my opinion is privilege. There are a few other situations where privilege comes into effect, the House of Commons for example, but it is most commonly used in court. What privilege allows journalists to do is write and publish or broadcast material which may be defamatory or untrue, simply because it is said in court. We have protection in reporting these things as long as, yep, you guessed it; we are FAST, ACCURATE and FAIR. People in court have what is known as ABSOLUTE privilege but journalists only have QUALIFIED privilege (QP) in reporting on them. Your reports need to be fair, accurate, without malice and on a matter of public concern for QP to come into effect. It is the same rule for reporting on the House of Commons where as long as your report follows the regulations for QP then you can report anything said by MPs in the Commons. This is the way that recently many injunctions and super injunctions have been broken with MPs naming and in some cases shaming those with injunctions so that the paper can break the story without fear of reprimand. Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming was famous around the time of the Ryan Giggs super injunction, calling injunctions an "affront to democracy," and breaking a few using his absolute privilege in parliament. You can read a comment piece here about how that process works and the worries parliament have about this kind of conduct and you can read about how the Ryan Giggs story broke using several links; here, here and here. It's interesting to see there one of my mini blogs from a long time ago with a mention of another sports star with a super injunction who I'm not sure we ever found out about.

Qualified privilege has two levels: with or 'subject to' explanation or contradiction and 'without' explanation or contradiction. It is also subject to the Reynolds Test, the 10 point test which I listed and went through in my last blog. There are a few other events covered by privilege, pressers and public meetings are covered but again, only if they follow the rules for obtaining QP. Written handouts are also covered according to the lecture. This is something I'd never heard before and it made me wonder whether that defence would also stretch to a press release. Say for example you receive a press release from an outspoken, right wing, extremist group about a demonstration and you report what they have to say. As long as you give a balanced report, giving the other side a chance to respond and that your report is accurate and without malice; would it be legally safe? I genuinely don't know so a little more research is needed and perhaps an update to this blog will be in order. Stay tuned. It is also worth thinking about the risks of live broadcast when it comes to privilege. What can you broadcast when you're filming something live which is protected by privilege? We had to deal with this ourselves recently with the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner debate mentioned above. We were streaming the event live to the world (although more likely a few people in Hampshire and my mum) and so anything the candidates said would be transmitted to the world whether it was defamatory or not. Was that safe legally? Well it was a public debate but it was up to us as to whether there was balance or not. Fortunately the candidates were very well behaved on that front and we were lucky but it is good to show we have thought about this kind of issue.

I'm planning to update this blog with a few more thoughts and examples but if you feel you haven't learnt enough about court reporting you can see my first year blog here and my trip to the court from around that time (don't worry, I wasn't IN court, just visiting) can be read here.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

Media Law 3 - Defamation

In our third media law lecture the focus was on defamation and the legal issues that come with it for a Journalist.

The charge of defamation is more than personal, it is related to how you appear to the outside world and is related to profession. To give the example used in the lecture, if you were to tell me that I can't cook, that would fine, it has nothing to do with my profession but if you (hypothetically of course) were to suggest that Gordon Ramsey couldn't cook, this would be defaming him because, as a cook, it would lower his reputation in the minds of right minded people. The Judge and Jury decide whether something is defamatory so the claimant does not even need to prove the statement has lowered their reputation. The definition of defamation is a statement that tends to lower the reputation of someone in the minds of right thinking people. The use of a word like 'tends' gives it a sense of possibility so people can sue on their interpretation of a statement. Only the jury can decide whether the statement really was defamatory but at the end of the day the Journalist is the one who has to prove it wasn't, not the other way around. Because of the nature of our culture there are some people (who will go unnamed for fear of defaming them) who will sue for practically anything which can take damages into the millions. There is an issue with defamation being linked to the thoughts of "right minded people" because as individuals we do not always think the same. What seems defamatory to someone (particularly the claimant) may not seem defamatory to others.

Defences
As a Journalist you do have a number of defences to being sued for defamation with the best probably being Justification. Essentially it is the defence of truth, you do have to prove it is true but if you can do that then even if the statement is defamatory then you still have the defence of Justification. In The Sun of that day the front page had George Michael and a story about him 'coming out' of jail. There are two things that could be seen as defamatory in this story; firstly the fact that he was in jail which in the minds of right thinking individuals would lower your reputation. Secondly there is the insinuation through the use of 'coming out' that he is homosexual which would be defamatory to someone with a wife and family but in the case of George Michael, these statements are truth and therefore the paper is protected by the defence of Justification.

