Law - Confidentiality and Privacy

Law of Confidence is key to a person keeping their private lives separate from the public. This ensures total privacy with information that is exchanged in a private or confidential circumstance, for example when you are talking to your doctor - all medical files are confidential between doctor and patient.

There are three elements to determine when a breach of confidence has occurred:
- The information must be shared in a confidential manner.
- It must also have the necessary quality of confidence (so it can't be something trivial).
- For action to be taken there must be an unauthorised use of the information.

Journalists must be mindful in terms of confidence and privacy when reporting on three areas:
- Official Secrets Act: this keeps safe all military intelligence information for example the location of bases or information that could be harmful to the safety of the country if it was exposed, much like the phrase 'spilling state secrets'.
- Individual Privacy: Section 8 of the Human Rights act defends individual privacy, so that concerns your family life and anything else that would be deemed out of the public sphere.
- Commercial Confidentiality: this will be in contracts of employees essentially saying they can't release sensitive information that would be damaging to the employer.

You can defence breaches of confidence or privacy by proving if the information did not have the necessary quality of confidence or if the information is in the public sphere. The main defence would be that if it is in the public interest to know this information. Naomi Campbell won a breach of privacy concerning a newspaper publishing images of her leaving a narcotics anonymous meeting.

When a journalist obtains sensitive information they have two choices:
- They can just run the story and face potential legal repercussion, but you should really only do this if you could justify it in the public interest and not merely interesting to the public.
- The other choice is to confront the business / person that the information pertains to and try to get a response, but this could lead to an injunction and therefore the information will be swept under the rug.

Law - Reporting on Elections

Journalists must always be impartial, but this is even more pertinent when it comes to elections and your coverage of them. The big divide between broadcast and print here is that print publications can nail their flag to the mast and outright pick a side in which political party they want to win, this is because newspapers are orientated that way - there have always been specific newspapers for Labour supporters and the same goes for Conservative supporters. 

However, in terms of broadcast we are there to simply cover each 'major' party in an impartial and fair way and major parties have been decided so by Ofcom and the overall popularity of a political party. For example, it used to be that the major parties consisted of Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, but due to a surge in popularity and support, Ofcom have said that UKIP should now be considered a major party when it comes to reporting the European elections.

Defamation is an ever present risk to publications at election time - simply because the warring parties might spread defamatory statements or comments about another candidate and since it is just them spouting off accusations there is no privilege involved to protect the media in highlighting the statements made and if they were to do so then the journalist or the publication could get sued. An example of this would be in 2010 concerning Phil Woolas. Woolas is a former Labour Government Minister and he lost the Oldham East seat which he had previously with a majority of 103. He suffered a three year ban after being convicted of publishing false statements about the rival candidate in one of his leaflets and thus suffered the consequences. 

Under the Representation of the People Act 1983 - it is a criminal offence to publish an exit poll or exposing how other people have voted, before the polls are fully closed. This is because people would make of note of who has a chance of wining and if it were someone they didn't want to win then that would lead to a great deal of tactical voting - though this happens it generally would make the whole election corrupt and unfair as it is doctoring a specific outcome with a great deal of foreknowledge.

Further under this act it is deemed a criminal offence to publish anything remotely false about any election candidate, especially if the desired outcome would be to sway the minds of the voters. If you publish something particularly damning then it better be justified and justifiable. Basically, it has to be true so don't bother lying.

Law - Regulatory Codes

Regulations are in place for a reason! That reason being to keep us journalists on the right tracks in terms of morality and behaviour when it comes to stories, sourcing the stories and clearly outlining what is seen as justified. These regulations deal with ethics and an overall respect and understanding of privacy and where to draw the line.

Regulatory bodies:
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) governs print and other magazine publications.
- If someone has a problem with something thats been published in a news paper or a magazine then these guys are the people that handle it. 

