Media law and ethics » bbc

The BBC and ‘tragedies of the fourth estate’

jtownend — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:28:39 +0000

There’s an excellent piece by Paul Lashmar, investigative journalist and lecturer at Brunel University, on openDemocracy this week, examining the role of – and implications for – investigative journalism in the recent ‘BBC debacle’. I was particularly interested in the section dealing with the editorial decision not to run Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile and the notion of “anticipatory compliance“:

What was going on in Peter Rippon’s mind? By that point he must have been aware of the potential embarrassment for the BBC if Newsnight accused the late Savile of being a paedophile just as the BBC entertainment launched a hagiographic “Savile Christmas” of tributes. Was it anticipatory compliance where Rippon intuited what he thought his bosses would want? One insider says they think Rippon picked up on a passing comment by head of News, Helen Boaden, saw it as straw in the wind and decided to kill the investigation. We may never know the answer to this question. The Newsnight editor did not help himself with his blog which inaccurately recorded that the story was about the police investigation into Savile, not the actual Savile allegations. He looked like a man distancing himself from his own decision. One of the lessons to come out of this sorry affair is that the considered nature of investigative journalism and off the cuff casualness of social media are poor bedfellows.

Full piece on openDemocracy’s ourBeeb site…

Mark Thompson, the legal letter, and the Savile investigation

jtownend — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:09:59 +0000

Stewart Purvis, professor of television journalism at City University London (formerly of ITN and Ofcom) has been carefully tracking the detail around ex-BBC director-general Mark Thompson’s legal interaction with the Sunday Times, following the newspaper’s questions about the BBC’s handling and knowledge of the Jimmy Savile allegations. Purvis’ blog post – and Thompson’s subsequent reaction – has since been picked up by the New York Times, where Thompson recently began work as the company’s CEO.

Background

Purvis’ first post on the topic [14 Nov] detailed a Sunday Times’ story by Miles Goslett* (£), which didn’t appear to have been followed up elsewhere by the media. It described how lawyers acting for Mark Thompson and Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, had responded to questions posed by the Sunday Times in August – they denied allegations about the handling of the Newsnight item and threatened legal action if they were printed. Purvis emphasised the significance of this story (the timings) in his post. Thompson’s reply to Purvis’ post was published here. Purvis has since summarised the resulting coverage here and here.

The Sunday Times’ latest story by Goslett, ‘Former DG feels heat over lawyers’ letter’ (£), reports:

Thompson … has told the Pollard inquiry he was not emailed a copy of the [legal] letter and does not recall being shown it.

Curiously, this fascinating story has received little interest beyond Purvis’ blog, the pages of the Sunday Times and US-based publications…

Purvis has remarked on this too and suggests that the fact that the Times’ story was behind a paywall might be significant.

However, that wouldn’t explain the continued lack of interest, now Purvis and US publications have made the details open-access…

It’s a “potentially explosive” story says the Telegraph’s Tom Chivers, but in his view, the New York Times’ could jazz up its headline a little: “‘Letter Raises Questions’? Seriously? That’s how you want to lead this? That’s your best shot?”

Further reading

New York Magazine: ‘Mark Thompson Had No Idea What Was in That Letter From Mark Thompson’
Poynter: ‘New CEO Mark Thompson ends first week with memo to New York Times staff’
New York Times: Mark Thompson
The Times: ‘‘Mark Thompson’s own paper raises doubts’ (£)

*Goslett was the journalist who first (unsuccessfully) tried to interest Fleet Street in the Newsnight/Savile story, before placing it in the Oldie in February 2012. The newspapers’ reluctance to run it is a topic for another blog post…

Law and Media Round Up – 12 November 2012

jtownend — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:05:32 +0000

Since writing this, there have already been new developments in the unfolding crisis at the BBC following its Newsnight programme on child abuse. But this is the media law week that was, rounded up here:

Law and Media Round Up – 12 November 2012 « Inforrm’s Blog.

Law and Media Round Up; new Court of Appeal judgment on libel damages

jtownend — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:34:43 +0000

This week’s round up, previously posted on the Inforrm blog, features Frankie Boyle’s successful libel case, the BBC fallout out following further allegations about Jimmy Savile and media regulation debated in the House of Lords.