In some cases, a Journalist has the defence of Privilege, mostly this is qualified privilege such as in Parliament but in court you have absolute privilege. This means as long as it has been said in court you can say the most dangerous and defamatory things because the public needs to see that justice is being done so you are protected. For the defence of Privilege to be held up you need to follow certain rules. You can't bring recording equipment in to the court, you can only have your shorthand notes (which is why shorthand is so important). Good shorthand is your shield as a journalist because it can prove what was said in the court. The report also has to be fair, i.e. not one sided. If you only reported the prosecution in court and the person being prosecuted turns out to be innocent, there could be a case for defamation. The next rule may seem obvious but it needs to be said, don't make anything up, it has to be accurate no matter what. Finally it must be contemporaneous, (basically next day publishing), if it isn't then it cannot be protected by the laws of Privilege.

The last defence is the defence of Fair Comment. This is probably the most difficult to prove as it still has to be provable even if it is your honest personal belief. For example if your honest personal belief was that this blog was absolutely shockingly written and not very good at all, it would still be defamatory to me as a student of Journalism and you would have to prove it was true. Often opinion columnists base their defence on this so Charlie Brooker for example would have had to use this defence many times, although not so much any more as he has just practically given up his Screen Burn column in The Guardian.

You could also argue that the rarely used and very dangerous 'Bane and Antidote' is also a defence but saying something nice after something nasty is a very dangerous tactic and not one that should regularly be used. Any and all of these defences are lost however if the comments come from malice and for something to be defamatory it has to be published, even if it is only to a couple of people it has still been published (even blogs with tiny audiences such as this one need to be careful).

Almost finished
I'll finish the blog with one last example of defamation and defence from it. If you wrote an article saying that the gardener doesn't cut the grass and the gardener sends a letter to you saying "Yes I do." You can post a correction before anything gets libelous but if you send a letter to the gardener apologising it is essentially an affirmation that you were being defamatory. Putting 'Without Prejudice' on the top of the letter however makes the letter practically untouchable by law. Worth knowing I think.

A Day at The Court - How everything ends with Pizza

As part of our Journalism course it was suggested it might be a good idea for us to head down to the Ol' Crown Court in Winchester Town Centre. It was also suggested that it would be a good idea to blog about it, this is the result.


The day started like any other Tuesday. Not wanting to wake up when my alarm went, having my breakfast (Cereal and Toast for you food lovers), and heading off down to the Law lecture, today on Defamation (notes to follow soon). We had checked off Court Reporting last week and so with the latest lecture securely fastened in our mind we headed off to the Court, safe in the knowledge that we were unlikely to be done for contempt of court or libel. Would be a particularly bad way to start the course at any rate. The first problem was a very serious and real one. None of us had any clue where it was. Fortunately we had some GPS to help us out and arrived at the courts without having to ask for directions, (well we were 6 guys).


Inside the building the anticipation built. What cases were we likely to see? Would one of us be done for contempt of court? What did the security guards think that 6 confused looking students were doing wandering in off the street? Well all of these questions and more can be answered but after all of us managing to look respectable enough to pass through security, (And it was quite clearly my belt that set the scanners off...) we headed up to the courts.

We chose a court on the stupidest reasoning possible and headed to our first court case. We entered cautiously because we could see the jury just filing in, were we late? Sitting down in the public gallery we could see the accused, the prosecution, the defendant, and the judge. I tried to keep my eyes of the jury, (difficult when one of them seems to be falling asleep) so as not to accidentally 'intimidate' them. Then suddenly it had started, the news came thick and fast, first we found out that a jury member had been removed from the case because they knew the defendants friends father... I think. Then the actual case began, testimonies from Forensic Scientists, real evidence in a bag (oh it's just like on the telly box). The Judge wrote down almost everything that was said whilst a lady typed faster than Mach 4 in front of him. The Prosecution began with some forensic evidence from a note which allegedly had the DNA of the defendant on it. After a short while and some explanation of Alleles (Thank you GCSE Chemistry) the suggestion was made apparent that the defendant had indeed handled the note. This would be the end of it if it were not for the defence lawyer who stepped up next to attack the points the prosecution had made. I have never really been interested in the courts before but as I turned to my side and saw that the others were as in awe of the process and the pure news that was pouring out of the court.

We left after the second testimony convinced that Court Reporting was the real thing when it came to reporting. There was no messing around in there, it was just news, plain and simple, (as were the 4 papers I then bought). Unfortunately, it was about half 12 and we were a long way from our flats and houses. This meant only one thing. Pizza Hut. Lunch Buffet. All you can eat. Sounds like a challenge to me.

