Law: contempt of court - case study

Chandlers case:

A contempt of court action has been launched against Sky News as it is alleged they breached a court order. It is said they reported the liberation of the Chandlers (couple who was held hostages by Somalian pirates for 13 months) before they reached a safe place. A safe place in this case would have been outside Somalia, and Sky reported the news while they were still in the country. If found guilty, Sky will be fined.

Christopher Jefferies case:

The Daily Mirror was fined £50 000 and the Sun £18 000 for contempt of court, “vilifying” Christopher Jefferies in the Jo Yeates trial. Jefferies was arrested on suspicions of murder, was kept in custody for three days and was then released without charge. Both papers asserted that Jefferies was linked to some paedophile offences and a 1974 murder case, which is certainly one of the most defamatory statements you could ever publish. It was also suggested that during his career as a teacher he sometimes acted inappropriately with students. All these allegations and statements were untrue.

Jefferies accepted a public apology from eight newspapers, as well as "substantial damages".

If Jefferies had been tried, all these allegations would have prevented him from getting a fair trial.

This could be the first time a paper is sued for contempt of court when the suspect doesn't end up being tried.

Plan modification - demo coverage

THE DEADLINE FOR NEWS PACKAGES IS MONDAY 12:00 pm.

LOCATION CHANGE: We will be broadcasting from Southampton, in a union office on the Avenue (I'll confirm the exact address ASAP). This will allow us to get studio guests in, which would not be possible if we were based at University because of the picket lines. I am not very familiar with the production details, but I know that we will be using the Tricaster to broadcast the programme. We will go to the location on Tuesday AFTERNOON (around 4 pm) to set up the room, bring all the equipment and if we're lucky do a rehearsal. We will have to check that the Internet connection is working properly and that we can use their printer for the script.

We will have a rehearsal on Friday afternoon at 1 pm. The whole production team MUST be there.

ON-THE-DAY ROLE SWAP: Some of you have been assigned a new role. Apologies to those who were getting prepared for their previous role, but remember, this has been decided for the best of the programme!

OB TEAM: Aimee Pickering, Claire Lomas and Katie Rowles

Aimee: You will be the OB editor. You will be the link between the OB reporters and the editorial team (Will, Dom and myself). You will have to look at how long it takes to film, upload the footage on youtube, download it from youtube and get it ready for broadcast in order to establish a realistic plan. You will also have to be in contact with London Met Uni, Buckingham and Manchester as they will do OBs as well. Your job on the day will be to constantly be communicating with the OB reporters, download their footage from youtube, edit it if it needs to be, and bring it to the production team. You will have to keep the gallery informed of all the details, (location, duration, name of reporters etc) and keep them updated of the approximate time of the next OB. (I know this sounds obvious, but I am just writing EVERYTHING down tonight, I don't want to miss anything)

Katie and Claire: you will assist Aimee in this task while she's communicating with the gallery and the OB reporters.

STUDIO GUESTS: Lou O'Brien and Jake Gable

Lou: you will not go to Southampton on Wednesday. Instead, you will be our guest "getter" - you need to contact as many people as you can to get them in the studio - unions, councils workers, angry people, labour, tories, lib dem, anyone. Please do this ASAP - sorry for the short notice. Please tell all the guests you've already contacted about the new location. Allocate them a time slot as well. I know this is a hard task, but I chose you because I know you have created good contacts with the local councils/unions. Try to get SU presidents as well, anyone who could be involved in this strike.

Jake: Sorry Jake, you're not presenting anymore. It was decided today that 4 presenters was too much, therefore we only have two now. Instead, you will be our guest "chaperon". You will have to "warm them up", brief them on what's going on, make them feel comfortable. You're a chatty guy, you should feel comfortable in this role!

SCRIPT: Gareth Messenger and Graham Marshall

Gareth and Graham: you will be writing the script, helped by Angus. There will also be one of the presenters there to help you (Cara or Hana), so the script writing should go smoothly.

_________________________

Southampton coverage: Ali will now be reporting with MA student Aarran Summers.

Basingstoke coverage: Lee and Sam will be reporting from Basingstoke.

