Journalism Soon (Journalism Now! Article on 'The Independent')

Launched in 1986, The Independent is a traditionally left wing newspaper aimed towards men of the ABC1 social bracket. From the statistics on the paper’s rate card, it could be suggested that the majority of readers are young professionals as the vast majority of readers fall into the ABC1C2 category and a large proportion are aged 15-34 years (source NRS July 2010-June 2011 statistics on NMA online rate card). This is reflected in the advertising seen throughout the paper, with advertisements for relatively expensive electronics (such as phones, computer games and iPod docks) and luxury cars often seen throughout, and particularly towards the front of, the paper which suggests that these sorts of items are of particular importance or great desire to the newspaper’s demographic.

Despite being one of the United Kingdom’s youngest daily newspapers, The Independent has gone through many stylistic changes, most obviously in its change from being a traditional broadsheet into a ‘compact’ version in 2003. In 2005, the layout of the paper was changed causing some of the sections to be merged and in 2008 it became full-colour. The newest changes, however, occurred on 2011; the change of font and colour of the masthead and dropping of its banner, describing the paper as “free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence”.

Some of these changes may be due to the values seen within the paper. Although it presents itself as a newspaper that is free of political bias, the ideas it expresses often agree with the Liberal Democrats’ policies and beliefs. For this reason, they may have felt it necessary to drop the banner that they once used on the front page. Others could be explained as ways of trying to attract a greater number of readers in its target audience; the introduction of the red masthead makes the paper more noticeable as the colour stands out more and the less formal-looking font, it could be argued, makes it look like it would be easier and more interesting to read. These aspects are appealing to the younger ABC1 demographic that The Independent target and compete with The Guardian to obtain.

Although The Independent is still marketed as a newspaper free of bias, it features a large pull out section of features and opinion. However, as columnists cover a spectrum of political stances, it could be argued that it still does not have a specific political bias and, in having this variety of columnists, allows readers to find articles that fit in with their own ideas and beliefs.

Whilst The Independent is seen as an unbiased paper, the content and changes in design suggest that it may, to some extent, have a slight political agenda but could, equally, be seen as a way of attracting a greater number of readers in a world in which its medium is struggling to be profitable.

Serious Law Business

Right, before my exam in less than 10 hours time, I want to just list some of the law things I know that might come up in the test so that the world knows that if I fail it's not because I haven't been paying attention but because 1) I suck at exams and 2) I probably got distracted by things... possibly mostly by trying to find the purple in my hair (seriously, you can barely tell it exists, haha). Particularly as I haven't done that many proper law blogs. If any. I should really cut back on the comment...

Media Law:

