Legal and ethical constraints on News Production

This is my report on legal and ethical constreints.

Unit 41: Legal and Ethical Constraints on News Production.

 

There are many legal and ethical constrains which media producers have to take into account when reporting news. If you break a civil law, such as deformation of character you are liable to being sued in court. Matters of criminal law such as breaking the official secrets act are governed by criminal law, which if you break you could end up with a jail sentence.

Defamation

Media producers can be sued for defamation of character if they say something negative about someone which they cannot prove in court. This can be in the form of slander which is used when describing verbal defamation, such as a radio broadcast. When it is printed in a newspaper for example, it is referred to as libel.

Social worker Sylvia Henry sued the sun for libel in the amount of £300,000 after they wrongfully said she had an involvement in the well publicised Baby P case. A famous case of slander in radio was when MP George Galloway sued Jewish radio station Jcom after they made a sketch saying he was anti-Semitic. The station had to pay him £15,000 plus damages and as a result they had to shut down. Even the publicly funded BBC can by fined for slander and libel, after they and ITV wrongfully implicated Lord McAlpine in the recent child sex abuse allegations. The BBC had to pay £185,000 and ITV paid £125,000 in damages.

Court reporting

When reporting on court cases media producers have to be careful that they don’t break laws regarding the protection of the accused’s right to a fair trial. In a case of a murder trial, the defendant must be referred to as either ‘the accused’ or ‘the alleged killer’. According to the law court reporting should provide a fair and accurate summary of what happens in court. They cannot use recording devices so instead notes are taken and a court sketch artist is used. Court reporters are prohibited from naming children under sixteen years of age or any alleged victims of sexually offences and blackmail. When reporting on a court case you cannot report on the on a person’s previous crimes or convictions, however in some cases and injunction can be placed on the media. This can be to protect national security or protect the privacy of members of the court.

To stop potential jurors from being swayed, the law also applies to a case before court proceedings have started. A high profile example of this would be Michael Jackson in 2005, because he was in the public eye early reporting could have stopped him from getting a fair trial. In 2003 two radio presenters from Beacon FM (Mark Peters and Lisa Freame) were sacked from their jobs after they remarked on the trial of Ian Huntley, referring to his testimony Peters said “It’s almost like the most unbelievably made-up story in the world ever, really, isn’t it? Well, I personally think it is. I can’t believe any member of the jury is going to believe that story.” Because of this the station itself also ran the risk of being held in contempt of court.

 

Privacy

Although there are no laws in the UK specifically regarding privacy, Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 states that people have “the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence.” Some people decide to go to court to get an injunction prohibiting anyone from revealing something specific about them, two high profile cases of this are footballer Ryan Giggs and Television presenter Jeremy Clarkson. Because of these injunctions the media could not report on what had gone on, even some users of social media site Twitter were threatened with court proceedings after naming people involved in the injunctions.

Election Law

Broadcasters have to remain impartial to all political parties when an election is called. This only applies to radio, TV programmes and news coverage. Restrictions do not apply to the print media meaning papers, magazines and websites can take whichever political side they like. A big problem with this is that rich newspaper owners can massively affect the result of an election, an example of this would be when the Sun reported that it had won the 1992 election for the conservative party by printing the headline ‘’It’s the Sun wot won it’’. Weather they actually did affect the outcome is not clear but it is generally perceived that they had a hand in the victory.

Ethical Considerations

Due to The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, it is an offence to incite religious or racial hatred. This means that media producers have to be careful of what they say even when quoting someone else. When footballer John Terry made a racist remark to Rio Ferdinand, BBC’s ‘Match of the Day’ had to blur out Terry’s mouth when replaying the clip on television or else they could have faced legal action. You have to be careful on chat shows and phone-ins because even if someone not employed by the broadcaster makes a racist comment, the broadcaster would still face criminal action because they are one providing the platform. Even balancing out the anti-racist view is not enough, because racist remarks have been broadcast.

Official Secrets

Due to concerns about spies and saboteurs the official secrets acts was introduced in 1911 and revised in 1989. The act covers security and intelligence, defence and international relations. It also covers things containing information from other governments or international organisations, information which could be useful to criminals and information about opening and reading suspect’s mail. An example of a breach of international official secrets is the well-known case of Edward Snowden who blew the whistle on the USA and posted information about the government online. On June 14, 2013, United States federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Snowden, charging him with theft of government property, and alleging he had violated the US's 1917 Espionage Act through unauthorized communication of national defense information and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person”. Snowden has not yet been imprisoned as he has claimed asylum in Russia.

Industry and professional codes

OFCOM (Office of Communications) is the regulatory body which covers broadcasting and telecommunications, it’s funded by the government and is held accountable by parliament. Members of the public can complain to OFCOM if they are offended by something which they see or hear. OFCOM covers rules regarding content for children, the watershed (the time after which it is acceptable to swear). It is designed to protect the public from “harmful and offensive” content.

Another professional code is the BBC Editorial Guidelines which are imposed by the corporation to its employees. An example of one of the guidelines is impartiality, according to the BBC this consists of “Impartiality lies at the core of the BBC's commitment to its audiences. We will apply due impartiality to all our subject matter and will reflect a breadth and diversity of opinion across our output as a whole, over an appropriate period, so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or under-represented. We will be fair and open-minded when examining evidence and weighing material facts.”

David Burd