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:

WINOL - week 3 and 4

So it seems like I've been made the official Southampton strike correspondent, which is probably my own fault. In week 3 I went to cover the council workers strike, who were picketing outside the Civic Centre. I was pleased with the quality of the news package I produced.

There is room for improvement, as Rachael Canter (BBC South news reporter) and Angus said that my two interviewees (City council deputy leader and Union rep) should be facing opposite directions. Also the fact that I mixed archive footage and recent footage could have been confusing for the viewers.

Now the dispute between the council and the unions being extremely complicated (the Daily Echo makes it sound like it's simple - well, it's not), I've had to produce weekly updates for the bulletin. It was technically easy as we did it as an OOV (or underlay for Angus!) but writing a 20 second script to sum up what has been six months of dispute AND give the update proved to be a difficult task.

Here is the news report:

In week 4, I was eventually getting into my investigative reporter job, as I received the result of a Freedom of Information request that was finally interesting. It revealed that up to 38 serving police officers in Hampshire have criminal convictions. Chris and I discussed all the possible legal issues with the story. We could use the figures as Hampshire police published them themselves, but we had to be very careful with the wording of the article. We have not had any complaint - yet.

We did a video piece - which involves myself talking with a graphic in the background.

I'm not pleased with my delivery, I know I can do a lot better than that - but for some reason it didn't happen that day. Also I'd like to say that the lighting in the studio did not do me any favour.

Sportsweek - 26 October 2011

Having no interest in sports, I was reluctant to present Sportsweek, but Gareth Messenger (Sports editor) managed to convince me that it would be good fun. And it was!

The fact that the links are pre-recorded takes the pressure off. I would not have been able to record everything in one go, as most of the script did not make sense to me. It still doesn't.

Law lecture 4 – Qualified privilege

Justification – statement could be defamatory, but it is true and you can prove it.
Fair comment: you could defame so and so, “this guy is bad at football” which is a defamatory statement – but if you genuinely believe that this guy is bad at football, it is called called fair comment. You couldn't use this defence if malice was involved – it has to be based on facts.

Qualified privilege – common law qualified privilege and statutory qualified privilege (for court reporting)

Privilege in law means exemption of the law. Above the law.

The queen has absolute privilege. Judges have absolute privilege when they are sitting in court – in term of what they say. You can defame anyone in court, you cannot be sued for it.

Journalists, in court, have qualified privilege, to be able to repeat/report defamatory statements.

Lawyer has absolute privilege.

Journalist – qualified privilege: someone has privilege when they report a court hearing so long asit is contemporaneous and free from error and it is without malice. If you apply these rules, qualified privilege is as good as absolute privilege.

Always say that if the defendant pleaded guilty/not guilty. Always say “the case continues”. You must give equal prominence to defence/prosecution. Otherwise you'll be guilty of libel and contempt of court.

Other place for QP: Parliament. In exactly the same way, anything said in parliament is protected, so long as it's accurate fair and contemporaneous.

Robert Maxwell – he was running the funding of the labour party – was accused of being involved with the KGB

If someone in Winchester city council says the leader of the labour group is a cocaine addit, you cant print it unless you've got a full refutation.

QP in common law

ie: made by judges convention etc... not by statue

case: Toogood v Spyring
Clegg case (northern Ireland) British soldier who shot youths in Ireland who were pro IRA. The guy went to jail and there was a “free Clegg campaign” - some argued he was only doing his duty by shooting IRA terrorists. QP was then applied to this campaign in order for journalists to be able to report what they were saying without being sued.

Albert Reynolds vs Sunday Times

Child sexual abuse in a catholic church - before it was widely known. Probably the worst thing you can be accused of in terms of defamation.

The ST alleged that PM Reynolds was involved in covering up child abuse in the Catholic Church. He sued, and won the case. The Sunday Times appealed.

1 – the seriousness of the allegation – the more serious the more protection
2 – the nature of the information and the extent to which the subject matter is a matter of public concern
3 – the source of the information: the more authoritative the source, the more you're entitled to report the allegation
4 – The steps taken to verify the information – there must be a reasonable attempt in the time available to disprove the info.
5 – the status of the information
6 – the urgency of the matter: news is a perishable commodity – it needs to be urgent
7 – whether comment was sought from the claimant
8 – whether the article contained the gist of the claimant's side of the story
9 – the tone of the article
10 – the circumstances of the publication, including timing

Do not print your story with “we couldn't contact them for comment”

the Galloway case (a Reynolds defence fails)

The Daily Telegraph made defamatory allegations against him, saying that he was a spy working for Saddam Hussein. There was no defence of justification. But it was a serious matter obtained from official documents. They phoned Galloway and he denied it. G. sued and he won. The DT attempted a Reynolds defence. The documents didn't constitute proof.

Another failure: Mohammed Abdul Latif

Was accused by the Wall street journal who said he was financing terrorism. They couldn't prove it but they thought it was true. They were only relying on QP – they hoped they had sufficient evidence to make this allegation. They lost the case in british court. They appealed and won.

No legal definition of public interest but the pcc has one:
-detecting or exposing rime or serious impropriety
-protecting public health and safety
-preventing the public being misled by an action or statement of an individual or an organisation.

Law lecture 3 - Defamation

What is defamation? It is what you write/broadcast about someone/company that tends to:

- lower them in estimation of right-thinking people
- cause them to be shunned or avoided
- disparages them in their business trade or profession
- exposed them to hatred, ridicule or contempt

Defamation via pictures:
- common danger in TV
- careless use of background shots with voice over can be defamatory

Reputation and meaning

Reputation is precious, especially if you are in public life, have money or both
meaning as interpreted by reasonable man
inference = hazard
innuendo = hazard
assess the whole context

PUBLICATION +DEFAMATION + IDENTIFICATION = LIBEL


Libel defences:

Justification: it's true and I can prove it
Fair comment: honestly held opinion based upon facts, also in public interest
Absolute Privilege: court reporting
Qualified privilege: police quotes, pressers
Bane and antidote: defamation removed by context
apologies and clarifications

Reynolds defence – it must be:

-in the public interest
-product of responsible journalism


No defence:
-when you have no checked your facts
-when you haven't referred up
-when you have not put yourself in the shoes of the person you write about
-got carried away by a spicy story
-not bothered to wait for lawyer's opinion

recognise risk:
-who am I writing about and could they sue?
-is what I'm writing potentially defamatory?
-do I have a defence?