Winol Review

I have a feeling im going to sound incredibly mean, but here it goes;
The negative aspects of the bulletin weren't to do with the content of news itself, but more so to do with the technical aspects of it. Being quite a perfectionist (obsessive compulsive) when it comes to the fine tuning of a media production,  the most annoying thing was how unprofessional parts appeared, first being the camera work and editing. Cutting between shots within the first minute or so could be considered quite confusing and at various times there were gaps between the clips (Turn snapping on!) the only real indication of the story changing was the spoken headline and the banner. The banner itself is one of the first things I really didn't like; it seems to ruin the frame being a block of white being there in the corner and is really big.
In one of the stories the reporter was using a scrunched up piece of paper which was in the frame, looked a little messy and at other times clips in the VT's were too long, focusing on one image, or cut while they were moving which I found a little bit disorientating.

The news stories I found most interesting were the university applications declining and the zombie symposium on wanting popular culture to be taught. The sports stories seemed to also be a lot more professional than the other stories.
Previous Winol bulletins I've seen have seemed to hold more interesting stories (the big wide worlds fault not Winol's) as well as better produced on a whole.

Law lecture/reading five: Confidentiality

Within in the concept of confidentiality  there are three main areas; state secrets, commercal secrets and privacy.
Privacy can be considered the new libel. Under section 58 of the human rights act, privacy is the right to the enjoyment of 'normal' family life. Therefore writing about someones private life is not permitted.
Confidentiality refers to secrets, which can then be split into two; state secrets - all under the official secrets act. The OSA prevents some forms of investigative journalism, publication of anything under this act can lead to prosecution.
Commercial secrets - people have the right to keep secrets, but not those that are considered to be against the public interest.  People the right to expect certain people to be confidential depends upon their relationship, a doctor would be required to not breach confidence.
Injunctions on peoples confidence can be put into place to stop publication of certain secrets which are thought to be THIRD PARTY breach of confidence (information given by a third party to a journalist) though this is also considered to be a crime. 

Someone who feels their confidence had been breached must show that they have been harmed, unlike defamtion where they must prove that they could be harmed. For something to be a true invasion of privacy, the information which is thought to breach confidence must have all of the following:

1. quality of confidence  AND…
2. circumstances AND…
3. no permission to reveal AND…
4. cause actual detriment.

Gagging clauses -  if a person is employed by another for wages  they owe the employer a common law “duty of confidence” - even if this is not specified in a contract, and even if there is no contract. So if any secret information is released, even unknowingly, action can be taken by the employer.

Law lecture/reading four: Qualified Privilage

For qualified privilege to come into play as a for of protection for journalists, there must be defamation/libel = defamation+publication+identification.  There are two types of qualified privilege: common law and statutory.

Common law qualified privilege on the idea of "the common convenience and welfare of society", that is, the public interest.

Statutory qualified privilege comes into use when reporting in court with a judge present. Everything can be mentioned, and it has to be made clear whether or not a defendant denies charges. Statutory qualified privilege must be published immediately, contain no errors or any indication of malice.

To highlight the extent of which a journalist would be covered by qualified privilege after defamation, Lord Nicholls gave the ten point test of reasonable journalism:

The ten point test:

1. The seriousness of the allegation – the more serious the allegation, the more protection will be applied. 

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 are entitled to report their allegations, even if those allegations can not be proved or even if they turn out to be incorrect.

4. The steps taken to verify the information.

5. The status of the information.

6. The urgency of the matter.

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 - must be fast, accurate and fair!

History and context of journalism lecture/reading three:

The Rise of Science:
The development of science is on that separates the modern world from earlier centuries and influenced modern philosophy greatly. Descartes is considered to be a creator of 17th century science, though Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton were more notable.
Men who founded modern science are said to have to merits: immense patients  in observation and great boldness in framing hypothesis. The second merit is said to be a characteristic of early Greek philosophers, the first, to a degree, existed in later astronomers of antiquity. Though, both merits were not possessed among the ancients.

