LAW UPDATE (WEEK 2)

Here are my notes on this week's lecture about court reporting.

The main point: Risk of PREJUDICE leads to CONTEMPT.

As journalists, we need to know when there is risk of printing certain details and when there isn't.

Here is a simple example...

EVENT 1: (10am) Man steals £4,000 from a post office. Press release to that effect sent out by police.

At this point, we can use the information given to us to print that story. We are at the (short-lived) safe point. No one has been arrested. For example, we would take audio from Mrs Ivy Jones (the victim/owner who was supervising the shop at the time).

EVENT 2: (4pm) Man arrested in connection with alleged offence.

Case is now legally active.

Story will be similar to the morning's, still beware of accidental identification at this point and keep checking with the police as to whether an arrest is about to be made. If your next bulletin is at 4.30pm and you think there is a good chance he may be arrested before then, air on the side of caution (e.g - don't include audio from victim etc).

EVENT 3: (5pm) Man charged.

The case will now go to Crown Court as it is an indictable offence, meaning a possible sentence of five years or more. For this reason, anything that may be used as evidence, such as the audio used earlier, has to be omitted and made untracable.

A case is legally active when:

1. Police make arrest
2. An arrest warrant has been issued
3. Magistrates issue summons
4. A person is charged

- Police normally have 24 hours to question a suspect
- It can be extended by 12 hours by a senior officer
- It can be extended a further 36 hours if magistrates agree

- It cannot exceed 96 hours

The limit for terror suspects is a lot longer. The controversial 28 days.

Cases are always sexed up and ridiculously unrealistic on TV and always happen at a Crown Court. On the other hand, Magistrates Courts are the place for minor crimes/disputes - basically the non-juicy stuff!

However, Magistrates still have significant powers, which are:

1. Six months jail sentence or £5,000 fine
2. Suspended sentence
3. Conditional discharge (e.g - don't offend within 12 months)
4. Community service orders (may be worth covering if the person plays for Winchester City or Southampton, depending on what publication you work for)
5. Binding over (e.g. - sum of £500)
6. ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders)

IMPORTANT: Here are the only things you can say when reporting to avoid avoid prejudicing potential jurors.

- Name and age
- Address and occupation
- Charge(s)
- Date and place of Crown Court hearing
- Bail and legal aid conditions
- Names of counsel

REMEMBER: Any risk of PREJUDICE leads to CONTEMPT...Contempt of Court to be exact, which is a strict liability offence.

Key Stages of trial

1. Opening
2. Prosecution opening
3. Key prosecution witness
4. Defence opening
5. Key defence witnesses
6. Judge's summary
7. Jury sent out (deliberation/verdict)
8. Sentencing

This is where you need to convince your News Editor to give you time to cover the trial. You have to cover days when the defence speak as well as the prosecution, otherwise your reporting of the trial will appear unbalanced if you decide. Therefore, your News Editor has to decide whether it is high profile enough.

Qualified privilege (QP)

Journalists have legal protection when reporting the courts. It prevents them from being accused of contempt of court and getting an action for libel. This is known as qualified privilege (QP). However, this privilege is lost if your reporting is not fast (in the next available bulletin/edition), accurate (importance of shorthand) and fair (free from malice).

Links

BBC College of Journalism - The Reynolds Defence

Chris' notes from course site

WINOL YEAR 3: DUMMY EDITION

First of many posts to come informing my (extremely) small audience of what I'm up to at WINOL.

On Monday morning, Chris refreshed us on how Joomla, the content management system for WINOL. If anybody wasn't there and needs to know how to use Joomla, click here for a tutorial.

Then, as I am WINOL's No. 1 taxi service, News Editor Kayleigh James asked me to take Jack into Winchester to cover the 'controversial' opening of Primark. They were weary of our presence there to say the least.

On my return, Production Editor Josh Duffy asked me to direct for the bulletin on Wednesday.

As Chief Sub Editor, I was eager to refine WINOL's house style. On Tuesday, Brian sent me a copy of the mammoth BBC Style Guide, which I looked through and adapted the site. Don't worry, our style guide won't be hundreds of pages, but I will put one up pretty soon for the subs.

Then I went into the studio to do my first ever bit of directing! Veronica interviewed Seb Miell and Jez Davis about student issues and I had three camera angles to work with, depending on who was talking. Veronica told me the shots she wanted, we sorted them and she seemed happy with the vision mixing and how it went generally.

On Wednesday, we hit our first subbing issues (i.e. - we had our first stories in!) so I went through that - mainly with Seb. One of the main problems with reporters subbing stories on Word is it creates an annoying white border when it is copied into Joomla.

Then I went into the studio to prepare for directing the bulletin. Not enough time to prepare to be fair, but hey, it's a dummy! I left Rob to vision mix, thank goodness for him!

More on that on the debrief post.

EXISTENTIALISM: NEW NIKE ADVERT

The new Nike and Foot Locker advertisement very much reminds me of Existentialist attitudes, which of course is the marketing aim of the companies.

The main slogan is: 'I Am the Rules' in an attempt to make the consumer feel in control - false consciousness.

Amongst other superstars, Arsenal midfielder Andrei Arshavin is endorsing the new 'Air Max 90 Colorway' Trainers.