- The BBC have their own set of regulations and guidelines but they still have to follow the rules outlined by Ofcom because otherwise they could get themselves in to some serious trouble.

The Office of Communications (Ofcom) governs broadcast journalism.
- Ofcom holds a great deal of power and it can force public apologies, implement large fines and revoke a publication's broadcasting license. That means you have to follow the rules no matter what, no getting away with anything with these guys.

In general terms codes of practice focus on these areas:
- Protecting youths and children
- Fair treatment
- Ethical behaviour
- Respecting Privacy

Law - Copyright

Copyright was first introduced after the birth of the printing press. This is pretty much a simple aspect of law, insofar as at its basic level it means that if you wrote it, then it’s yours; for example an article. The same applies to any pictures you take, poems you write, drawings you do and so on! Copyright is a property protection law that keeps in check how your own work or images are used by others. It protects a number of things; books, images, film and TV broadcasts and so on, anything that you've done yourself is rightfully and lawfully yours, so if someone is trying to pass off their work as your own then boom you can pounce if you can provide and show that you are the original creator of it.

However, you are allowed to 'license' your pictures, articles on to people who ask you to use them, commonly this happens with pictures - people will usually email the owner of a picture to ask if that they are allowed to use them, for example, in their blogs and this is absolutely fine so long as you stick to their terms - for example crediting the owner and source of the photograph.

The confirmation gained through the email is effectively solid, written consent from the owner that you're allowed to use their picture - you must make sure that they give the confirmation in the form of an email, or at least something substantial that will hold up in court if they decide to sue you for breaching copyright law. Basically, don’t steal other people's work, all right, because that’s plagiarism.The length of copyright does depend on the material. For example musical works are under the copyright of the artist, so long as that artist lives. The copyright then lasts seventy years

Fair Dealing: 
Fair dealing is a beautiful thing - it allows you to use copyrighted material for free! This can also be referred to as 'lifting'. This means that factual stories in the news can be used, insofar as 'lifting' a quote or a story from another newspaper is allowed - so long as you credit the person who originally took the picture, wrote the quote and so on, because otherwise it seems like you're trying to pass off the quote as if you're the one who collected it. This is all upheld in the Copyright Act of 1976.

Fair dealing can have a defence in news, insofar as lets say a famous actor or musician dies - you would be writing an obituary or be doing a tribute - you can say that since it is relevant to tell the story you need to use footage from the past or from their most recent film and that covers you just fine; because it is warranted, however you must still remember to always credit the owner, otherwise it's like you're saying you filmed it yourself and that it's your footage. It's important to note that when using footage, you're only allowed to use around 6 seconds or so of it, something that is not deemed excessive because otherwise its like rubbing it in.

Second defence for fair dealing; if you're doing a film review then you're welcome to use any footage from whatever it is you are reviewing, this is because it's being used to illustrate and show off the film; as always credit the source and make sure its not a huge amount, like you won't be able to use 3 minutes of it.

Law - Freedom of Information Act (2000)

Freedom of information act was passed in 2000. Data protection is an important aspect of the law - it keeps all your personal information and protects it, keeps it away form the public domain. For example just like medical records, it's all confidential but you can see your own information, of course.

Image courtesy of Wikicommons:
Jonathan Joeseph Bondhus

Other protected data comes under the official secrets act: these are all about military and government plans, along with locations of bases; bases are not allowed to be broadcast on a map for example Ministry of Defence sites - just protection for things that protect our country. Confidentiality comes into this too, as mentioned with medical documents and data, in the news a few weeks ago it's been revealed that The NHS want people's details and to use them to try and find cures to diseases. Obvious problems with this - people really don't want their medical records on show.

Any person can request and receive information from a public body and this applies to files, videos, tape and electronic information, not just paper with details. It encompasses all things. The Government cannot make you do thing - governments need to be legitimate (very much the contract theory) and they gain this legitimacy through democracy, eg, voting and being accountable. We all have a right to information, our taxes mean we've paid for it really, and the people who are 'in charge of it' ie the government, are simply custodians. The basic principle of it is 'ask and you shall receive', we are entitled to this information.

