ACRONYM: S.P.E.C.T.A.C.U.L.A.R Flashcards
1
Q
S: SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS
A
- Serious implications if you transgress media law.
- You could be financially ruined, criminally prosecuted, fined or jailed.
- Civil litigation is pursued by a privatised profit led legal profession in the UK, reward fees for success, event insurance premiums from loosing side.
- Changes to the legal cost regime for defamation + privacy in England and Wales have still not been implemented.
- English lawyers are said to charge over 100 times as much as other european countries.
- Although arbitration schemes by IPRESS & IPSO engage in costs for defendant publisher, it is conceivable that the outcomes will still involve thousands of pounds in legal costs even before any binding award in terms of damages.
- Most media law crimes are strict liability - the prosecution does not have to prove intention. Things like social media hits will be mitigation on damages but not a defence.
- ‘the chilling effect’ (that describes a situation where a speech or conduct is suppressed by fear of penalization at the interests of an individual or group) means it is easier, less risky, and cheaper to surrender, settle and apologise. Alternative is to remain silent.
- England and Wales law is 90% privatised.
- Citizens Advice Bureaux are charities that give legal aid. but are over-stretched.
- Anything published in the cyber-digital sphere is subject to another dimension of control and liability. They have legal duties and you could be withdrawn from a service without warning. Dennis Cooper in 2016 lost two novels and an unfinished book by google.
2
Q
P: PRIVACY
A
- Invading someones privacy without public interest justification.
- Exposing private intimacies to do with sexuality, education, and family matters means you could be breaking the law.
- The UK courts measure the freedom of expression in terms of public interest against privacy rights.
- Intense focus on the circumstances of each case.
- Was their a duty and entitlement to confidentiality?
- Article 8 of the ECHR convention talks about the right to home, family and correspondence.
- Media privacy can include filming on a phone at a private location without permission.
3
Q
E: ETHICS
A
- The editors code set for IPSO is regarded as a benchmark on ethical and legal communication.
- IMPRESS use this code while it consults and develops its own code and ethics of standards.
- BBC editorial guidlines are influential and first base standards for anyone working within the BBC.
- Ofcom have a broadcasting code, from 2017 the BBC’s content regulation will be covered by Ofcom.
- Moral and ethical values should be considered.
- Professional reputation and audience loyalty will be jeopardised by a publication policy. Bad behaviour is only short of breaching law and regulation.
- Professional associations such as the National Union of Journalists, and Chartered Institute of Journalists have a separate code of ethics that sets standards in addition to law and regulation.
- The US Society of Professional Journalists approves and publishes a code that is much more grounded on moral and ethical principles.
4
Q
C: CONTEMPT OF COURT
A
- Protecting the right to a fair trail without prejudice (Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or experience) from media coverage.
- Have you created a risk of impeded (delaying or preventing) a fair trail, or breached court orders postponing or prohibiting publication?
- Contempt of court is a specific criminal offence in the UK with a maximum jail sentence of two years and an unlimited fine.
- Involves publishing in any way to a third party prejudicial information when criminal cases are active after an arrest, warrant for arrest, or opening of an inquest hearing.
- Can include harassment.
- Avoid using online media to comment on ongoing legal cases.
- Even if you are unaware of reporting restrictions you are still responsible.
5
Q
C (IS ALSO): CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR
A
- Criminal behaviour by committing crimes through conduct and research leading up to your online publication.
- Harassment, computer and phone interception, bribing.
- This is covered by two criminal offences in the UK.
- Bribery Act 2010 means paying sources for information with no public interest defence can be a crime.
- The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is to use somebody’s computer/phone without permission to get information.
6
Q
T: TESTING
A
- Testing your copy rigorously for any possible breach of media law and ethics before publication.
- Keep checking your work, if in doubt take it out or seek advice.
- Professional decision making in online journalism requires legal checking.
- Be professional.
- Risks can be unexpected.
- Act on instinct.
7
Q
A: ANONYMITY
A
- In the UK there are many classes of persons who have anonymity for life because of their involvement in criminal processes or legal proceedings.
- They are often victims or witnesses.
- All sexual offence complainants have anonymity for life.
- So do victims of trafficking (since 2016)
- victims of female genital mutilation (illegal in the UK).
- Blackmail victims (embarrassing circumstances)
- Children under 17 in court cases.
- Teachers accused of offences against their students prior to being charged.
- Media publishers need to carefully consider the risk of people who know the victims doing their own detective work.
- Pixilation, voice distortion and silhouetting is not enough, actors must be used.
- Avoid adding ANY specific detail which can identity the persons involved.
