A worse contempt of court

Last week I blogged about contempt of court and how the principle of it was being ignored by the main daily newspapers in this country in terms of allowing comments on active cases.

A couple of people, including David Banks, the editor of McNae's Essential Law for Journalists, agreed that it was technically a breach of the Contempt of Court Act. However, they added that in practice no prosecution was likely from the Attorney General as the allegation against John Terry was a summary offence which would not be tried by jury.

I agree however, my main point remains that, at a time in which the press is under huge scrutiny, it is advisable to adhere to all laws and, perhaps more relevant here, the spirit of the law.

So here's the thing today.

Four of nine of the main English nationals are allowing comments containing references to Harry's Redknapp's appearance today at Southwark Crown Court in relation to charges of tax evasion.

I spotted it first on the Independent so thought I would check out all. My methodology was to check any stories on today's websites containing references to Redknapp's appearance in court. Some sites had specific stories, some mentioned it in reports of yesterday's match between Spurs and Man City, and some gave no mention at all.

In journalism we like to have goodies and baddies so let me break it down:

Goodies:

* Daily Mail - no comments allowed

* Daily Telegraph - no comments allowed

* The Sun - no story on the tax evasion (surely the fact that Harry's a Sun columnist can have nothing to do with this?)

* The Guardian - no comments allowed

* The Daily Star - no comments allowed

Baddies:

* Daily Mirror - comments allowed, no pre-moderation

* The Times (no link - paywall) - no comments on the main story about the court case but comments allowed on the Balotelli story, which contains a reference to today's court case. Some comments casting doubt on Redknapp's character, despite the fact they are, in theory, pre-moderated

* The Express - comments allowed, no pre-moderation

* The Independent - comments allowed, no pre-moderation and several clear breaches of the CCA.

Let's be clear that this is no summary offence. This is an indictable offence which will be heard before a jury a body of 12 good men (and women) the Attorney General is always keen to protect.

My point from last week doesn't just stand. It stands proud, gleaming smugly in the sunshine.

If newspapers cannot be trusted to get the basics right - how can editors argue long and hard against statutory regulation?

UPDATE: The Daily Mirror removed the comment facility by 11.45am on 23.01.12

UPDATE: The Independent removed all comments referring Redknapp's court appearance by 1.16pm on 23.01.12

Journalism, comments and contempt of court

So this is a time when journalism is under massive scrutiny.

The Leveson Inquiry is looking in-depth onto every nook and cranny of the industry and threatening to drag out all of the skeletons and then slap the handcuffs of draconian statutory regulation on us all because a minority of hacks erm, well, they hacked.

So why is it that the some titles cannot follow the basic principles of the law correctly?

Yesterday The Sun ran a story on the on-pitch battle between Anton Ferdinand and John Terry. You may recall that on February 1, Terry is due in court to face an allegation that he racially abused Ferdinand during a game between Chelsea and QPR last year.

The story is perfectly acceptable and written with the boundaries of the law as it stands. However, for 12 hours The Sun allowed people to comment on the story.

Some of those comments, as you might expect of modern day 'passionate' fans, were pretty fruity and several stepped so far over the line to be in clear breach of the Contempt of Court Act 1981.

That Act is intended to allow suspects a fair trail and ensure that juries are not swayed in any way by anything said outside of the court room. All journalists know that to print anything which might suggest the guilt of the accused is a clear breach.

You will have to take my word for it that three comments breach that Act is a very blatant way. I have the screen grabs but do not intend to add to The Sun's indiscretion.

About 12 hours after the story was posted, and after at least 21 comments had been left, The Sun realised their mistake and took the story down.

But today, The Independent, has done the same.

Fortunately, at the time of writing this blog no prejudicial comments have been let but it is easy to do so. I signed in to Disqus with a Google account and left the comment to the left.

My comment is not prejudicial in the slighted, containing only words 'My real time comment'. It was left purely to satisfy myself that no pre-publication moderation of comments was happening at The Independent and sure enough my comment was published immediately.

I did a check round and here's what I found:

* Guardian - no comments allowed

* The Times - comments allowed but they are pre-moderated (no link behind the Paywall) - my real time comment was published but I was unwilling to attempt to post a prejudicial comment so cannot guarantee a result either way.

* The Telegraph - comments allowed - my real time comment was published immediately

* The Mirror - comments allowed and I didn't need to do a test as the top comment was such a clear breach of the 1981 Act it clearly had not been moderated (screen grab taken)

* The Star - no comments allowed

* Daily Mail - comments allowed - but were going through pre-moderation

* Express - no comments allowed

If four out of nine mainstream newspapers are unable even to adhere to a basic law governing journalism - what chance do we have of avoiding statutory regulation?

I know that one of the most exciting aspects of online journalism is the interaction with the readers but you cannot publish and be damned - there is no Reynolds Defence in Contempt.

UPDATE: Following queries from readers about whether the Contempt of Court Act 1981 applies in a magistrate's court and for a summary offence (ie that not before a jury), I sought a definitive answer from the Attorney General's office and was given the following reply:

"The Contempt of Court Act applies to any court and applies from arrest."

So that settles that. That's not to say that the Mirror will be prosecuted but it certainly confirms that it could be if someone were to formally report the breach.

Daily Mail and rape footage

I have a history with the Daily Mail.

For starters, I worked there in the 1990s despite being a left-leaning person keen on supporting human rights. Then last year I wrote a blog post about how poor the standards were becoming at the Mail.

The Daily Mail is a favourite of the Twitterati - its right-wing politics and tub-thumping, link-baiting journalism is guaranteed to get us liberal social media types uptight and sniping.

Even when they recently claimed personal and professional success in the conviction of two men for the murder of Stephen Lawrence they failed to win even a flicker of support from their traditional enemies.