Why can they say no?

If it costs more than £600 or if they information is exempt, but even then you don't need to accept their ruling. But there are two exemptions:

1. Absolute - Security services, anything to do with courts

2. Qualified - Where the information is qualified, falls under commercial confidentiality - it's pretty much a maybe area. The exemption to this is if it's in public interest, if you believe it to be then it has to pass the test.

It has to be in the public's interest, not just interesting to the public

Eg: 

• How many nurses have criminal convictions? (Public interest)
• How many NHS nurses are divorced? (Merely interesting to desperate single / divorced people

Under a qualified exemption information can be withheld where 'the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information'.

Update to the act:

Government is considering adding more limits to the FOI act. They are essentially wanting to limit groups or individuals making requests where they become too 'burdensome'. They will lower limits on costs which should lead to many more requests being rejected, just to screw over more journalists or very nosy citizens.

Law - Defamation (Revised from 1st year)

Defamation, Libel and Slander.

Defamation: Defamation is the act of injuring someone’s name or reputation. This is a 'civil' issue and is therefore between two parties and this is because that the persons reputation is their property and to damage a reputation is to break the law. For example, Chris' reputation is the Number 1 educator for journalism in the UK, anyone to say otherwise would be accountable for defamation because it would cause him to be fired. When it comes to defamatory cases, the person suing only has to show a jury that on the Balance of probability the comment could affect their reputation - they don’t exactly need to prove anything.

Libel: Libel is a defamatory statement which is published in a permanent form and identifies a single person, for example in a newspaper. Libel = identification of someone + publication (online or in a newspaper etc) + defamation. By doing this you expose yourself to inciting hatred and contempt. This also causes the person being defamed to be shunned by the public or avoided altogether. It discredits them in their certain profession or business and this generally lowers them in the eyes of the law-abiding citizens of society. So basically, it’s a dick move if you get it wrong! this can affect their chances of being hired and so on as it will, as stated, ruin their reputation

There are defences that people can use to get themselves out of a libel or defamation charge, for example:

1) Justification - It is true and it can actually be proved (YES the truth, as I have mentioned, is the very best defence!) If you call someone a thief, then you must be able to prove that this is true, then you're in the clear and no action can be taken against you.

2) Fair Comment - this is basically your own honest opinion, this is what I referred to as the double rainbow for journalists if I’m not mistaken! But then it could be argued that "what if your honest opinion changes?" well then you know, you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot - also referred to as Malice; this is saying something you don't believe to be true and you are saying for the sake of slating someone else.

Law - Court Reporting... try not to get arrested

There are two current cases that we can comment on as journalists. The first is Lord Rennard and the second is the death of young Kular in Scotland. The Lord Rennard case is interesting because it could've been sent to the criminal court but has instead gone into the civil courts as it is now just a dispute between people. Rennard was seen as innocent by the state due to the evidence not being able to persuade people 'beyond reasonable doubt' of the wrong doings. It has been sent to the civil courts because the burden of proof is on the prosecution and it is all to the balance of probability.

Lord Rennard seems to have been cleared of all criminal charges but this means it could go to civil courts instead and so it's not about beyond reasonable doubt'.

The second case is interesting because the proceedings seem to be slightly different. Insofar as the case is taking place in Scotland so it differs from the way proceedings follow in England. It's about the murder of Mikaeel Kular.

We saw a blog post that wrote a profile on Kular's mother and it was kind of damning. Insofar as it described her as a party animal and so on which really is casting a negative light off the bat. But they could hide behind the defence of the 'fade factor' the reasoning is "publish something now and the trail is in 6 months time then by the time it comes along people potentially on the jury would've forgotten completely, more or less anyway. So basically it's a pretty sweet way to save yourself. Duly noted.

