Media Law 3

Libel defences

To be found guily of Libel you must have done these three things;

.Defamation

.Identification

.Publication.

To defame someone what you said must have done one of the following:

. exposed him to hatred, ridicule, or contempt

.caused him to be shunned or avoided

.lower him in the estimation of right thinking members of society generally

.disparage him in his business, trade, office or profession.

Identifying is simply naming someone. This can be done accidently however, you must be careful not to name some facts that could lead to the identification of some body.

Publication is to one or more person. So a blog can be classed as publcation, it isn't just professionals that can get in trouble!

The defences against Libel are as follows;

Justification - basically to avoid any legal action you must simply prove that it is true such as calling someone a murderer if they have been convicted of it, and you are sorted!

Comment - Your personal opinion. It can be used as a defence as long as there is no malice and it has to be an opinion based on fact. For example you can say that John Terry is not that good at football, but you can't say he is rubbish at making pizza, because you probably haven't tried any of his pizza...I would of thought.

Qualified Privilege - The two types are; Common law Q.P. and Statutory Q.P.

Qualified;

Means you are above the law; a judge has absolute privilege in court. Also anything said in parliament is covered by Q.P.

As a journalist has Q.P. but it is limited. You can report what is said in court but it must be fast accurate and fair. This means it must be published as soon as possible and not sat on for weeks, it must be accurate to every detail and fair, not bias or anything of that sort.

You must include their plea and that the case is continuing.

Common law Q.P.

Some people should be allowed to say defamatory things for the common convenience of society.

For example a case of a soldier who shot and killed youths in Northern Ireland and got convicted of murder. Campaign groups to free him called the prosecuting IRA terrorists, they were allowed to say this for the common convenience of society.

The 10 point test was set out to give journalists a guideline when reporting cases.

1. The serious of the allegation

2. The nature of the information

3. The source of informtion

4. The steps taken to verify the information

5. The status of the information

6. Urgency of matter

7. Whether comment was sought from the claimant

8. Whether the article contained the fist of the claimants side of the story

9. The tone of the article

10. The circumstances of the publication.

Winol 19/10/11

Another Successful bulletin from the Winol team, and I would like to extend my most sincerest gratitude to every one who put the hard work in to make it happen... that didn't sound sincere but I assure you it was!

Julies Story on Hampshire police officers is first and foremost a great find and goes to show that you can uncover great stories simply by putting in an FOI request, well done Juilie! The graphic that Julie is standing in front of is very good and well put together. However I would criticise that the story does drag on a little bit too long and there are a lot of facts to take it. The script could be slightly shorter so that the facts can be absorbed easier.

Toms story has a good range of opening GV's that are engaging to watch. There is a change in the sound of the voice over though, I assume they were recorded separately, I know it's a bit nit picky but hey that's how a Don thinks! The interview is good and gets a good opinion out however it would be good to get he woman saying how unfair it is and how no one will be able to cope. A very good range of shots which is impressive!

The library oov is again another good local story that I think is suitable for an oov rather than a package.

The strike story is good to follow up on as it firstly gives a good story with not much work needed to revisit. Also it shows our viewer that we are keeping up to date with the story and that

The sports team excelled once again with a big and diverse range of sport to offer for both he bulletin and sports week. It is good to know that if needs be the news team can come to us to fill up the bulletin if stories have been dropped for any reason.

Sam and Henry did really well with their Boxing and Dodgeball features that were fun and interesting to watch and it shows they weren't afraid to experiment with and enjoy making their features.

I was once again on Ice Hockey once again at the home of the mighty Bison, who are still experiencing some unsteady form. I managed to overcome my problem of getting my white balance right for this game. The problem being the lighting changes from the warm up to the start of the game, and the camera takes a while to adjust to the change of light, this time I left it alone and I think it paid off. The game was exciting once again, and as the weeks go on I am getting more confident with my filming, and am attempting to get closer when I think there is a chance. There is always the possibility of loosing the puck when going in close, but I feel I am beginning to read the game better and am able anticipate when I need to zoom in on the action. With nine goals in the game it was going to be again full of action, I left the goals a little bit longer by including more of the build up play as I think the previous week it was a bit too fast paced. This also meant that the goals don't look too similar as they can do on a small playing ice rink. The pitch and tone of my voice was good again I think, but it still needs improvement possibly getting more animated when recording the voice over could help. I had a problem with the focus, I think it must have been set on auto focus as when I moved the camera quickly it would go out of focus and sometimes focus in on the railings when they got in shot. I need to check the settings more carefully to make sure this doesn't happen again. The sound recording was better also as I turned down the sound on the recording so it wasn't too loud. For next week I will try to improve my voice over to make it more enthusiastic and I think that will improve my package.

winol 12/10/11

The Bulletin was overall very much improved on the calamity that was last week with everyone in the news room and production generally working much harder and as a team.