To sum up it's a hate-hate relationship.

Today they have stooped so low that makes me feel physically sick to my stomach. And it's a strong stomach I might add.

Today they carried a report of an alleged rape on Big Brother in Brazil.

No problem there - of course they should report on that. After all, the programme is still huge news around the world and a crime has been alleged.

But the Daily Mail was not content in telling its readers about the allegation, it also deemed it necessary to show them what had taken place in a seven-minute video taken from YouTube.

No I won't link to it because in doing so I would republish this mindless, unethical, immoral 'journalism' and I have no intention of doing that.

No doubt the defence will be that the material is already out there on YouTube so why not? Well, the answer is simple: we are gatekeepers of information. We edit and employ logic and ethics to decisions about what and when to publish - that's why experienced people in our trade (or profession if you prefer but you'd be wrong) get more money and the top jobs if they want them.

Snuff movies have been available from dodgy market stalls for years, hard core porn has been available on the top shelves of newsagents or adult shops for decades yet no newspaper editor has felt the need to republish their content.

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. And in this case that fact is so blindingly obvious to anyone with a brain I can't believe I am even having to write this.

Simply appalling.

UPDATE: The video had been removed from the story by the evening of January 17.

UPDATE: Angry Mob has also blogged to highlight the weirdly spinning moral compass of the Daily Mail

Am I poisoning the minds of the young?

I had an interesting Twitter exchange with former senior journalist at the News of the World, Jules Stenson, at the weekend.

To be fair, I started it when I tweeted the following:

If you were starting to feel sorry for tabloid journos, listen to ex NOTW hack Jules Stenson on Media Show Pod. What a turd #journalism

Stenson took great exception to this and replied. I have to say I am impressed by his dedication to Twitter – he does not follow me, my tweet was not retweeted and I didn’t tag him directly. One can only assume he regularly searches Twitter – and perhaps the internet at large – to see what people are writing and saying about him.

His reply:

@MBradbrook Your students must be proud to have such an articulate man as a lecturer.

First off I have to say. It’s a fair cop. I was not at my most eloquent when I described Stenson as a ‘turd’ – but then, in my defence, neither was I at my most inaccurate.

I should add that I don’t personally know him so perhaps I should amend my description to ‘professional turd’, because for all I know he might be lovely to kittens and a perfect delight in his home life.

What was it about his interview that irked me so? Well, it was his lack of honesty. By that I don’t mean that he outright lied but, like many tabloid journalists, he failed to tell the whole truth.

Two examples:

1) Hugh Grant was a legitimate target for press intrusion because he supported greater regulation of the press.

2) Steve Coogan was a legitimate target for press intrusion as he gave Piers Morgan a ‘laddish interview’ in which he talked about his private life.

What is the dishonesty here? Well how about:

1) Hugh Grant has had his private life ‘investigated’ by the tabloids for far longer than he has supported press regulation. It’s not a chicken and egg situation here people – he has been a topic of fascination for 15 years plus.

2) Likewise, Coogan has also been on the receiving end so often before the interview with Piers Morgan that it renders Stenson’s argument disingenuous in the extreme.

To be honest I was a little embarrassed at being caught descending to the level of name-calling but replied to Stenson as follows:

@julesstenson sometimes it's just best to tell it as it is. There are worse crimes in #journalism than a lack of articulation

He was on no mood to debate journalistic crimes however and went on the offensive:

@MBradbrook Staggered they let you teach journalism.

Presuming ‘they’ to be the University of Gloucestershire (my employer) it seems an incredible statement to make on the basis of a 140 character tweet. But then again, doesn’t that just sum up the issues with tabloid journalism? No research, no analysis just a snap judgement.

But no problem , I thought. I’m better than this so I invited Stenson to debate the issue at the University of Gloucestershire – I’m sure that while he was here he could probably even find a couple of students willing to describe me ‘a turd’ just to add balance.

But no. Debate was not high on Stenson’s agenda:

@MBradbrook You just carry on filling young minds at the University of Gloucs with poison and feel very proud of yourself.

Poison! Many of my students will be willing to testify that I fill their minds with boredom but poison seems a bit strong. Perhaps he thinks that Grant, Coogan and myself are to form a lunatic fringe of the Leveson Inquiry and start firebombing the temples of St Rupert?

Not a bad idea. Perhaps then we’ll get the journalism we deserve rather than the patronising, celebrity-filled, dishonest tat that gets served up right now.

What’s Stenson up to now? Well he’s tweeting about Christopher Jefferies of course. He’s tweeting about the most undeserving victim of press intrusion and monstering in history.



What a nice man.

Mind you. I am smiling because I have written the name Stenson so often now that all I can think of is Fenton, the deer-herding labrador.

Ethical Journalism

I have spent a large part of the last four weeks welcoming trainee journalists to both the profession (or should that be trade? One for a another day perhaps) and to the University of Gloucestershire.

In one on my first lectures I always point to the Ethics Handbook for Journalists produced by the Thomson Reuter Foundation and the list of 10 Ethical Absolutes that handbook contains.

1. Always hold accuracy sacrosanct

2. Always correct an error openly

3. Always strive for balance and freedom from bias

4. Always reveal a conflict of interest to a manager/senior editor

5. Always respect privileged information

6. Always protect their sources from the authorities

7. Always guard against putting their opinion in a story or editorialising

8. Never fabricate or plagiarise

9. Never alter a still of moving image beyond the requirements of normal image enhancement

10. Never pay a source for a story and never accept a bribe

Of course, with the Leveson inquiry under way, this is highly topical. So lets throw the question out there: Of these 10 absolutes, how many are adhered to on a daily basis by the mass media in the UK?

* Update: You have to read this view of Dacre's evidence by News Thump.