Winchester News Online Editor Catherine Hayes
General point: We still need to get in control of the script and the processes that will coe with it
1. Homeless people (Jack)
- good use of actuality
- juxtaposition libel? Was the busker actually homeless?
- weird interview
- funny jump cut
2. Spending cut chat: pretty well done
3. Court (Giddings)
- identification of reg. plate, potential danger
- excellent pull focus
- PTC slightly over-exposed
- very good scripting
4. Train fares (Julie)
- first shot quite long
- vary GVs more
- tense problems: used "this morning" when it was not possible in time
5. Last-min piece (Stu)
- Awesome to turn it around in a day
- PTC a bit close up
- Allotment thing slight overlooked in my opinion...was very good for pictures
6. Bishop (Mike)
- interview needs to be eye-level
- GVs: lack of relevance
SPORT...
- champagne thing a bit weirdly done, but great idea
- basketball: funny lighting and interview a bit echoey
BBC South Editor Lee Desty
General points: Good to get rehearsals in, gallery plugged away well, changes to stories worth the stress!
- Didn't grab our audience enough in first 30 seconds. Very important point for South Today.
- Maybe four headlines: two news, two sport?
- No actuality in headlines and we need to make sure we use our very best shots (e.g. - busker?)
1. Homeless people (Jack)
- interview a long shot. Get tighter!
2. Spending cut chat
- someone said "it's bad for us", understand the pressure of the situation, but need to remain impartial
- good initiative though
3. Court (Giddings)
- questions over paedo stories in bulletins at all, due to the family aspect...kids watching
- needed a mug shot
- good command of facts
4. Train fares (Julie)
- vox pops weak
- PTC well framed
- v/o needed more energy
5. Last-min piece (Stu)
- he really liked it!
- PTC a bit long but tried to get a lot of facts in
6. Bishop (Mike)
- Not great for an 'and finally'
- cutaway to a hedge???
SPORT...
- A big divider for a family watching, so three mins out of ten perhaps too long
- South Today has five minutes in 30
- Winchester City highlights needed a bit more colour and stats to add to the action we can see anyway
- Good graphic, lucky we can use proper logo for the league.
- Interview with Basketball coach: Basketball on desk...why?! Quite funny though.
Blog about this week's lecture on privilege.
IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK: Pre-nuptual agreements, more legal standing from now on. Read more...
Anyway, privilege allows us to write material that is defamatory and could be untrue (i.e. protection/immunity from being sued).
Two types
1. Absolute privilege - records from parliament and usually in court
2. Qualified privilege - but needs to be fast, accurate, fair and without malice.
And has to be a member of public interest.
Two levels of QP
1. with or 'subject to' EXPLANATION or CONTRADICTION
2. without explanation or contradiction
You have privilege...
1. legislature*
2. court*
3. public inquiry*
4. public proceedings of an international organisation or conference*
* - anywhere in the world
The following areas contain a grey area of privilege. They are subject to explanation and contradiction.
1. public meetings
2. local council meetings
3. tribunals etc
4. UK companies
N.B. - Associations (FA/GMC etc) - findings/decisions covered, conference type bit NOT the actual proceedings!
Pressers
Public meetings, officially public from only 2000 because of the Human Rights Act and the Clegg Case. Read more...
Written handouts are now covered because of the Clegg Case.
BUT consider risks for live broadcasting...put in delay if necessary!
Summary
- Must be fair
- Accurate
- Without malice
- On a matter of public interest
Privilege immediately disappears once outside the proceedings.
Interestingly, if someone shouts from the gallery you can report it to add colour - as long as it is not defamatory.
BUT it's okay if they have been a witness.
Read my (slightly late!) post on defamation/libel
I attended the Monday conference this week to ask all reporters for text stories. Not every reporter has met their deadline though.
Apart from that, we caught up with everything that was already on Joomla for subbing. I'm perfectly aware that certain people don't think that we're doing enough, but there are so many problems with the articles in the first place that we find ourselves doing half the reporters' job before even checking for errors.
Obviously this isn't always the case, some stories have been really good, but some people aren't following simple grammatical rules and then subs don't follow the house style. We need a meeting!