We took All you can eat to its logical conclusion whereby I didn't have to eat again for the rest of the day. I really did eat all I physically could. the thought behind this was that as poor, starving students; to make our money back we would have to eat at least one pizza and a bit. With that in mind we all ate as much as possible and waddled off back to History and Context, (Lecture notes of which will follow soon along with Law notes).

Not a bad day really.

Media Law 2 - Court reporting

The law is an extremely important aspect of society for any Journalist to learn. It has a relevance in all that journalists do because reporting on it is the backbone of our work. It is also extremely important because there are restrictions on us as Journalist sand it is important to know these, you don't really want to be done for contempt of court do you? Well obviously the answer is no, the fine for it can be up to £30,000 or 6 months in Jail. With that in mind, here are my Law notes with some top tips to avoid being done, (now all you need to do is avoid being caught and you're set).

There are three basic legal principles we have to observe as Journalists with the first and in sometime most important being The Presumption of Innocence. Everyone who is being accused of a crime by the police, defended in a court and tried by a jury has to be thought of as innocent until it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that they are guilty. Just because someone has been charged does not make them guilty. This leads on to the concept of prejudice. It is used in law in a similar way to the rest of the world, i.e. that before you have gained any evidence to the contrary, you have pre-judged the person and you have your own preconceived ideas about them. This takes us to contempt of court for which there is no defence. If you in any way shape or form are seen to have prejudiced the jury in some way you WILL be done for contempt of court; it's a strict liability offence and will cause a mistrial. The court is one of the few places where you can't be done for Libel though which will be fully explained in later lectures on the subject of Libel. If you are caught out for libel however, you can occasionally use your 'Qualified Privilege' as a Journalist to grant you exemption from a law in certain cases. These cases are often where the Journalist believes the information they are giving is in the public interest so it is in the public interest to practically destroy someone in the public trust who is lying and doing bad things. If however you are just attacking someone from your privileged position as a Journalist then you lose your qualified privilege because of your own malice. The opposite is the working in the public interest, the public interest is the rock on which we as Journalists stand on.

The second principle is that Justice must be seen to be done. This is where the innocence project that we will tackle in our third year becomes particularly interesting because, using Chris Horrie's example of The Birmingham Six, there is nothing like getting innocent people freed when they have been convicted wrongly. As a journalist you have all these legal rights in the court because you are the eyes and ears of the public. If the Judges had it all their own way, everyone in the country would be at every single trial. Since this isn't practical we have to report the occurrences in the court to make sure justice is done. Finally, the law must be based on evidence, or more specifically admissible evidence. Introducing evidence that is not strictly related to the case or the charge is actually contempt of court. If someone is being charged for a murder, bringing up a bunch of previous theft charges is a serious contempt of court as it would prejudice the jury.

There are two types of court, the criminal court and the civil court. The civil court tends to deal mainly with divorce and libel and so it is not as newsworthy as the criminal court, (except for maybe Celebrity Divorce). As Journalists we tend to stick to the criminal court, again because it is more in the public interest. Barristers are normally found in the Crown court (criminal) with, in the most intelligent way, short wigs. It's the best way to describe them. They have to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt using witnesses. I'm finding it interesting as well even having only been on the course for such a short time that the lectures cross over quite a lot. Proving the case beyond reasonable doubt for example is a form of Descartes Cartesian doubt from the History and Context of Journalism lecture. The idea that you cannot believe a certain thing until you have rationalised it and proved it beyond reasonable doubt is one that resonates across the board to Journalists. There are of course two teams of barristers in the court, prosecution and defence, and for the first day in crown court (cases can go on a year if necessary) it is purely prosecution, the evidence in chief.

It would be wrong to call the Magistrates court a collection on old Tory women who were in some ways busybodies if it wasn't also so right. They have to volunteer for their position and so do not have the same power as a qualified Judge, and with good reason. The most Magistrates can dish out is a £5000 fine or a 6 month jail sentence which is quite enough really. They can also send things to a higher court if necessary because in fairness, all cases have to begin at the Magistrates court, no matter how bad the crime. Indictable crime though, (the kind that gives a sentence of 5 years or longer) cannot be dealt with fully in a Magistrates court using summary justice.

Thanks for reading my Law notes from the second lecture. Hope they were as helpful to you as they are to me.



I'll be updating my blog from now on when I hear of a case that I can apply my new knowledge of the law of Journalists to so look out for new posts as often as I can write them.