Copernicus:
Copernicus was devoted to astronomy and came to believe that the sun was the center of the universe and the the earth had two-fold motion - diurnal rotation and annual revolution around the sun. His greatest work id considered to be 'De Revolutionibus Oribum Celestium', said to have influences of Pythagoras. Copernicus suggests in his writings that the celestial movements of planets, because they are 'axiomatic', must be circular and uniform, influenced by aesthetic motives.
He knew that could be known, at the time, about apparent motions of the heavenly bodies on celestial sphere and perceived diurnal rotation of the earth was a more economical hypothesis than the revolution of all celestial spheres.
Copernicus came up with his own idea of the merits of astronomy:
1) Recognition that what had been believed in ancient times was false.
2) Test of scientific truth is a patient collection of facts combined with guessing as to laws binding the facts together. .


Brahe:
Held the idea that the sun and moon go around the earth but other planets go around the sun .
His views were considered to be against aristotles view that everything is unchanging above the moon. He rejected this because, according to his observations:
1) there was an appearance of a new star which had no daily parallax and must therefore be more distant than the moon.
2) derived from the observation of comets; also found to be distant.
Brahe was well know for his observations and created his own catalouge of stars and noted the position of the planets over many years, during these observations Kepler became his assistant.

Kepler:
Kepler adopted a heliocentric theory much like Copernicus but was show through investigation it was incorrect. Again, like Copernicus, Kepler was influenced by Pythagorism  and lead him to follow Plato's 'Timaeus' in supposing cosmic significance must attach to 5 regular solids. His greatest discovery was the three laws of planetary motion:
1) The planets describe elliptic orbis, which the sun occupies one focus.
2) The joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
3) The square of the periods of revolution of a planet is proportional to the cube of average distance from the sun.
Though the first two laws can only be proven by Mars.

Galileo:
Galileo was one fo the greatest  of founders of modern science. he first discovered the importance of acceleration in dynamics. Acceleration means change if velocity. from this he established the law of falling bodies, which says when a body is falling freely its acceleration is constant, expect in so far as resistance of air my interfere; this is the same for all bodies.

History and context of journalism lecture/reading two

Political Philosophy:  The theory of the state - Socrates, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Plato and Machiavelli.

Socrates - Social contract.
Socrates played an important role in the ideas of the theory of the state in that his ideas and thinking lead to the concept of the 'social contract'.
After being jailed for corrupting the youth, Crito decided to propose the idea of escaping jail and leaving the city. Socrates' was quick to dismiss Critos ideas as he felt he should stay loyal to his family and friends, as well as to the city in which he had benefited from and used as a stepping stone throughout his life. Socrates felt that there was an implicit agreement between him and the laws exerted in the city; if he escaped he would be attempting to destroy the whole city. This is a simple outline of the social contract, in that everyone within a society has consensus with the state in which laws to abide by, creating a strong relationship with the state and one another.

Hobbes - The state of nature:
Hobbes had an idea of what the world would be like without the presence of strict law and order: 'peoples passions are aggressive, people acting on these passions will produce a state of war. Hobbes believed that in the state of nature there is no society, continual fear and violent death, That life would be 'nasty brutish and short'. His ever so negative view of human nature was based upon society at the time and the fact they were in the midst of a civil war, 'everyman against everyman'.
Hobbes solution to this brutish behavior is the idea of the Leviathan (an immortal god or monster of unstoppable power). The people would agree on a sovereign, the state would then act as a 'war machine' acting against resistors of the sovereign or rival states.
The state Hobbes pictures is made to appear non-authoritarian because the sovereign is decided on by the people, and through the idea that because the sovereign is chosen he owes his power to the people. Though the power of the sovereign can be limited, it stands that if the people feel they are not being adequately protected they can get rid of him. This highlights the right the people would have to self defense.