Additionally, since the round up was published:

There has been an update to the Table of Media Law Cases. The Court of Appeal has given judgment in two separate cases relating to the amount of libel damages awarded in each.
In Cairns v Modi [2012] EWCA Civ 1382 the Court dismissed an appeal by the defendant against the amount of damages he was to pay the claimant.
In KC v MGN Ltd (included in same judgment – the hearings were conjoined), the Court allowed the appeal by MGN and reduced the amount of damages they were to pay from £75,000 to £50,000. The media summary can be found here [PDF].

Lord Justice Leveson’s report is now expected to be published in late November 2012.

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Open Justice Week: Scottish court refuses permission to tweet; English High Court allows media access to phone hacking court documents

jtownend — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00:12 +0000

A quick update on recent open justice themed developments.

The Open Justice UK group has been refused permission to live tweet a case in Scotland, as Cristiana Theodoli (@_cric) explains here. While journalists have applied to tweet and tweeting was allowed during sentencing in the Tommy Sheridan trial last year, not one journalist has gained authorisation to live tweet a full trial, according to Theodoli (specific permission is required for journalists, unlike England & Wales).

Open Justice UK liaised with the Scottish court ahead of the selected trial but:

“Today, just a day or two before the trial is due to start, we received a short email stating that the Judge has a number of concerns that he feels should be taken up at a senior level and the timescale would not allow for it.”

Meanwhile, at a High Court (Chancery division) hearing in London last Thursday (23 February) the Guardian secured access to court documents relating to News International and Glenn Mulcaire.

In an approved judgment released on Monday (27 February), Mr Justice Vos set out the reasons he has allowed the Guardian (“and any other media organisations that request them”) to access redacted documents, including the “generic Particulars of Claim”, “the Notice to Admit” and the “Response”, mentioned at the phone hacking pre-trial review on 19 January 2012. No parties objected to the Guardian’s request to access a fourth document, the “generic list of issues”.

I’ve flagged up a few key parts below.

Mr Mulcaire’s counsel were concerned

“…that reporting of some parts of the 3 documents will create a substantial risk that the course of justice in the further criminal proceedings that Mr Mulcaire may face will be seriously impeded or prejudiced.” [3]

Vos J found:

“There is a distinct and crucial public interest in scrutinising the decision-making process in this case, and in knowing the facts on which the decisions are being made.” [80]

He said:

“it seems to me to be entirely legitimate for GNM and other media organisations to wish to see unredacted copies of the core documents on the basis of which these proceedings have been and are being conducted.” [81]

…

“First, so far as can be judged today, reporting of the parts of the 3 documents that Mr Mulcaire wishes to see redacted would not, with the one exception already mentioned, give rise to a ‘not insubstantial’ risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in Mr Mulcaire’s future trial (if there is one)”… [82]

He concluded that GNM should be provided with unredacted copies of the three documents, save for several stipulated redactions detailed in par 87 (reasons discussed in the judgment).

The judgment discusses the application of the CPR Part 5.4C(2) and the “Open justice availability of documents to non-parties” (CPR Part 5.4C.10).

You can read the judgment in full, below:

View this document on Scribd

HT: @adamwagner1 for alerting me to the published judgment.

Media law mop up: Privacy debate; Hari interviews; and BBC regulation

jtownend — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 07:58:52 +0000

Fewer big libel and privacy stories to report this week, but Twitterers have been particularly lively on the media ethics front, primarily in relation to Independent columnist Johann Hari’s admission of his interview ‘etiquette’ and the subsequent fallout. Meanwhile, a committee in the House of Lords has suggested that BBC complaints should be appealable to Ofcom (As it stands, complaints relating to the corporation’s accuracy and impartiality can only be heard by the BBC Trust).

Jon Slattery provided a guest post to Meeja Law about the ill-effect of (necessary) balanced court reporting for the families of murder victims. Index on Censorship’s privacy debate on Tuesday evening (June 28) – featuring Max Mosley – drew the crowds; I reported it for Index, Inforrm and the PA Media Lawyer.

Libel

Privacy

Freedom of information

Index on Censorship>> Talking a good game over Freedom of Information

Data Protection

Out-Law.com>>EU customer cloud data could be accessed by US terrorism investigators, Microsoft says

Media regulation

Out-Law.com>>Complaints about BBC accuracy and impartiality should be appealable to Ofcom, say Lords

Media standards

Phone hacking

Contempt

Court reporting

International press freedom

Link of the week

Global Voices’ Threatened Voices project: “A collaborative mapping project to build a database of bloggers who have been threatened, arrested or killed for speaking out online and to draw attention to the campaigns to free them”.

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