Key stages of Magistrates
Prosecution opening
Key prosecution witnesses
Defence opening
Key defence witnesses
Judges summation
Jury sent out to deliberate and come to a verdict

Crime reporting rules
Fair
Fast - (contemporaneous)
Accurate
No recording
No tweeting

sidenote: the Attorney General is Dominic Greive

Law Lecture 7 - Investigative Journalism

It occurs to me that I am constantly falling behind on the blogging standards! This is never a good thing, and when I think back to what I was doing when I should have been blogging I genuinely can’t remember what it was! Here is my solemn vow to keep on top of the blogging - I promise! So here I am now, classic Saturday filled with doing nothing, however this time I have pizza AND The Shining to accompany me; this blogging will be done in no time. Anyway, enough of that, let’s get started on the notes! Enjoy my “avid” readers.

Investigative Journalism basically means that it is “off the diary”. This term is used by journalists because they will always have a diary with potential stories in it, there has been no set agenda as it will be you setting your own agenda – sort of trying to guess what the people want to know as the story will be in the case of public interest. Apparently we have to be supremely awkward with our questions and really be argumentative when trying to get a story or information out of someone. This kind of journalism is usually dubbed “Gonzo Journalism”, for example people like Lois Theroux and Michael Moore.

Investigative Journalism = “What someone, somewhere doesn't want you to publish” Brian Thornton

When you’re involved in this field of journalism you have to, obviously, steer clear of malice! For example trying to publish something just to get revenge on someone or spite them – so basically don’t pursue a story when your active motive is personal revenge... that sounds simple enough!

When it comes to investigative journalism on the matter of serious public interest, a well known example would be that of Harry Evans; this man created an insight team to expose the drug companies that released a new drug for women because the women who used this drug had their children born with deformities. This definitely falls into the category of serious public interest.

We’ve been advised to watch the YouTube videos about “Who Bombed Birmingham” here’s the link, I’ve watched most of it and definitely recommend it!
Episode 1 - Watch me :)

Miscarriages of Justice: The classic cases of something being “off-agenda” are miscarriages of justice. This is when people have been framed and go to jail for a crime that they haven’t even committed – this leads us to think that what if the Legal System isn’t as fair and accurate as we think? People tend to go along with “if the legal system said that they are guilty, then they must be guilty” people don’t think twice about the possibility that the justice system is actually corrupt, this brings us back to our earlier lessons on law about the media being the watchdogs that keeps all institutions in check. So journalists are pretty much a team of superheroes... I knew I picked this course for a reason. Life win.

Law Lecture - Copyright

Copyright was first introduced after the birth of the printing press. This is pretty much a simple aspect of law, insofar as at its basic level it means that if you wrote it, then it’s yours; for example an article. The same applies to any pictures you take, poems you write, drawings you do and so on! Copyright is a property protection law that keeps in check how your own work or images are used by others. It protects a number of things; books, images, film and TV broadcasts and so on, anything that you've done yourself is rightfully and lawfully yours, so if someone is trying to pass off their work as your own then boom you can pounce if you can provide and show that you are the original creator of it.

However, you are allowed to 'license' your pictures, articles on to people who ask you to use them, commonly this happens with pictures - people will usually email the owner of a picture to ask if that they are allowed to use them, for example, in their blogs and this is absolutely fine so long as you stick to their terms - for example crediting the owner and source of the photograph.

The confirmation gained through the email is effectively solid, written consent from the owner that you're allowed to use their picture - you must make sure that they give the confirmation in the form of an email, or at least something substantial that will hold up in court if they decide to sue you for breaching copyright law. Basically, don’t steal other people's work, all right, because that’s plagiarism.
The length of copyright does depend on the material. For example musical works are under the copyright of the artist, so long as that artist lives. The copyright then lasts seventy years

Fair Dealing: Fair dealing is a beautiful thing - it allows you to use copyrighted material for free! This can also be referred to as 'lifting'. This means that factual stories in the news can be used, insofar as 'lifting' a quote or a story from another newspaper is allowed - so long as you credit the person who originally took the picture, wrote the quote and so on, because otherwise it seems like you're trying to pass off the quote as if you're the one who collected it. This is all upheld in the Copyright Act of 1976.