Locke - Treaties of Government.
Lockes ideas began as he rejected the idea of the 'divine right of kings', this because he believed that there was no contract in the hereditary passing down of the status.
His ideas of the state if nature were very different to those of Hobbes in that his overall view of human nature was a more positive one. It was, to him, a state with natural freedoms and equality through the natural laws in which mankind knew intuitively through the understanding the those laws were made by god, the same way as human kind and so we will all come to the same conclusion and because he believed they were obvious, ie. no killing one another. In some ways Hobbes agrees with this idea of Lockes, but then goes further in saying that these natural conceptions of law dont apply to property, which causes problems among people.
Locke then introduced the idea of government by consent and limited by law which is to protect private property. He also emphasised his thoughts on taxation; that it should be consensual. Citizens of a society would also have the choice to rebel if the government cease to respect law, in the concept of government by consent and limited by the law the citizen and the state have to abide by the same law. If this is breached revolution is a natural right.

Rousseau 
Rousseau, like the other philosophers has his own strong ideas of how state should be formed. He, like Locke, believed the nature of human kind to be fairly positive and believed the state of nature to be a heavenly place to be because no one was told to do.  This lead to his belief in a state based on the general will of people. If eveyrone acted on their will, eventually everyone would come to the same conclusions and the law will refelect the general will of the people, Rousseau strongly believed that the people must be part of the legislature.

Plato's Republic
Plato's analogy of the cave represents the idea of there being a more perfect world, what we see is not reality. Somewhere in there perfect world there is a perfect table/what we see as a table is merely a bad replica. Though, plato believes, that this world is only know to the philosopher. The one person who managed to leave the cave and see the reality of the perfect world was the philosopher. The others were simple minded people, ignorant enough to accept what was is from of them. This idea of a perfect world leads to Plato's idea of three different forms of the soul, which then reflect the three kinds of state in which he feels relevant. The three forms of the soul are reaosn, spirit and desire, the type of person depends upon the dominant from.
- Reason - describes the soul of the philosopher, the one who only has access to reality.
- Spirit - a courageous, but amoral person. This would be someone of military mind.
- Desire - constant craving. Reason is need for control of this kind of soul. This would describe everyday people.
The three types of state which plato describes are:
- Aggressive state - Spirit
- Democratic state - Desire
- The ideal state - Reason. (In this state the guardians guide those in desire).

Machiavelli
Machiavelli's ideas of the state were based on his own experiences of power with the Medici family of Florence, then published in 'The prince' which can be described as a 'here and now' manual for power; how to achieve it and keep it.
His advice to rulers:
- When there is conflict, support your weaker the weaker side; when the conflict is over you will be dominant.
- Armed prophets succeed, unarmed ones fail.
- Never take peoples property: prince must not take property of others, but you can kill with good reason, this is how to be feared not hated. "It is better to be feared than loved."

My morning at winchester crown court

After being turned away yesterday, I was preparing to be turned away again. But i was lucky enough to get my first experience in a court room (hopefully I only ever will experience a court room from the public gallery). Not 100% sure about what I'm allowed to say and how much detail I can go into but with reference to McNae's, heres my account just to make sure I'm not digging a hole to lie in.

On arrival to the court myself and Ellen had our bags searched and had to walk through a metal detector - lucky neither of us had anything we shouldn't have had. We then went to reception and asked the very nice lady from yesterday if there was anything we could sit in on, we were in luck and sent to court seven. We were quite early for the trail and so we had a little chat in the cafe, surrounded by people, a few who made me feel a little uncomfortable, though I did try to work out who were family members of defendants and witnesses based in quite lame stereotypes. One thing that did strike me was that there were two very young children there.
Once the defendants name was heard on the speaker we made our way to the court room, we waited for about ten minutes before entering and realised we'd missed a bit, but still the trail was very interesting.
There were some funny little funny things i think im allowed to comment on; the judge was smirking, silently laughing and rolling his eyes at the defenses' barrister when she made a point he thought to be ridiculous. Made me think he'd seen this kind of case wayy too many times.
The defendant was male, charged with possession of class A drugs. During the hour and a half we were there I was able to hear the statements and questioning of 4 witnesses, as well as the claimants barrister finding a further statement that wasn't previously know. The jury was dismissed so that cross examinations and arguments could be evaluated by the barristers on this statement, which ultimately gave the defense a push up on the point she was making.
After this, the barristers moved on and had witnesses for a different event, which I was a little confused about, seen as it wasn't anything the defendant had done, rather what someone had done to him. A little after this I left, it would have been nice to continue watching but the case had really only just started to I would assume its probably still going on now...