• The highest court in the UK is the Supreme Court and deals with appeals from Crown Court
• DPP stands for "Director of Public Prosecution" and they hire the prosecuting lawyers for criminal cases
• Crown courts: Hear/try indictable cases; Hear appeals for bail; Hear appeals against conviction/sentence from Magistrate's Court
• Magistrate's Court: Bail application; Committal & setting a trial date; Hear "either way"; summary justice
• You can state in the news that someone has been denied bail but not why as it may sway a jury's decision
• Criminal court - cases of crime against the state or society e.g. murder, fraud, drug dealing, etc
• Civil court - against individual/company e.g. divorce, libel, trimming someone else's hedge because it's spoiling your view, rent disputes
• Statute - law enacted in Parliament
• Common Law - precedent set by Judges
• Prejudice: to pre-judge someone; in court, being unable to get a fair hearing as the jury have been swayed in some way by something
• Contempt: compromising integrity of the case/court; a crime; stopping people from having a fair trial e.g. prejudicing a jury, going against a Judge
• A case becomes active when "it's likely there will be a trial" so when charged/arrested/some point between the two
• Once someone's arrested, you can report: their identity (making sure you've got positive identification); things like they "look nervous" (NOT that they "look guilty"); anything that won't prejudice a jury
• Things you can report about a case once it's active: Identity (though not in sexual offence cases in case of jigsaw identification of victim); charge; whether they have or haven't been granted bail; how they pleaded
• An "either way" offence is one where you can either chose summery justice or a trial in Crown Court
• To have qualified privilege, your report must be Fast, Accurate and Fair/have Balance (FAF or FAB, depending on what you prefer)
• To libel someone, you must have: publication, identification (must be positive to stop other randomers from being libelled too), defamation
• Defamation: lower someone's respectability/alter their representation/remove their fame; to expose them to hatred, contempt or ridicule or damage their profession or cause them to be shunned or avoided
• Defences for defamation: Common Law Qualified Privilege; It being true (requires evidence); "Fair" comment (honest opinion, based on fact, in public interest)
• Accidental Libel (or very bad luck libel, if you want a technically more accurate name) - when you have positively identified someone and someone else also, coincidentally, is also identified in spite of this (i.e. shares the same unusual name, age, occupation and lives in the same place as someone else)
• Picture/Juxtaposition libel - when an unrelated picture/story is next to another, making it look related and therefore libellous (i.e. having a picture of Kate Middleton next to a story with the headline "Axe Murderer Found" makes it look like she's the axe murderer); solved on TV by using a presenter and in newspapers by putting different stories in separate boxes
• According to Reynolds' 10 point test, stories must: be serious, have a good and reliable source, be investigated thoroughly, be new, be urgent, be put to accused so that allegations can be denied, include "the jist" of the defence, be written factually, not be sensationalised, be written and published as quickly (yet accurately) as physically possible
• You have Qualified Privilege on things said: In Court; In Parliament; in Local Government meetings (subject to refutation, i.e. so long as there's lots of balance in the same story); Public meetings/gatherings (common law, subject to refutation), UN meetings and foreign courts with which Britain has diplomatic relations (common law, subject to refutation)
• Copy right protects intellectual property (everything you physically write/make/create) until these rights are traded in some way
• Fair dealing is "lifting" a picture or section of text which you use and give credit to such as a link to a blog or the name of the artist/photographer - sometimes are given conditions such as you cannot alter it or claim it as your own in anyway even if you do alter it, etc
• Material on the internet is not automatically free of copy right, but can be sourced on there if you look in the "creative commons" parts of sites such as Flickr
• In confidentiality, privacy is protected by Section 8 of the Human Rights Act which entitles everyone to the right to a "normal family life"; State Secrets are protected by the Official Secrets Act; Commercial Secrets are protected by Common Law
• You breech confidence if you disclose information that: has the necessary quality of confidence and was provided in circumstances imposing an obligation and was not permitted to be passed on and is likely to cause detriment (with evidence that this will happen)
• Gagging clauses - contractually stop you from revealing information, even if it is true.
• Need permission for things such as photographs for celebrities (explicit consent) unless they are "engaged in a clear public duty" or allow you to photograph them by acknowledging the camera and not stopping you (implicit consent)
• Ofcom provide the Codes of Conduct for broadcast journalism and is an official Government body
• PCC Editors' Code of Practice deals with print and although it can't issue fines etc, unlike Ofcom, it will mark you as a bad journalist and make you essentially unemployable
• Impartiality is to not show your own opinion/a bias - this does not apply to political stance in Newspapers as if you do not agree with their values, you can buy a different one where as broadcast must be fair and balanced as you have no/less choice
• Equal amount of time must be given to each political party on television, proportional to their seats/votes (I can't remember which) in the last election
• During an election, there is a danger that you may be biased towards a particular party by broadcasting/writing too much/little about one of them (apparently they use actual stop watches on TV to time how much exposure each party receives in broadcasts)

Right, as I now have less than 9 hours until the test, I'm going to go to bed and, hopefully, dream of law and philosophy so that I can revise even in my unconscious state.

Until next time, Good night (and good luck if you're also doing this exam with me!)

Hospital Fire in Winchester

Fire fighters in Winchester are still tackling hospital blaze that began at four o’clock today.

Affected buildings at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital were evacuated safely after a fire began in the MRI building. Despite rumours, the blaze was not started by a gas leak but is thought to have been caused by a faulty MRI machine.

Many emergency vehicles were called to the scene and are continuing to work into the night despite having gotten the fire “under control” over five hours ago.

Roads surrounding there area are still closed but many of the buildings in the area, including some of the housing on the Main Campus here at the University of Winchester, that were evacuated have been allowed to return.

I managed to get a few photos of the fire at about seven o’clock this evening; you can see the smoke coming out of the buildings and still could as I left at just gone ten.

Taken near the West Down Students Village, looking down towards many of the main hospital buildings; many of these emergency service vehicles were still there when I left.

As seen from the car park by the MRI building, where you can still see smoke coming from the direction of the A&E. (I had to sneak in to get this – I went up some stairs but there was a security guard on the main entrance who started walking over to me as I left)

This is all true to the best of knowledge and nosy reporter skills at 22:10, i.e. the last time I walked past the hospital. You can also find more info (and a much more interesting photo) here: http://hpwinchester.blogspot.com/2011/12/fire-at-winchester-hospital.html or here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-16119106 and read all the tweets from my live twitter updates here: http://twitter.com/HazGotNews4You