BREAKING NEWS TEAM: Dael Gornall, Henry Lewin Titt and Ewan Kennerell

You all will be monitoring the news, checking Twitter, BBC and local news website for breaking news. As the breaking news happen, you will have to write a script for George Berridge, who will be our studio breaking news reporter.

REPORTERS: book all your equipment in advance, you won't be able to get to uni on Wednesday morning.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Becky Davies and Zoe-Louise Anderson

You will be filming the team in action on the day. This day needs to be in the WINOL records!!

National demo coverage - Content

Packages

Here are some general guidelines on what I want you to get, please take these into consideration as I have actually put a lot of thought into this!

To everyone who's going to do interviews: FRAME YOUR INTERVIEWS PROPERLY! As I said, this is not rocket science, everyone on this course knows how to do it, there is no excuse. It doesn't take more time to frame the interview properly. Zoom in, don't be scared to shove the camera in their faces! Brian said that about a billion times since the beginning of the year, and yet some interviews from the previous weeks looked - sorry but it's true - awful. If you keep doing the same thing/set up at every interviews, the end result will be the same. You have been warned...

Ali: Occupy London

This is a good opportunity to get beautiful GVs of London, don't miss this one. You should be able to do a 4 minute package. (You will have to reversion it to a two minute one) Get long interviews with the occupiers, and maybe get vox pops from passers by etc. Get as much content as you can.

Mikey: Uni round up

Get interviews with the SU presidents in Southampton uni, Southampton solent and Winchester University. Phone Bournemouth and Portsmouth as well. Vox pop students, as I think it would be interesting to find out if they know what the strike is about. Southampton uni is visually interesting, so you can get some good shots there - Solent is very dull in comparison. Your package should be 4 minute long, and same thing for you, you will have to reversion it.

Dave: Schools

This could be a difficult one, not going to lie. Teachers usually aren't really keen to talk to the press. Try to get head teachers in school in Winchester and Southampton. I would encourage you to try as many schools as you can, you might get lucky. Also - but I'm sure you already know this - don't film kids, even outside the school. Even if we can't identify them on the footage, people might complain that you were filming in the first place. Try to interview parents, how the strike is going to affect them, if they'll have to take a day off work to look after their kids...

George: Libraries cuts

Get interviews with librarians, and library users (I know, quite obvious isn't it?) get interviews with the council as well. GVs of books (exciting...) how locals are going to be affected etc...

Sam: Police

Get in touch with London Met police - they probably have released (or soon will) a statement on how many officers will be there on the day, what means (bats, tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, kalashnikovs...) they will use if things escalate. You can get archive footage from the demo a year ago. Get an interview with Hampshire police - I want Southampton and Winchester police.

Jake: Bin men

Go to Southampton and Winchester, interview them - it would be good if you could get some shots of them working. Interview/ vox pops local residents on how the recent industrial actions affected them (only in Southampton)

Cara: Transport

Find out if trains/buses/TFL will go on strikes, get interviews, GVs of trains/buses, interview users who are going to be affected.

Hana: Youth

Look into all the cuts that have been made to "youth services" Tuition fees that went up, grants, scholarship etc that have been cut. Find young people who have been affected. Look into apprenticeships, if fundings have been cut (I genuinely don't know about this, so look it up)

Daniel: Unions packages

What we want here is an expo piece on the main unions - TUC, UCU, Unison, Unite etc... get relevant archive footage from Lou and I for interviews with Union reps. Have graphics to explain what the unions do, which group of workers they support etc.

Uldduz: Pensions

recap what is going to happen to pensions (people retiring at 67 instead of 65) try to get interviews with people who are concerned by this issue. We need a lot of details on this as it is one of the main reasons why people are going to demonstrate on Wednesday. Find people in their late 50s/early 60s who are going to be affected soon.

Tom: Case study

Flick: Case study - social workers

Content from other universities

London Met: one package and 3 Skype updates

Salford: One package

Buckingham: One package

Leeds: TBC

Newcastle: TBC

Wednesday 30 November - coverage of national demonstration

On November the 30^th the WINOL team will be running a 6 hour programme covering LIVE the national demonstration in the South – delivering breaking news as they happen on the day.

