I have been really neglecting my reader and I apologise for that. The reason you have not seen a new blog post in a while was my life being take over by The Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner election. That is now over, so I can get back to business with the backlog of blogging I have to about various subjects in media law.
Week 4 and we were reintroduced the Ian Anderson who would begin his series of lectures with us. This week we focused on something that is very important to a journalist and that is regulation and the codes of conduct that we have to abide to.
Journalism is seen as the fourth estate as our influence is there, but no recognised in society. But, who is there to guard to the guardians???
Regulatory bodies are there to oversee and scrutinise both broadcast and print journalism bodies to ensure that they are working within the boundaries of the law and to punish anyone who breaks those rules and regulations.
The Leveson enquiry in press standards has been a prime example of rogue journalism. The findings are due to be announced this Thursday into how journalists can reports and will bring into account the ethics of journalism, which has been severely damaged, due to the press hacking scandal brought upon by News International publications The Sun and The News of the World, amongst others.
As journalists across all aspects of media (broadcast, print and online journalism), we must before doing anything, whilst doing a story and when thinking of the next story is recognising risk at every oppertunity. Even if we have a deadline that is due in 4 hours, we need to ensure that the story product is accurate, fair and has no legal or moral implications.
There are four codes of conduct that regulate journalists and they are:
PCC (Press Complaints Commission): the body that deal with newspapers publications and magazines.
OFCOM: Deal with all forms of television and radio.
BBC Trust: The body that oversee BBC staff and license payers
NUJ (National Union of Journalists): The body run by journalists and for journalists.
Codes of conduct matter as they bring into account the ethical practice and ensure that even knows we are journalists and we should know what to do in our jobs, we remain ethical whilst doing this. What are the punishments if we decide to break these rules and we get caught?? Well apart from having your career and reputation tarnished, it breaks trust people the broadcaster/newspaper and the people because the majority of stories in journalism are about people doing things. If we break the trust with the people who read or watch our publications, then problems soon follow.
As, well as ethical practice, there are other 3 other rules we need to follow as journalists and they are:
* Fair treatment-respect for privacy
* Requirement for accuracy and impartiality
* Protecting vulnerable groups E.G. children and the elderly
But, as long as we as journalists are fast, accurate and fair, then we will should save ourselves from risk and have a hopefully painless journey as journalists, away from court and contempt.
However, if a newspaper decides to becoming rogue and produce a story outside of the ethical guidelines, then they are likely to fall under scrutiny from the Press Complaints Commission. The PCC are responsible for print journalism and will act if a member of the public complaints about a story published in a newspaper. But, the PCC does not have much authority to regulate a newspaper and cannot pass any sanctions or fines. Another constraint is that it is self regulated and there is chance that bias may be shown by former journalists. Therefore, this is one of the key reasons that the Leveson Enquiry has come into force to try and put some enforcement back into newspapers and on Thursday we will find out what sort of changes will be recommended.
OFCOM however have much more authority than the PCC, they have the power and they have the control to keep broadcasters under control. They have the right to hand out massive fines to broadcasters who break the rules. A key example of this is the BBC who in 2008 was in the middle of a fiasco involving Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross and Manuel off Fawlty Towers, sorry Andrew Sachs. The incident involved a obscene prank phone call to the actor's home and a infamous statement involving Mr Sach's granddaughter.
Unfortunately this stunt caused both Brand and Ross to eventually lose their jobs at the BBC and OFCOM gave the BBC a fine of £150,000. OFCOM have the right to take up to 5% of a broadcasters revenue and in the case of the BBC or Sky that could run into millions of pounds. Any correction or findings that OFCOM regulate must be broadcasted. In the most extreme case OFCOM have the right to shut a broadcaster down permanently.
The BBC editorial guidelines are determined and monitored by the BBC Trust. The trust set their own guidelines as they have their own high expectations of their employess and there is a strict code they must abide to. However, these guidelines have been abused recently with the Jimmy Saville scandal and the Newnight investigation into both Saville and the child abuse scandal in Wales, which wrongly accused Lord Mcalpine of being the suspect involved. This resulted in the BBC paying Lord McAlpine £185,000 in damages and with two enquiries into the programme ongoing, the future of Newsnight remain bleak as the basic journalistic practice has been taken into questions as even the basic of rules were bot followed E.G. Checking sources
For broadcasters in particular they have to remain impartial, but this is not the case for newspapers. Broadcasters must show no bias or preconception and must consider everything that they decide to broadcast will have the opinion of someone and may cause debate across society. This has been something that the BBC have not followed over the last few weeks and this has led to the scandals and problems, which led to the resignation of former BBC Director General, George Entwistle who resigned after 55 days in the job. These scandals have taken into account the reputation of the BBC who is funded by the taxpayer.
Finally we come to the NUJ (National Union of Journalists). The NUJ is a code of conduct created by journalists, for journalists to follow and until recently a lot of newspapers required their journalists to be a member of the NUJ if they wanted to work for them. The NUJ is not as concerned about privacy and defamation, but is more focused on protection of the sources we use to find out stories. Journalists are seen as The Fourth Estate, therefore we must protect our sources at any cost, even if this means that we got to prison because we must remain impartial to our journalistic routes and must ensure that we never jeopardise the industry and bring it into disrepute.
As a journalist we will always make some mistakes and it is best to admit to your own mistakes straight away as it is likely there could be a way to fix the problem you have made, instead of hiding it and make the possibility it 100 times worse and possibly risking your own career in the process.
The consequences for broadcasters may become a lot stricter after Lord Leveson's finding are released on Thursday as it may change the editorial code of every news broadcaster and how journalists find stories and use sources may become very different. The press scandal has mainly been the work of print newspapers, but after the problems caused by the BBC, it may become rule that journalists learn the basic rules, before applying their trade into practice.
Journalism has gone through a dramatic change over the last year and with another major change impending, the way that journalism is regulated and controlled may change to the point where how we approach a story and ethical practice will become law as we remain impartial and ensure that we recognise risk at every turn.
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