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.

A journalist's smoking gun

A comment piece byPhilip Johnson in The Telegraph caught my eye today.

OK, first of all I am aware it is a comment piece and therefore made up of opinion. However, there is a lot of material being given as fact which I take issue with.

In a nutshell, Mr Johnson said that a trendy nightclub in London (Tramp - although I am not au fait with it)is installing an area for smokers to "help stem the loss of business caused by the ban on smoking in public places".

He described the ban as draconian and directly blamed it for the closure of pubs, citing a statistic that there are 6,000 fewer pubs than in 2005.

But it's a poorly researched and presented piece of journalism. For a start, it is guilty of the assumption that opinion does not need to be based in well researched fact.

If we assume (and yes I can hear my students chant about what happens when we assume), that the stat is correct, it seems stark and persuasive. But how many trendy new chain restaurants have opened?

It put me in mind of a former assistant editor I worked with. She was a committed smoker and was convinced that the smoking ban would destroy the pub industry so insisted that our regional newspaper carry stories to that effect.

We found seven city centre pubs that were closing. "Ah ha", said she. "Proof positive."

The fact that further research showed that three pubs had opened in the last six months as well as a host of chain restaurants in a new city centre development, could not deter her from wielding her sword of truth to highlight the undemocratic and economically unviable ban.

The smoking ban has been an emotive subject for people from both sides. I smoked when it came in and maintain that without it I would not have been able to give up.

I love taking my kids to smoke free pubs and restaurants and I am pleased that we do not face the ridiculous situation proposed by The Telegraph's Mr Johnson in which we would have smoking pubs and non-smoking pubs giving choice.

Not really a choice for the staff though is it and if you're in a group of friends who smoke then you either need new friends or can suffer the effects of second-hand smoke.

Are we really to believe that the type of people who previously enjoyed all that Tramp has to offer now sit at home and watch Casualty on a Saturday night because they can still enjoy the odd Woodbine inside?

Many of the regulars in my village pub said they would not drink in the pub when the ban came in and gloomily predicted the closure of Appleton's hostelry, The Plough. But really what were hey going to do? Turn their back on their social lives and site at home alone contented in a fug created by 20 Superkings?

In fact the pub has gone from strength to strength. "Proof positive that the ban works", say I. But you know what, I am not going down that route. Since the ban came in the pub has a new landlord and landlady and they serve food and provide entertainment, which has far more to do with it.

And that's my point. Look past the dangerous, knee-jerk assumptions and dig deeper or, as a journalist you are not even doing half your job - even if you're 'only doing comment'.

WC 2010 and the media

Well, it's all over for another four years and once again ends in failure. This failure is a little bit special though as we have been tonked by the Germans - our footballing nemesis - rather than surrendering on penalties in the quarters or semis like the plucky top eight team we usually are.

Funny to see the media's reaction in this country and it really has highlighted how poorly served this country is by the sports media at large. We get platitudes and cliches and half-baked guesswork from nearly all quarters as the media lurches from patriotic supporter to uber-critic in the space of a few hours.

Desperation for a scoop is behind some of it. A genuine exclusive is almost impossible to come by during a world cup campaign as the pack is in full attendance and the players are flanked by press officers at all times.

As a result, any kind of controversy is blown up and eagerly seized upon by the rest of media. Anyone reading about John Terry's press conference would have presumed he had suggested chasing Capello back to Italy armed with pitchforks. Anyone watching it would have actually seen a senior and experienced player talking about his disappointment at being so rubbish and how he and other players were going to discuss it frankly with the manager.

It was clear that things were not peaches and cream but neither were they worth the kind of blanket coverage they received. Of course the public is interested but can that kind of coverage be said to be in the public interest?

The second aspect I am unhappy with is the way that an answer to a question is frequently used out of context.

Take today's article in the Telegraph which explains why the team is such a worthless and pampered bunch of overpaid prima donas.

Alright so that is a slight exaggeration but it outlines many of the gripes from the players. One is attributed to Wayne Rooney who "alluded to boredom when he said he did not like being asked to go to bed in the afternoons".

But did he? Or was he asked if he liked going to bed in the afternoons and replied in the negative - an honest and obvious answer to a dull question. How many young men do like being asked to go to bed (alone) in the middle of the afternoon? But now that the campaign has spluttered into failure, the answer has been woven into an article proving that Rooney is not a player struggling for form and fitness butking of the whingers.

Then there was Alan Shearer on the BBC's coverage who snorted with derision at Fabio Capello's assertion that the long Premier League season had left his top players exhausted.

The former England striker said: "He can't claim that now because before the tournament he said that the team were in tip-top condition. Also the Germans played more games than us."

Fortunately it wasn't just British journalists/presenters/experts involved and the Netherlands' Clarence Seedorf stepped in with some common sense. He pointed out that no manager would say his players were knackered before the tournament as it would give opponents a psychological advantage.

He also pointed out that the Germans may have played a couple more games but their season is aided by a winter break which allows them significant recuperation. However, that common sense did not sneak into the English papers this morning which invariably repeated Shearer's claims.

My favourite of all the shoddy journalism also came in the Telegraph this morning when chief sports writer Kevin Garside insisted that Capello should repay all the money he had earned and leave now. That was either a comment of a man pandering to the blame mentality afflicting our society or of someone naive to the extreme.

I want to read detailed and accurate match reports, in-depth interviews conducted in a professional manner and investigative reporting when it comes to finances and structures. The rest of the celebrity-based, sensationalist clap-trap I can leave ta.

Not all sports journalists are bad though. For some proper in depth material check out the work of Matthew Sayed in The Times (if you want to venture past the paywall) or Ed Smith .