Julies council cuts story is very good. However the first interview we hear about facts about jobs being cut rather than his opinion. At the end he says something like the council could do more I would like to hear more about him complaining. Julie has done well to get balance from the southampton councillor.

Tom's story is a good national story scaled down locally well by Tom. The sequence leading to the first interview is a bit too long I think this could have been mixed up with some different shots. The interview is good, However it could be framed tighter as it has his whole upper body in shot which isn't necessary. Also the cut away to him talking whilst he was still talking was a bit confusing. The second interview is very good the interviewee is clear and gets his point across well.

Louis, very hard to get GV's for this story I think maybe some more shots of people doing things inside. The first voice over is very good it gives us a clear idea of what is going on. The interviewee is is sitting down and looking up which looks a bit strange. I think that the woman working at the shelter should have given her view rather than just straight facts. The councillor says that the lib dems failed, this is a great thing to hear him say so well done for getting that out of him.

There was a few too many oov's, they could have been broken up as it could lead to the viewer getting a bit,well, bored!

Sport wise everyone managed to deliver again, and it is good to see that everyone is pulling their weight, because if one of us starts slacking it can have repercussions for the whole team.

My Ice Hockey piece included 13 goals which admittedly was a bit of a nightmare to pack into a maximum time slot of one minute thirty! It meant that I wouldn't be able to fit all the goals into my package. I took out two goals and used my voice over to explain that goals had been scored. Once again I think that my voice has improved along with my scripting, I tried harder this week to improve the tone on my voice, and as Ice Hockey is a fast intense sport I had to make the enthusiasm in my voice match that or it just wouldn't sound right.

I think that a few of the goals were a bit similar to each other which may have looked like I used the same shot but I can put everyone to rest and say that they were just almost identical goals! Angus mentioned that I could have had a bit more fun with it, which I agree with. I thought about making the voice over a bit exciting and being playful but as it was going in the bulletin I didn't want it to be too silly. Next time that two teams score that many goals I think I will try and be a bit more playful with the script rather than ' goal, goal, goal'. As I can now see that it was maybe a bit confusing to see that many goals and action within such a short space and time and really take it in! Also for my next piece I think I will use some natural sound at the start of the piece as it seems a waste not to use the natural sound that is really pleasing to the ear.

Flick's piece again needs to have the interviewee saying that it is amazing that this is happening rather than explaining the facts. The interviews are very well framed and hearing the scientist saying it's 'surreal' and 'awesome' is the kind of comment that is good to hear!

As I said the sports and news team have been great once again. Great to see every body working hard!

Winol 05/10/11

This week winol hit the air for the first official show after the dummy run. As far as sport the sports team is concerned I feel we all had very much to be proud of but could also improve in many areas as well.

The sport bulletin was very well delivered by Sam, with a clear and confident voice. Good to see that Sam came across confident as for the first time in front of the live cameras and full gallery can be very daunting.

On to the content. The OOV by mikey was very well shot with some good action shots. Dael's Eastleigh package was again well shot, with some good delivery on the commentary.

Personally I feel my Hockey package came together well for a first time effort. I found it difficult to follow the game at times as it is such a fast paced game. Luckily for me there was only five goals which made it easier to follow. I was particularly proud of one shot in particular in which i managed to follow the puck from the shot all the way to the goal, something I had been trying all game, this time it paid off maybe call it luck or skill I don't know but it looked good! The idea when putting it together was to try and make it as fast paced as possible as it is in real life. The sports gives you a chance to get some really exciting shots into your package and I feel visually I delivered, even managing to include a punch up near the end! I think that I have come a long way from my original sports packages in terms of my voice over. I tried to improve the delivery by changing my pitch and being more enthusiastic to make the intensity of the game. There is a long way to go in terms of perfecting my technique, but the delivery was definitely an improvements on previous work.

An interesting point was made by guest editor was that she felt we could expand our sport to include more of a wider audience. I agree in the sense that we do isolate anyone who doesn't support Eastlleigh, Basingstoke or Winchester. However we do get large viewings from Basingstoke football fans who rely on our service to watch there favourite team in action. That being said I think it would help if we had more sports news stories that will appeal to a wider audience. Expanding our sport coverage to Ice Hockey has prove our intent. If we can keep improving on our current sport coverage and include some more sport news then we should keep the viewing numbers rising!