Fair dealing can have a defence in news, insofar as lets say a famous actor or musician dies - you would be writing an obituary or be doing a tribute - you can say that since it is relevant to tell the story you need to use footage from the past or from their most recent film and that covers you just fine; because it is warranted, however you must still remember to always credit the owner, otherwise it's like you're saying you filmed it yourself and that it's your footage. It's important to note that when using footage, you're only allowed to use around 6 seconds or so of it, something that is not deemed excessive because otherwise its like rubbing it in.

Second defence for fair dealing; if you're doing a film review then you're welcome to use any footage from whatever it is you are reviewing, this is because it's being used to illustrate and show off the film; as always credit the source and make sure its not a huge amount, like you won't be able to use 3 minutes of it.

Keep it secret... Keep it safe: Confidentiality

Whoa, so I totally forgot about this and thought I’d already blogged about it! Jeeze, im really falling behind on this business - note to self, be better at filing.

Confidentiality: When it comes to confidentiality there are three areas of concern, these are:

1) State Secrets - this is classed as any military secrets, such as the armed forces and their documents. This is upheld by the "Official Secrets Act" and this means that, among other things, you're not allowed by law to reveal the location of troops, for example.

2) Commercial Secrets - This is to do with the confidentiality of workers within a business, known more commonly as business to business dealings. this is the expectation that what a person says will be treated as private and confidential, for example if a boss tells you that they (the business) are commencing a price rise, it’s pretty obvious that you're not supposed to tell rival shops.

3) Privacy - This might be seen as the new libel, insofar as privacy has become very important after the publication of the Human Rights Act which brought with it section 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. This means that there is a clear divide between the public and private spheres of life. The Private sphere is protected by law and people aren’t allowed to pry on it because this infringes on their right to privacy - a major nuisance for the paparazzi and journalists in general.

Common Law Secrets: Secrets are allowed, so long as they are not against the public interest. Lawyers are a prime example along with doctors - they have confidentiality and cannot by law pass on any information that is discussed in confidence to any third party member without legitimate consent. The above point also applied to the Catholic confession system. 

There is my quick summary of the law lecture, Confidentiality is pretty much common sense really, bear in mind you shouldn’t just go and tell all your secrets to some random guy on the street or you know, people you just don't trust in general; you see? Common sense people!

Anyway, back to my mass amounts of blogging, bye and stuff x

blogging catch up - law lecture 4 Qualified privaledge

This blog post is mostly to consolidate my understanding of QP from our lectures and the reading from McNaes. Unfortunately it seems to be work that is taking precedence in my blog lately! I don’t know how this happened but im gonna have to start blogging about "fun" things again; I know all my avid readers will love this news... awkward. I'll always remember this lecture as what I like to call the time that Chris Horrie pulled a phone off the wall. So! Here are my late law notes!

So the main thing I learned that lesson was that anyone who is on TV is instantly news worthy. Joking, but it’s one of many amazing anecdotes that Chris comes out with - using the example of Adele referring to herself as: "common as muck". 

• Justification - the true facts that we can prove
• Fair Comment - we can defend ourselves on the basis that what we have said is truly what we believe
• Qualified Privilege - If it has been said in court that someone is a thief, we are allowed to call them so.

Qualified privilege in common law rests on the case of Toogood v Spiring. Spiring accused his butler, Toogood, of stealing his silvers and other precious items and then wrote a bad reference and had to tell the truth in this reference, (very much like a tutor writing a reference for a student), even if it is defamatory. But there would be the protection of qualified privilege, only if the reference is without malice, and if it were fast, accurate and fair.