It was really good experience to sit in on a trial and would recommend it to anyone, journalism student or not. It allowed me to see the true workings of a court, quite different from what I've read in books and totally unrehearsed, unlike the TV drama I've seen, yet still there was the same kind of tension created and was incredibly engaging.

Law Lecture/reading three: defamation

Defamation is a term used to describe a civil dispute between two parties which carries negative effects on someones reputation and can even go as far as saying the reputation they had previous to the defamed statement has been taken away as opposed to slightly altered. A person to has the right to a reputation that they are entitled to, but not one which a person believes to have as it may not be true. For example, I may think I'm a hard worker, but a former employer may think otherwise, so therefore my actual reputation does not proceed the reputation I think I have.
A defamatory statement does not have to be proven to have any negative effect on a person, instead it is based on the balance of probability, in that the effects the statement could have on a person have to be identified.
Another form of defamtion, thought doesnt apply as directly to journalism as libel, is slander. Slander is simply deformation in a spoken, rather than published/written form which is described as libel.

Libel = identification+publication+defamation
- Identification: no one is libel unless identified. This can be avoided by identifying the person in as much detail as possible, this is known as positive identification. Though their are some cases of accidental libel when someone has been positively identified but there is someone else of the same description. In chris' words a spout of 'bad luck.'
- Publication: the permanent form in which the defamatory statement is included in, which is shown then to a third party.
- Defamation: defamation tends to be one of four things to a jury:
(1) Exposes them to hatred, ridicule or contempt
(2) Causes them to be shunned or avoided
(3) Discredits them in their trade, business or profession
(4) Generally lowers them in the eyes of right-thinking members of society

Though these come with defences in a law court, which are as follows:
- Justification: proof the statement is true, with evidence. This is why we're supposed to stick to the facts.
- Fair comment: that the comment is the true opinion of the journalist. But at times these comments can be considered malice, which is protected by band and antidote. Malice can be described as deliberately saying something which you do not believe to be true. Malice has no defenses.
- Absolute privilege and qualified privilege: privilege in a legal sense referrers to the exemption to certain persons from the law. Journalists have some privileges in that what is published is FAST, ACCURATE and FAIR.

Come back tomorrow...

After mine and Ellens trek down to the law courts of Winch the lovely lady at reception decided to tell us that there weren't any interesting cases going on and to 'come back tomorrow.'
I was actually quite excited about sitting in the public gallery, I do love a crime novel/drama (even though I know I'll be a lot different than portrayed in both), though I was a bit apprehensive about what case we would end up sitting in on. But my excitement has to be stifled for another day; tomorrow it will be. Hopefully.

Law lecture/reading two: Reporting the Courts.

This weeks reading/lecture outlines the legal principles, limitations of reporting in both crown court and magistrates courts in detail and highlights the importance of 'qualified privilege', contempt of court and the lawful meaning of 'prejudice.'

The basic legal principles include the presumption of innocence, justice must be seen to be done and evidence based on justice.
Presumption of innocence outlines the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty' beyond reasonable doubt (Mens Rea; the guilty act must be proven and Actus Reas; the guilty mind, was it intentional). Though the concept changes slightly for magistrates court which stands as balance of probability, rather than presumption of innocence.
Justice must be seen to be done highlight the concept that a trail must take place in public (hence public galleries in courthouses) thought, in certain circumstances this is retracted and the trial is held privately if it threatens the welfare of witnesses or may cause prejudice.
Evidence bases on justice simply out lines the right to a jury trail.

Qualified privilege allows certain persons, ie journalists, to report information which may be seen to be libel if published by other people (so long as it is accurate, fast and fair), though this is restricted in the contempt of court act which highlights what can be published while a case is active this includes:

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

Cases cease to be active in magistrates courts if there is nothing to suggest it will be take to crown court. In a crown court, cases are active until conviction or until acquittal, but then only what has been presented in court can be published. The contempt of court act is to protect the concept of 'presumption of innocence' and enables a fair outlook from the jury, if the jury are swayed by media publications. If this happens it is considered prejudice which suggests the defendant will be judged before evidence is presented.