This is to give everyone a vague idea of what is going to happen on the day, but I'm sure there will be many changes in the schedule. If you want to get involved in producing content please do, anything will be extremely helpful. We need to have A LOT of content in the hard drive in case the Outside Broadcast don't work, which is very likely to happen. If you're not happy with your job, please come to me and we'll try to sort it out. I will shortly give individual deadlines to anyone producing content.

Gathering content

Hana Keegan: Studio guests – Seb Miell, Mick Jardin, Tommy Geddes, Martin Tod

Becky Gray: on the day – coverage of London

Felicity Houston: on the day – coverage of London

Lou O'Brien: Interview with Patrick Davies (Winchester Labour) George Beckett (Winchester city council leader) Royston Smith (Southampton City Council leader)

On the day - coverage of Southampton

Ali Al-Jamri: On the day - coverage of Southampton

Michael Connolly: on the day - coverage of Winchester

Uldduz Sohrabi Larki: on the day – coverage of Winchester

Gareth Messenger: on the day - coverage of Basingstoke

Lee Jarvis: interview with Basingstoke city council leader / on the day – coverage of Basingstoke

Tom Morgan: Interview with Jeremy Moulton (Southampton city council)

Mikey Smith: pre-package: interviews with every SU presidents in the area – Southampton, Winchester and Southampton Solent, students vox pops.

London Met, Manchester and Buckingham universities will deliver news packages as well.

Production

Gallery

Production Editor: Domonique Jenkins

Director: Justina Chlad

Sound: Claire Lomas

Vision Mixing: Katie Rowles

Jack Courtez

Studio

Becky Davies

Graham Marshall

Daniel Mackrell

Ewan Kennerell

Poppy Murray

Zoe Louise Anderson

Presenters: Hana Keegan, Cara Laithwaite, Aimee Pickering and Jake Gable and/or David Champion

Newsroom

Charlotte Clarke: Graphics

George Berridge: 2 way in newsroom – national overview of the demo

Sam Ashton, Dael Gornall and Henry Lewin-Titt: taking content from youtube (uploaded earlier during the day by reporters) and editing it.

WINOL - WEEK 7

Once again this week I have been "lucky" as I managed to get an interview with Chris Huhne - and in this case luck was actually involved. One of my friends works for the Lib Dem in Eastleigh and told me about this local conference happening last week end. He gave me all the contact details I needed. The only thing I had to do was to ring the press office and ask for a press pass, and arrange the interview with the cabinet minister.

The hardest thing was to actually prepare the interview - I didn't know how much time we would have, but I suspected that he probably wouldn't spare half an hour with me. I was right, the whole interview must be about 5 minute long! The main topic was Europe, and I managed to slip a personal question at the end about the recent media storm around him.

I was quite happy with it, until his ex wife Vicky Pryce revealed two days later the juicy details about their divorce and that she wanted to pursue a career in politics. At which point Brian asked: "Why didn't you ask him about his ex wife?!"

Indeed a few weeks ago I heard that she might go into politics, but it was only a rumour at the time, which is why I didn't ask. I guess next time I won't bother then, rumour or not, I'll ask anyway. Only question is, is it in the public interest to know Huhne's opinion about his ex wife's potential political career? (This is a genuine question by the way, not one of my sarcastic ones so feel free to reply).

Law lecture 6 - Confidentiality and privacy

Confidentiality – official secret act & test of confidentiality
Privacy – disputed territory between article 8 and 10

In the public interest – not just of interest to the public

public interest: pcc definition: detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety, protecting public health and safety/ preventing the public from being mislead

confidentiality – official secrets act
The new act eliminated the public interest defence if you breach this act. There is no protection to the journalist just because the info was previously published

Leaked secret information to a journalist is potentially very dangerous.