Reynolds v Times Newspapers: This is a UK legal case in the House of Lords which is related to qualified privilege for publication of defamatory statements when it comes to the defence of "in the public interest". This then came up with the term: "the Reynolds defence", which is the idea that a journalist can publish an article out of a sense of duty to his fellow man to inform people of something, even if the claim turns out to be wrong.

The Times claimed that Albert Reynolds (Irish PM) deceived the Irish parliament so he could cover up a child abuse scandal. The Times said it believed the allegations were true, Reynolds then challenged them saying they couldn’t prove anything because, as per, there were no witnesses.

The case then went into the Higher Courts. The judges thought the Times newspaper had a civic duty to the people to publish the allegations, as they were serious offences and allegations. This was very much in the public interest and it was of a key importance that that they be discussed. At this time, the Human Rights Act was then newly introduced bringing with it freedom of expression. This extends to things that people do in the public life and has no hold over what people do in the private sphere of life.

The Ten-Point Test: This refers to people trying to use the Reynolds defence in court, it claims that your argument has to meet 10 criteria to be entitled to the Reynolds defence. Lord Nicholls emphasised a ‘duty to publish’ if the newspaper or a reporter thought he/she knew there was anything wrong. Lord Nicholls came up with these 10 criteria: 

1. The seriousness of the allegation. The more serious the charge, the more the public is misinformed and the individual harmed, if the allegation is not true.
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. Some informants have no direct knowledge of the events - people might be lying out of spite and so on.
4. The steps taken to verify the information.
5. The status of the information. The allegation may have already been the subject of an investigation.
6. The urgency of the matter
7. Whether comment was sought from the plaintiff. He may have information others do not possess or have not disclosed.
8. Whether the article contained the gist of the plaintiff's side of the story.
9. The tone of the article. A newspaper can raise queries or call for an investigation.
10. The circumstances of the publication

Bye and stuff x

Law Lecture 3 - Defamation, Libel and Slander

Defamation, Libel and Slander: From what I've seen of other people’s notes on the lecture, the reading covered all of it! Beautiful! So here are the law notes for...

Defamation: Defamation is the act of injuring someone’s name or reputation. This is a 'civil' issue and is therefore between two parties and this is because that the persons reputation (street cred) is their property and to damage a reputation is to break the law. For example, Chris' rep is the Number 1 educator for journalism in the UK and Winchester bad-man, anyone to say otherwise would be accountable for defamation. When it comes to defamatory cases, the person suing only has to show a jury that on the Balance of probability the comment could affect their reputation - they don’t exactly need to prove anything.

Libel: Libel is a defamatory statement which is published in a permanent form and identifies a single person, for example in a newspaper. Libel = identification of someone + publication (online or in a newspaper etc) + defamation. By doing this you expose yourself to inciting hatred and contempt. This also causes the person being defamed to be shunned by the public or avoided altogether. It discredits them in their certain profession or business and this generally lowers them in the eyes of the law-abiding citizens of society. So basically, it’s a dick move if you get it wrong! this can affect their chances of being hired and so on as it will, as stated, ruin their reputation

There are defences that people can use to get themselves out of a libel or defamation charge, for example:

1) Justification - It is true and it can actually be proved (YES the truth, as I have mentioned, is the very best defence!)

2) Fair Comment - this is basically your own honest opinion, this is what I referred to as the double rainbow for journalists if I’m not mistaken! But then it could be argued that "what if your honest opinion changes?" well then you know, you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot - also referred to as Malice; this is saying something you don't believe to be true.

Well that should about cover it, I know I said that I wouldn't let it go too long without another blog post... thing about that is I might have lost track of the days or I might have been lying. Can't be sure! But now im actually gonna try and get on with this blogging business!
Stay classy, Winchester x

Law Lecture 2 - very very very late!

