Today's media law lecture began with some of the lighter stories from the world of news, including a 3 year girl who eats bricks – well I say bricks, but the newspaper that reported this story was The Sun, so who knows whether she actually eats bricks or just brick dust, as Chris was eluding to.
Public Interest
Whether this story is really in the ‘public interest’ is an interesting question and talking of public interest... if the information in a legal case is deemed to be in the public interest, then it is valuable to society, for example it is in the public interest to tell people about a criminal or a politician, however judges have alerted journalists to the fact that ‘kiss and tell’ stories do not apply to being in the public interest, even though a lot of people are interested by them.
I have noticed that in recent years, some people are more interested in these types of stories than ones that actually tell us something important; take Amy Winehouse’s death and the deaths of 80 something young people who were shot dead on the island of Utoeya as an example. As reports of the terrible events in Norway were appearing, TV and radio stations in the UK, (not naming any names), were keeping us up to date regularly. However, towards the middle of the same afternoon, reports of another story were flooding in – the death of Amy Winehouse. Almost as soon as it was confirmed that she was dead, the very same TV and radio stations focused on this and not the tragic events in Norway, these events seemed to be brushed under the carpet until we all got bored of hearing 10 second clips of ‘Rehab’ and then they were rightfully back on the airwaves.
The point I am trying to make here is that people have become so engrossed in what their favourite ‘celebrities’ are doing, they seem to forget about the important events unfolding here in the UK and across the world. However as usual, the public gets what the public wants, (as quoted by Paul Weller of course) this will continue until people stop this silly obsession with famous people and stories of young people being shot dead by a madman will be dominated by stories about the death of a drunkard. A clear example of this was on Facebook, a lot of people I knew had put their status as something to do with Amy Winehouse and not the Norwegian shootings; sadly this just shows the way that some people’s brains seem to work nowadays.
Back to media law: there are two types of law: criminal and civil. Criminal law deals with offences against the sovereign e.g. murder or assault. Civil law deals with disputes between two individuals or two parties e.g. divorce or land ownership and it is ONLY county or civil courts that deal with these disputes, because these disputes are not offences against society (unless there is violence involved). Higher courts e.g. The Old Bailey and other high courts (including the one in Winchester) deal with criminal law.
But what IS a crime? A crime is basically any act that is in breach of a statute or a code. - So does this mean that Tony Blair and Hitler were murderers? Hmmmm....
Another interesting point that I thought of whilst reading the book and during the lecture was freedom of expression. The question that I was asking myself was “Do we really have freedom of expression?” and I believe that the answer is yes AND no – not like me at all then!
On the one hand, you and I can physically say whatever the heck we like, about anyone or anything and at any time. Article 10 of the Human Rights Act supports this: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority”. (McNae’s 20th Edition).
However, Article 8 of the Human Rights Act protects people’s privacy; it is also the basis for mounting a legal case against a journo for them saying something about you that you feel is incorrect – or if you just feel like making some extra cash!!! These two rights must be balanced, for example in the ‘Re S’ (a child) case, where it was judged that any anonymity (using Article 8) granted would too greatly harm the public interest.
Standards of truth and proof...
Journalists (like me - apparentley) must be sceptical about what they read in newspapers e.g. the brick girl.
The police must believe 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the person that they are about to charge did the crime, the Police must have one or more of these 3 things to be able to charge someone: a confession, forensic evidence and an eye witness. Believing that someone commmited a crime 'beyond reasonable doubt' also applies to the jury in court e.g. the film 12 Angry Men.
To be honest, I think I’ve said enough about the first lecture, so I’ll leave you to do something else now…
TB 2011
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