Only one defence via the human rights act with article 10: freedom of expression

Official secret act 1911: offence – punishable by 14 years in prison to

approach or inspect a prohibited space
make a sketch, a plan or model that might be of interest to an enemy
obtain, collect or communicate info that may be useful to an enemy

common law secret: entitled to have secrets so long as it's not against the public interest, a right to pass on this secret and that it will be kept secret and won't be passed on to other people.

Someone who's not entitled to pass on our secret: lawyer or doctor for instance, employee or very close member of family – if someone reveal secret info to a journalist, it could be third party breach of confidence, which is a crime.

If someone can persuade a judge that a third party breach confidence is a bout to take place because of your article, that person can obtain an injunction to prevent the story being published. You should contact the concerned people/organisation before you publish the info, otherwise it will look like you haven't tried to check the info was true or not.

Quality of confidentiality
* has the necessary quality of confidence – this is important and not already known
and
was provided in circumstances imposing an obligation – when a reasonable person would think it would be kept secret
and
there was no permission to pass on the information
and
detriment is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information
if any of the above is missing, then it's not confidential and it can be revealed without breach

Privacy

Personal secrets or privacy

article 8 states: everyone has a right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence

Common law: judges make the law as they go along...? statutory law is decided in parliament/house of commons

it can involve publishing the details of family life of any person, famous or not. Easy to obtain pictures, but do you have the right to publish them? Only if you have consent. Explicit/implicit consent and it has to be in the public interest.

Princess Caroline – case 2004

ECHR ruling

there is no legitimate public interest in knowing the whereabouts and behaviour of individuals generally in their private life despite appearing in public, regardless of their degree of fame.
A legitimate expectation of protection of one's private life is to be extended to be the criteria for assessment.
A fair balance is to be struck between the right to privacy and the freedom of press

Injunctions

Easy to get because the person who wants him claims that something illegal is about to happen (breach of confidence)

Be aware that injunctions with anonymity and super injunctions (not allowed to say anything) are different.

Super injunctions have been broken by MPs using parliamentary privilege – and journalists using qualified privilege.

Max Mosley case

in his judgement Mr Justice Eady said that Mosley had a reasonable expectation of privacy – in relation to his sexual activities – no matter how unconventional they were.

WINOL - Lucky?! I think not

I apologise in advance, but I am going to have a bit of a rant today. For those who don't know me very well, there's absolutely nothing unusual about that.

This week I have worked quite hard. First of all I followed up the council v union dispute in Southampton, which involved interviewing the Southampton City Council deputy leader and the Unison rep. That happened on Monday. I arranged the interviews myself, and I now have good contacts within the city council as well as the unions, which makes my life a lot easier.

On Tuesday I went to Westminster to interview Winchester MP Steve Brine about Europe. I arranged the interview the previous week - well in advance. I went there on my own, paid for the travel expenses. I had to go through security at Westminster and was ready to face the possible outcome if the metal detector did beep - that policeman with the rubber gloves looked nasty. Luckily it didn't - I guess I won't find out any time soon what happens when it does. Maybe I should send an FOI...

So I did all this work. And the rest of the team worked very hard too this week which is why the final bulletin was such a success.

And today some people from the BJTC paid us a little visit. They gave us feedback after the bulletin was recorded. It seemed that they were overall impressed with the quality of our output. And then it all went downhill when the man kept saying that we were lucky. So apparently we were lucky to get an interview with Steve Brine, we were lucky that this story was happening in Bournemouth, and Michael (Connolly) was lucky to be able to film ice hockey games. I must admit, I felt slightly irritated/insulted at this point...

I imagine that he certainly doesn't see quality student work that often, otherwise he wouldn't assume that it is simply a matter of luck. We all worked really hard to get there and to make it happen. It's really unfair on us to make the confusion between hard work and luck! I understand that in journalism you do need a bit of luck at times, but most of it is organisation. I didn't bump into Brine, he didn't suggest "hey, would you like to interview me? I've got stuff to say!" No.

It's hard to produce student journalism work. People don't usually want to talk to you, because you're a nobody and have a very small audience. Like that lovely character I met a few weeks ago who said to me "Winchester what? Never heard of you" with a look of disdain on his face.

So here's this week's news report with Steve Brine: