Can contempt of court survive the internet?

The mob mentality threatens journalistic integrity.

(Image courtesy of google images)

Last week media forums, social networking sites and blogs were filled with posts by angry individuals wanting to know why the identity of Baby P's mother and her boyfriend could not be shared with society. Following this, there were postings naming and shaming the adults involved in this horrific case of child abuse.

In general, the Great British public are not aware of the legal ramifications of these actions. As far as they are concerned the mother of Baby P and her boyfriend should have no right to protection by the media and to the majority of society, the publication of their identity is acceptable and even desirable.

Shane Richmond, Community Editor at Telegraph.co.uk is familiar with the problem of moderating online content. In a lecture discussing online communities last week he talked of how difficult it was to keep an eye on the flow of information being put on My Telegraph each day.

He said part of the problem stems from the fact Telegraph readers do not see themselves as bloggers. They use the forum as a way of talking to other Telegraph readers, people who have similar interests and viewpoints. It is likely then, these bloggers do not realise what they are publishing may have considerably graver implications than a conversation with a friend.

In the UK contempt of court laws are in place to prevent jury members from becoming prejudiced towards a defendant prior to or during a trial. Professor Duncan Bloy says, "in the criminal justice system the assumption is that the jury is the weakest link." This is particularly true in high profile cases which have received a lot of media coverage.

For this reason, the media is bound by the Contempt of Court Act (1981) to act responsibly in terms of what it publishes, especially in the run up to a trial. A well known example of a newspaper failing to adhere to such legal prescriptions occurred during the 2001 trial of Leeds’ footballers Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate. This infringement of the law led to a retrial and the Sunday Mirror was found guilty of contempt of court.

Back to Baby P. What the British public do not realise is that the last thing the media want to do is protect the perpetrators of such a heinous crime.

Journalists are obliged under law to adhere to reporting restrictions. If they do not, legal action can be taken against them or, more likely, their publication. By keeping in line with the judges's order not to identify Baby P, his mother and her boyfriend, journalists are attempting to maintain the legal framework to ensure that any further trials, which may yet take place, are not abandoned due to contempt of court.

The main worry is over whether the contempt of court laws can survive the internet age and if so how? But what is clear is the provisions are out of place in an era where people have instantaneous access to information and the means to distribute it worldwide. Earlier this week a woman was thrown off a jury for putting a poll on facebook including the details of the case she was sitting on and asking for advice on how she should act.

As Judith Townend points out, members of the public are uneducated about the laws and ethics of journalism and have no editorial controls to stop them publishing. Meanwhile, the professionals are restricted, and rightly so, by a code of conduct and the rule of law.

How will we reconcile this dichotomy; journalistic values of authority, autonomy and lack of bias against community values of transparency and honesty? If we can't then journalists may be faced with the reality of a conversation continuing without them.

One thing is for sure: the status quo cannot remain.

Paul Dacre's Daring Speech

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I have just been reading a copy of Paul Dacre's speech from the Society of Editors conference online. The link was tweeted to me by one of my esteemed class mates lucky enough to hear it in person, ah the wonders of modern technology. So, following what Adam Tinworth said in our online lecture last week, I am going to blog about it and blog quickly, because tomorrow it won't be news any more.

Whatever one thinks of the man personally, or about the paper he works for, it has to be said that many of the issues he covered and the way he covered them resonated with me:

• "Today I worry that too many journalists write only for other journalists"

Despite the continually repeated adage of "know your reader," have journalists become too insular and therefore isolated? Dacre says there are many columnists out there who have lost touch with who they are writing for. He says journalism is now populated by "a privileged elite of university graduates," who do not know how, or perhaps do not want to know how, to connect with their reader.

This would seem to concur with what Peter Preston said in our Reporters and Reported lecture on Friday. He told us the national newspapers were now threatened by a proliferation of inexperienced journalists, who are way out their depth because they simply by-pass working for regionals. With regional newspapers in decline it has made it all the more tempting to leap frog that stepping-stone job. And what is the result? Out-of-touch and over-cocky young reporters who are lacking a crucial lesson in how to communicate with the public.

• "...today, newspapers...think long and hard before contesting actions, even if they know they are in the right, for fear of the ruinous financial implications."

Here Dacre is talking about an issue presented to Gordon Brown, with the aim of demonstrating the threat posed to freedom of speech if newspapers in Britain start to censor themselves for fear of going bust.

The Conditional Fee Arrangement (CFA) known to us law novices as "no win, no fee," was originally passed by government in order to allow the less affluent in society fair access to the courts. In recent times, however, there has been a feeling that some lawyers and their firms are exploiting the arrangement to bleed newspapers close to dry.

Basically, if a newspaper (or indeed any publisher) is taken to court for libel and they decide to contest the charge, under CFA they will be liable to pay the extortionate fees of the prosecution lawyers if they lose. If, on the other hand, the newspaper wins the case, it can still often lose money since claimants may have After The Event insurance which protects them if they cannot afford to pay legal costs.

According to Dacre, all this legal clap trap is leading newspapers to settle out of court rather than face lengthy and financially devastating law suits. From here then, it is not too much of a leap to consider editors choosing to leave a scoop out altogether to avoid potential claims against them. This leaves us with quite the dent in the freedom of speech aspirations our country is supposed to endorse. Luckily, it would seem the government is planning to take action. We shall keep our fingers crossed.

• "The real enemy, if you like, is within...why is the British newspaper industry so full of self-loathing?"

I found this to be the most interesting point made by Dacre. In a world where we are fighting our way through a perfect storm with one hand, we steadily undermine ourselves with a "drip, drip, drip of self denigration" in the other. What does Dacre mean by this? Essentially, he is referring to certain portions of the British press who make it their main-stay to look on other publications with disdain and to lament as a whole the state of British media.

In this sense, Dacre is worried there may be an element of self-prophesy. By writing, sneeringly, about the dumbing down of Britain and its newspapers, are certain journalists making matters worse?

I have no quick answer for this one. But the almost iconic status held by the Guardian among my journalism peers does worry me slightly. Not that I think it's a bad paper, far from it. It's more that I fear the narrow-mindedness of the next generation of journalists, carrying it as a banner of their integrity and intelligence...or could that read pretension?

29/11/2008

Here's a sample of Dacre's speech I found on you-tube. This was the most covered aspect of his speech in the national press:

How do you compare being a journalist to becoming president of the US?

Does what it says on the tin.

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'Newspaper circulation continues to decline rapidly,' When I read headlines like this one my first reaction is to smile smugly to myself, safe in the knowledge that I chose the right journalism option to study at Cardiff University. But then I read on. Alas, it's not only in the land of the dailies people are losing their jobs and reporters are being spread as thinly as a dieter's low fat spread on their 31 calorie crispbread.

Furthermore, it's not just the lowly juniors losing their jobs: the fat cats, well established in their roles, are also being thrown overboard as sales figures plummet and even the grandest of ships rock to and fro in the stormy seas of the magazine market.

So now I've set you up with a suitably dramatic and gloomy picture, how shall I turn this around? Because if I can't, I might as well give up now and high-tail it back to Scotland where I can settle down with the local Laird and in ten years time look back and laugh at my days trying to pursue a career in journalism.

But some how that's not really me, so here goes:

For one thing, if you are the type to turn and run at the first hint of a challenge I would hazard that you are not cut out for journalism. How many times as a journalist are you going to have to push that extra little bit to get the information you want? In such instances you wouldn't think to yourself, "Oh Damn I didn't get the quote or angle I was looking for, never mind I'll just go back to the office for a cup of tea and a slice of Battenburg," would you?

Two years ago if Barack Obama had decided the presidential race was too much of a struggle and thrown in the towel, then today we wouldn't have the joy of celebrating the demise of the neo-conservatives in America after eight years in office.

But now he has been voted as the next Commander in Chief, Obama should expect challenges which are arguably bigger than those faced by previous men holding the reins. This Times article provides a great summary of the changing role of America in international relations and the reality of the situation Obama is now confronted with. In another medium, this cartoon from tabtoons@telus.net illustrates the enormity of what President Bush is passing on to the Democrats.

Again, Obama is unlikely to look at this challenge, think "sod this for a game of soldiers" and run back to Illinois with his tail between his legs.

Similarly then, when faced with a competitive job market, you would be foolish to see the glass as half empty when you could see it as half full. It may be a daunting time to become a journalist but I find that to be part of the draw. To an extent, all journalists are egoists; we like what we write and we like others to read it and like it as well.

In some ways then, the current clime may be even better for massaging those egos. At least if you get a job you know you must be pretty damn good. Which leads me to my final point: what should we do to stop ourselves from trembling at the knees in the face of all the doom and gloom prophesising about the world of journalism? Be pretty damn good. Embrace change and change with it and I fail to see how you can be left behind.