- CASE STUDY 1: DAVID DINSMORE had to pay £1,000 compensation and legal costs £1,500 for approving the pixilated (from Facebook) image of 15 year old victim of Adam Johnson (football player).
CASE STUDY 2: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH published a modified representation of the victim and was fined £80,000. It wasn’t proven that anyone had identified her, only four copies were sold in her area. - Parliament removed cap on fines and finance penalties convicted under the 1992 Sexual Offences Act at Magistrates Court.
- The English Legal system sometimes somersaults between identification and anonymity. Investigating authorities may release names and images to public interest to secure safety. Once this is done and an arrest if made all media must remove any identification.
8
Q
C: COPYRIGHT (intellectual property)
A
- Legal protection for the creation of work.
- You can’t steal other peoples intellectual property be it words, images or music.
- Always get permission
- Unless there is a defence of fair dealing through criticism, review, parody, quotation or use in reporting a current event (images/photos are excluded in current events).
- Only in a very rare public interest defence can a image be used if there is no other way to report it.
- You can use material from authors, sound recordings, director, screenplay author, composer of film production 70 years after death.
- 50 years after for a broadcast.
- Images and photos in public domain prior to July 1912 are safe from copyright.
- Computer programmes, coding and software are copyrighted.
- The Creative Commons license its a vital defence and enabling facility for the use of copyright images and multimedia in online publications.
- In the UK database owners are entitled to ‘database rights’ under an EU 1996 Database directive that was implemented in English law a year later.
9
Q
U: UNREASONABLE
A
- If your language is, then there is a risk you are ringing media law alarm bells.
- Communication on electronic networks (internet) make you libel under section 127 of the 2003 Communications Act.
- Criminal prosecution for messages that are ‘grossly offensive or of an incident, obscene or menacing character’.
- Up to 6 months of imprisonment and up to £5,000 fine.
- 2011 over 1,200 prosecuted. 2014 1,500 and 55 jailed.
- What you think is a strong opinion can be seen ass ‘grossly offensive’ by police, Crown Prosecution Service & Director of Public Prosecutions.
- Section 127 can be used for ‘message stalking’, if your messages to be proved are for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety to another.
- Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1998, makes it a criminal offence with the same penalties as above to ‘threaten’, message indecently, grossly offensively, or with false, or believed to be false information on the part of the sender.
- In 2013 the DP finalised guidelines on when it is not in the public interest to prosecute menacing messaging.
- ‘The grossly offensive’ category is expected to be reserved for racial/gendered orientation or hate crime abuse.
10
Q
L: LIBEL
A
- Attacking anyone’s reputation in a serious and inaccurate way can lead to litigation.
- Defamation: The action of damaging the good reputation of someone.
- Libel is anything said by image or words that causes serious harm to the reputation of anyone or a business/company by any form of media publication.
- Public bodies cannot sue for libel, but individuals in charge can who are subject to a libellous comment.
- The law is unclear whether trade-unions and non-public associations can sue on their own account.
- Correspondence (including messaging though any social media) beyond the traditional single mail correspondent can be libellous.
- The old rule was the letter seen by one person was not a libel publication unless opened by a butler or secretary.
- In England and Wales libel actions need to be brought within a year of publication (Scotland is three).
- Libel can be when a reader connects information to something said, it can be an implication or innuendo.
- Defence: your information and reporting is obtained from court or government proceedings (high privilege)
- Defence: Public meetings, press conference and press releases (lower privilege).
- Must report with fairness and accuracy and publish the gist of a person subject to defamation if the demand it.
- Defences: Innocent dissemination, truth in substance and fact, honest opinion based on true facts, publication in the public interest.
- You could have the defence of neutral reportage provided the language of the reporting is balanced and you are not shown to agree with the accusations.
- Web operator’s defence for user generated comments whether monitored or not.
- Defamation Act 2013 introduced a qualified privilege for academic conferences and papers that are peer-reviewed.
- Most reforms of the 2013 D act don’t apply in Scotland and non in Northern Ireland.
11
Q
A: ATTITUDE
A
- Keep it professional and cautious.
- You do not have to ‘self-censor’ and sacrifice your freedom of expression.
- You can write in an angry way but your anger needs to be channelled through truthful and lawful writing that is in the public interest.
12
Q
R: RIGHTS
A
- Other people’s, which under the Human Rights Act 1998 are protected in so many ways.
- Article 10 Freedom of Expression as a right is equally balanced with Article 8 right to privacy and Article 6 right to a fair trail.
- At its extreme digital, online communications could threaten somebody’s right to life under Article 2 and right not to be subject to inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3.