So there I am this weekend, filled with the intent to listen to radio 4, but then it dawned on me that the word "morning" doesn't exist when it comes to the weekend - talk about falling at the first hurdle! /sigh. Maybe I’ll be far more successful with my trip to Winchester Crown Court! What was looking for is an opening, a sentencing or a summing up by the judge - either way it sounds genuinely interesting. Anyway! Down to the notes!

During this lecture we've been told about something which is as amazing as a double rainbow - this is "Qualified Privilege" this means that you cannot be sued for what you say! Frankly, that sounds like the best thing ever, us journos must be in love with this, I know I am!

In any case, I have a feeling this is gonna be a very short blog post! This is because I believe I’ve mentioned most of the lectures key points in my older blog posts! This was also covered in the reading I’ve been doing.

Key Notes:

• Presumption of innocence "beyond all reasonable doubt"
• Magistrates court = Minor Cases
• Crown Courts = Major Cases
• Cases can be done in private - for example rape cases and cases that cover particularly sensitive issues are usually not made public
• Evidence based justice - this is the right to have the evidence given in a case tested by the jury; this is held up by a source of the UK constitution known as the Magna Carta.

Criminal Court: The Jury must give verdicts based on evidence given. There is no jury in a magistrates court, a Jury is only present in Crown court. While the Jury are involved in a case, they have to go through a media blackout. Which means that they must not watch the news, read newspapers, go online in anyway. This is because people writing articles on the case will condemn someone before the jury has reached a verdict - this is going to affect how the jury will vote if they've seen that people believe someone to be guilty or not.

High Court: "You can always judge how much trouble you're in depending on the length of the wigs" - Chris Horrie. Barristers are the ones who talk in the High courts - judges essentially act as arbiters in the high court - insofar as they decide on literally everything in a case. Such as: the evidence that can and can’t be put forward, to keep the court on track and not get distracted and, among others, once the jury has reached a verdict the Judge is the one that gives out the sentence - just tells to jury to go home.

Crown Court: Indictable cases are done by magistrates and this court hears appeals. If you've been charged with, for example, a fine for not having a parking ticket or something then you can, instead of paying the fine, appeal to have the case taken to a crown court - this is very time consuming.

Contempt of Court & Strict Liability: Contempt of court is a strict liability offence. 

Contempt of court = impeding the courts justice in anyway, for example shouting out from the "audience" or trying to sway the jury. Or as Chris put it, giving the death stare to a member of the jury saying "if you say guilty, I'm gonna get you". Strict Liability = you cannot use the defence "I didn't mean to" you have no excuse to get you out of a strict liability offence, such as drink driving.

Prejudice: Very important concept in Law, with people MUST NOT DO. It literally means to "pre-judge “something - so basically don’t jump to conclusion! Otherwise people will feel they are guilty before trail. A prime example of this would be the Joanna Yates case the media instantly targeted and pre-judged a man who basically looked "creepy" and probably was the guy who did it based on their appearance. Prejudice is pretty much Green Kryptonite, as in it makes Superman die *sad face* so it therefore kills court cases. So don’t do it yeah?

So yeah, thanks for reading! I’ll blog sometime soon and not let myself go this long without blogging ever again, promise... kinda :)

Bye and stuff x

Introduction to Law - Ft. McNae's Essential Law for Journalists. (mmm foam)

Read, read, read!

So, this is what we were welcomed to this morning at 10:00 (totes 9:30). As you will all know I was feeling rough from the foam party last night and I definitely remember being crushed by bare amounts of foam and dyeing on the dance floor. It was worth it, I probably wouldn’t go again... but when I think about it, I really would.

So yes, this is what we've been instructed to do, read one tabloid and broadsheet each day - after this morning’s lecture I learned that news papers are definitely fun... if they're read by Chris. I found this lecture particularly interesting as im quite partial to learning about the law - I kinda used to want to be a lawyer when I first went into sixth form but I don’t know if I’d cope; mostly because I would feel the need to constantly use film quotes to help me fight a case, which would utterly work like without a doubt. But yes, let’s get down to the notes.