Nike are famous for their 'be whoever you want to be' campaigns with their most famous slogan being 'Just Do It'. They have taken these techniques into marketing straight from the Existentialist movement.

VISUAL AUDIO MIX #002

The summer break presents University students an opportunity...to do next to nothing!

But I say no! Along with my right honourable friend Chris Lovelock, we are mixing some of our favourite tunes. Together we are...Visual Audio!

Enjoy!

Tracklist

1. Gareth Emery - Harmonies (Sound of Garuda Intro Mix)
2. Dubguru - U Got 2 Know (Jupiter Ace Mix)
3. Ronski Speed - Denva (Club Mix)
4. Susana Feat. Omnia & The Blizzard - Closer
5. Arty - Hope
6. Lange Feat. Emma Hewitt - Live Forever (Mat Zo Remix)
7. Aly & Fila - Listening (Brave Remix)
8. Tiësto Feat. BT - Love Comes Again (Bart Claessen Remix)
9. Ummet Ozcan - Trinity
10. Rex Mundi Feat. Susana - Nothing At All (Funabashi Uplifting Mix)

Download Mix

GLENNERS ON ENGLAND'S WORLD CUP FLOP

Where do we go from here?

That's the question on the lips of anyone with some interest in English football.

After an almost faultless qualifying campaign under Fabio Capello, England were rewarded with an 'easy' group. We couldn't believe our luck when Algeria, Slovenia and the USA came out of the hat in December last year

But, as the English colloquialism goes, we made a right pig's ear out of it.

Expectations were great, yet performances were so poor. A goalkeeping howler, schoolboy defending, no imagination going forward, in the end it was no wonder we finished runners-up to our friends across the pond.

Then there was Germany in the last 16. Pundits and journalists cooked up the usual storm: "we can do it". The 2010 crop certainly weren't Germany's strongest, but they had enough to kick England off the park.

It was so easy for the German's it seemed like one of their warm-up games.

And with that the 'golden generation' became the 'lacklustre lions'. Given their obscene salaries and performances put together, criticism couldn't really be hard enough.

Moving up in the FIFA rankings was as farcicle as the decision to allow vuvuzelas into the South African venues. It's simple: as a footballing nation, we are not as good as we thought.

Realistic ambitions of England fans were distorted by the perception of the Premier League. Great domestic league equals great international squad? Wrong.

The mediocrity of the England internationals is concealed by the foreign imports beside them that provide the flair for the Liverpools and Arsenals of this world.

It's scary to guess what the Premier League would look like with no foreign players. I'm sure Frank Lampard would rather cross the ball for Didier Drogba than Emile Heskey.

I reckon Steven Gerrard would rather feed Fernando 'El Niño' Torres than Jermain Defoe. The strikers featured on the bench for their respective countries. Seeing Spain winning the tournament in such style underlines the gulf in class England need to reduce.

There is no way Torres would have sat on the bench if he was English. Meanwhile, I doubt Vicente Del Bosque would have given Defoe much thought at all if he was Spanish.

Another 40 years of hurt? Most probably.

GLENNERS ON THE WORLD CUP

The World Cup is a convenient distraction for what is really going on in South Africa.

It cost the South Africans $3.7 million to put on this tournament. Okay, the stadiums are impressive, it's a spectacle (at times), but what about the towns on their knees across the country? Somewhat of a kick in the teeth.

Same old story: "Let's show them how 'far' we've come...just hide the poverty while the world is here".

But not for long. The media haven't had to go far from Sun City to discover the cloudy backdrop that we shouldn't ignore.

Alan Shearer went to Guguletu, one of the wealthier townships of Cape Town, to find a black man who had lived through apartheid. He spoke of drugs and prostitution - not vuvuzelas and the 'beautiful' game.

"After the show is over, it's back to square one", he said.

Over in Nyanga, a young boy told Shearer of his excitement of the world's biggest tournament coming to his doorstep. But he will realise it won't pay for roads, it won't cut crime, it won't improve the poor conditions that he has to live with.

A BBC 5Live reporter saw how dirty water went straight from a reservoir into the stomachs of South Africans.

After all, this is what those people need. Blatter didn't want to bring the World Cup to 'ordinary' people anymore than I would want to be deafened by those ridiculous vuvuzelas.

Talking of Blatter, he couldn't even get the ball right. They might as well be playing with a balloon.

And what about the half-empty stadiums? I'm sure the kids of the South African townships would happily fill the empty seats left by FIFA's "corporate family" who are back home watching the games safe in their mansions.

$3.7 million. To think of what those hidden communities would do with a shred of that figure...

AT THE DOCTORS...

I have to say, I'm liking this observational form of journalism, I seem to be doing it in my head a lot.

Here's something I wrote out on my phone while I was waiting to be called by the nurse.

Waiting for the nurse. Late as usual. Four kids make incessant noise with their toys. So aggravating. To my right, a TV with advice on skin cancer and diabetes. So grim, is this what's in store? One trip a year, then one a month, then one a week. I don't think I could handle too much medication. Certainly couldn't handle too many trips to this place. A picture of a needle. I hate needles. I always get nervous at the doctors or the dentist or some place like that. Why?

I was only waiting five minutes or so. It seems so much longer when you're in a place like that. Just think what I could have moaned about if I had half an hour there...!