On Tuesday, had a bit of a masterclass from Horrie regarding Stu's brilliant investigative report. The story was about councillor's allowances and how an anti-tax group was against the level of them. One problem was the credibility of the source IsItFair, leading to a lack of balance. The other reason why there was a lack of balance was the fact that the councillor at the heart of the story didn't comment. Stu did try several times but it was a bit dodgy, which I should have realised.
On Wednesday, there was a sport story that I had to sub before Chris kicked me out into the studio to direct the bulletin.
Amazingly, we were pretty much on time to rehearse but that soon changed when we put in two stories in place of two weaker ones. It involved changing the running order, headlines, the script etc and it was worth the effort. But frankly, it wasn't executed well enough.
As director, I hold my hands up for not dealing with the changes; I feel disappointed with fulfilling that role, but when you are still trying to direct a bulletin with a old script, it's not going to help.
After complete carnage in the studio, we managed to get the bulletin out on time and to a decent standard, which is what it's all about.
But it didn't stop there, Chris was onto me to update the content on the front page straight after the bulletin. I also had stories to approve for publishing.
Then I subbed a sports story myself after all of that. Let's just say it took me until 9pm to finish, but enough said about one for now!
Debrief for our second bulletin of the term.
Jack's piece about international students ID problems probably shouldn't have been top story, but had a lot of potential. It started with a 'drop intro', which is usually synonymous with stories just before the sport or an 'and finally', so that is almost proof that is should have been dropped lower. Plus, we only saw Jack in vision for a millisecond during his PTC, which looked slightly odd.
Julie's tuition fee story started with an excellent pull focus. Content wise, the quote didn't qualify the fact that they were supposedly "demonstrating" against the fees. We needed to find somebody who was directly effected, so we could get quotes strong enough.
Gareth's housing story (OOV) had a good opening shot. Also, the sound was disappointing on the councillor - be careful!
Aimee's OOV about the Queen Elizabeth naming ceremony was very well done and just helped to fill the bulletin, which is obviously the name of the game. We don't keep enough natural sound in, but Aimee did well to add colour to the piece in this way.
And in sport, the spelling errors! I won't say anything else because this is such a serious/needless issue that others fade into obscurity.
The BJTC thing was also good and the presenters did very well when ad-libbing about it...but we could drive this even more...
Catch-up blog on our lecture about defamation and libel.
REMEMBER: PUBLICATION + IDENTIFICATION + DEFAMATION = LIBEL
Introduction
- This area of law can be a very expensive business, although there has been a lack of recent high profile cases - perhaps due to the current economic climate.
- 1998: Kieran Fallon sued the Sporting Life newspaper for accusing him of deliberately not winning a race.
- To avoid getting sued, it is always important to remember balance. If you talk to both sides, you will pretty much have your legal defence.
DEFAMATION is a tendency to...
1. lower individual(s) in the estimation of right thinking people
2. cause them to be shunned/avoided
3. disparage them in their business, trade or profession
4. expose them to hatred, ridicule or contempt
- Notice the apparent vagueness of these conditions. In statute, what you print only needs to have a tendency to do any of the above.
- Think about the individual(s) reputation at the time of printing. How much do they have to lose? And would an upstanding member of a community think less of them as a result?
Defamation via pictures (juxtaposition libel)
- A big danger in television. Voiceovers - in OOVs for example - need to match the shots on-screen. If we are too careless, we could be defaming somebody without even knowing it.
- Be careful with imprecise shots. For example, if you are asked to go and get GVs of a terrorists house that has been raided and you include the door of a neighbour in the shot, you're in hot water.
- Therefore, people/companies must not be identified in the wrong context.
Reputation and meaning
- Reputation is precious, remembering this as a journalist is just as vital.
- Meaning: how what you print is interpreted by a 'right-thinking' person.
Inference and innuendo our hazards here
Former Cabinet Minister Lord Gowrie sued over an article that created the innuendo that he was taking drugs (see page 307 in McNae or read this)
Journalists' defences
1. JUSTIFICATION: "It's true and I can prove it"
2. FAIR COMMENT: "This is my honestly held opinion based on the facts"
3. ABSOLUTE PRIVILEGE: court reporting
4. QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE: police quote, council meetings etc
Reynold's defence
- In basic terms, a journalist can be let off if the defamatory remarks are seen to be in the public interest.