Law: Basically, the truth is by far your best defence - so you might as well stick to things that are very true, this will decrease your chances of being sued by like a million (more like 99) percent. So this is important when it comes to writing an article - you must make sure that you have a story, a way to strengthen it and then a way to defend it. So the truth is obis vastly important.

as I’ve already mentioned the Up’s Uncodified constitution I’m going to skip ahead to a part I previously omitted - the Up’s constitution is also a very good source of news and stories but it also has its drawbacks insofar as it also places many restraints for example the human rights act gives the right to privacy, but then again in McNeal essential law for journalists it explains that it’s to a degree of interest. For example, the right to privacy depends mostly on how the story would be viewed in the public eye and really as a journalist you’re going to want to write what is interesting. Then to flip it more on its head there's also the freedom of speech which allows people to express their options so long as they're not inciting racial hatred and so on. Cut short - constitution = a great source.

Again this introduction lecture linked heavily into AS politics insofar as the reference to the executive, legislature and the judiciary - all of which are in place to keep the others in check and make sure that there’s never too much power concentrated in one place. These institutions act as checks for each other and this dividing up of major powers is known more commonly as the "Separation of powers". However many people are arguing that there is a 4th institution that actually keeps parliament honest and free of corruption - this is the "Press" and their freedom of speech; this ties into the famous quote:

 "Who shall guard the guardians?"

 The answer? The press will apparently.

There are two types of law, civil and criminal law.

• Civil = things between civilians such as divorce and other disputes like "this dude has totes put his fence in my garden, I’m going to drown him" these disputes are all done in the "boring" civil court which is not the place to be, it’s like going to a bar in Kenilworth thats filled with 50 year olds. Another dispute settled in civil court are counts of LIBEL - more commonly known as the journalist's nemesis - just like Ash and Gary from Pokémon.
• Criminal = the place where it all goes down, counts of murder, theft, burglary and all those other serious offences come right here and are settled in a Crown Court. This is the place to be if you’re a journalist (who’s good at shorthand) who wants to write a bus load of articles. 
• Note to self - LEARN SHORTHAND.

Then it comes to the issue of the truth. As a journalist we must always be sceptical, taking Chris' advice I’ve now been very suspecting of everyone and everything I’ve seen today, what was real? Did I even go to pizza hut today? Im confusing myself now...

In any case, and this is very important, for civil and criminal offences there is a very strict standard of truth. Remember that!

Standard of proof: The standard of proof is different for both civil and criminal.

Civil = Balance of probability.  

Basically, this means that if it looks like they did it then they totes did, for example someone standing above a corpse with a knife and there’s blood everywhere then they're nicked. Very simple and effective way to judge the crime. However, as I learnt in a Key concepts seminar yesterday all is not as it seems! We were told a story by Paul Manning about a hit man ordered to kill a cheating husband's lover - to cut a long story short the hit man knew the hit and so they staged a photograph of the hit covered in tomato sauce and could easily pawn it off as if the hit had been fulfilled. Again linking back to today's lecture - always is sceptical. Boom.

Criminal = Beyond reasonable doubt.

This one’s a bit trickier to pull off. To convict someone of a murder or a more serious offence then you need to acquire one of three sources of evidence.

1. You need a confession!

2. Forensic evidence.

3. Eye witness accounts.

Without these necessities the jury don’t have enough evidence to vote guilty and therefore the justice system has many draw backs.

Well I managed to get this done in the right amount of time! I’ll post today's second lecture about philosophy tomorrow with my free day. This is me done for today, three blog posts in like two hours, boom. I'm now off to drink outrageous amounts of alcohol at Bier Keller which starts at 8... For you Scott Pilgrim fans I’ll leave you with this

 "So yeah... 8 o'clock?"

Bye and stuff x