- If you come to your conclusions after practising 'responsible journalism' (i.e - kept notes, diaries, recordings), your defence will be enhanced.
EXAMPLE: The Sunday Times v Albert Reynolds
Former head of the Republic of Ireland Government Albert Reynolds sued the Sunday Times after a story that hinted at the fact he was misleading his country's parliament.
The Sunday Times argued that the report was necessary as it was clearly a matter of public interest. The newspaper lost, but a year or so later on appeal, it was officially ruled that the media have a duty to perform public duties of this ilk.
See page 357 for more or read this parliament document.
Bane and antidote
Accusation of libel removed by whole context (of the article or string of articles)
- BANE = the offence, ANTIDOTE = the defence - perhaps something said later on in the article that draws on a more balanced opinion about the subject)
Antidote can be in the form of an apology or clarification, which can usually be found tucked away in the bottom corner of page 20!
However, you have no defence when you...
- haven't checked facts
- haven't referred it up
- haven't put yourself in the shoes of the party in question
- get carried away by a spicy story
- don't bother to wait for your lawyer's opinion.
Summary
- Who am I writing about? Could they sue?
- Is it potentially defamatory?
- DO I have a defence? Which one?
Notes on what I got up to on our first proper week of WINOL.
On Monday, I went to Southampton with Showbiz Reporter(?!) Aimee to cover the naming ceremony of the Queen's new cruise ship.
We couldn't get near her at Dock Gate 4, so had to make do with filming her on a big screen! But we managed to get the shots we needed (e.g. "I name this ship..."). News Editor Kayleigh decided to make it a NIB, but it was a good piece to fill 30 seconds of the bulletin.
Meanwhile, my sub-editing team were stressing out in the newsroom over articles being published inexplicably. Hopefully this won't happen again as we are tracking it all on the whiteboard now!
On Tuesday, we spent the day pushing for pictures so that we could publish stories that had already been looked over.
On Wednesday, I turned up to find out that the bulletin was scheduled for the earlier time of 2pm. Not everybody knew that the time had been changed, which unsurprisingly hindered our prepartion for the bulletin.
We got there in the end, but had to keep delaying the start, which is the last thing we want to do.
I thought that my directing was better than last week. We have only been in our new roles for a few weeks, so communication in the gallery is poor, but I tried my best to pull things together as well as keep Presenters Tom and Claire in the loop.
Here is my debrief for our dummy bulletin, the first of the year.
Let's get me out of the way: I was directing. Angus said I did well in the end, but I need to be unafraid of being bossy to get things done.
Joey's piece on the Tory Party Conference was excellent, one of the best ever on WINOL. Execution of the story from conference to submission was brilliant. PTC was very confident. Could've started piece with Brine, but that's about the only criticism.
Stu's piece on the St. Paul's by-election was good, but not one of his best. The "walking billboard" was a bit of a stitch-up! And contrary to Brian's comments, I loved the tie!
Julie's piece on student finance was very well scripted (that Glenn helped her with it...whoever he is!). Great range of shots and exemplary vox pops. Needed a stronger angle though, too descriptive.
Non-rape alley by Andrew. Voice over was clear, but lack of angle in story/scripting. Needed camera right then camera left for vox pops. Oh well, talented man - just an off day!
And in Sport...
As Chris put it, to get exclusive rights to from the fifth tier of English football is a fantastic achievement...so why didn't we plug it more?! After the post-mortem, sounds like it was because Grant took on too much last week. It can be sorted for sure and we will look even better!
Karen's PTC at the start of her package was a great idea, perhaps could have been executed better and went on too long. And after all, when that Clem guy does it on The Football League Show, it's bound to look better because he has the best equipment...and he's at St. Mary's or Hillsborough!!! But great highlights for a first time shot!
Dave - voice very good.
Women's Football. We flagged it up a little bit, need to keep driving it now.
General points: Don't say what you see and only include your best bits (i.e. not chances that are barely half chances etc).
Overall, bulletin was too heavy...we need to focus on light and shade more and cater for our audience. Presenters were brilliant as usual, although we could work on banter between handovers like South Today do 'n' that!
