Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act was introduced in 2005 and is an important piece of legislation for journalists if utilised properly. This legislation allowed people to request documents and information held by public authorities.

• McNae’s gives some examples of public authorities covered by the act:
• ·         National, government departments and ministries
• ·         The House of Commons, The House of Lords, the national assemblies of Wales and Northern Ireland
• ·         The armed forces
• ·         Local government authorities
• ·         National park authorities
• ·         Universities, colleges and schools

This means that under the FOI act any member of the public can write to any of these agencies and request information. Under the act the agency must normally respond within 20 working days and must either supply the information requested or explain why it cannot be supplied. There are several restriction that mean that an organisation can refuse to release the information.

There is a cost limit which restricts the information that can be obtained without any charge. If it requests costs less than £450 then the department must provide the information without any charge. If the cost of obtaining the requested information exceeds this limit then the request can either be refused by the organisation, the organisation can charge the person that requested the information or they can still supply the information for free. These restrictions mean it is important to request information that is only necessary because otherwise you may not receive any information because of the price limits.

There are certain government organisations that can refuse requests due to several exemptions put in place when the act was created. Any information dealing with national security matters can be refused, e.g. MI5 and MI6. It makes sense for this information to not be available to the public because of its nature. If the information can be reasonably obtained by other means, for example it may be available on a website or in library archives then the request will be refused because it would be a waste of the agencies time and money. Court records cannot be obtained through the FOI act because a court is not a public authority and so is not covered under the act.

Personal information cannot be released under the act because it does no override data protection law. The authority can edit the text and change it so the person cannot be identified from the information that is given. It is also noted in McNae’s that in these cases it is important to take into account the difference between professional personal information and personal information. This could be the difference between getting information about someone’s job description or professional responsibilities and getting information about their sick days.

If the information was provided to the authority in confidence by the person who provided it then the authority has entered into a contract and therefore cannot release the information. Also any information which is forbidden to be released by another law cannot be released under the FOI act. The example of this given in McNae’s is any complaints against police which is covered under the provision of the Police Act.

There are several qualified exemptions in the Act that allow an organisation the right to deny a request. The organisation must first apply the public interest test before they can deny a request. If the request is denied because of one of the qualified exemptions then the person who requested the information can appeal to the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal. If the commissioner accepts the claim and demands the information be released then the organisation can appeal against this decision to the Information Tribunal, or if the request is again denied by the commissioner then the person can appeal to the Tribunal. These are the two stages of appeal after this, if the request is still refused then there is nothing more the person who requested the information can do. If the information has been accepted for release then cabinet minsters’ have a power of veto and can block the information being released.

Very recently WikiLeaks has released large amounts of information from the American embassy which people are claiming will damage national and world security but the website has been closed down by the US government, but the information has been leaked to several large newspapers around the world. Here is a link to the Guardian’s coverage of the material and the information they are releasing: Guardian wikileaks coverage A video of journalists discussing Wikilinks

Investigative Journalismgate

Chris describes journalism as selling the news. Investigative journalism is selling the news that they make. So rather than a journalist reporting from the courts or a press release they instead discover a story and find the information they need until they can publish a story, and more defend themselves against liable. Investigative Journalist’s investigate stories that are not on the news agenda, but rather choose their own.

Miscarriage of justice is the main off agenda story that an IJ will focus on. In the lecture Chris gave several examples of cases where journalist’ have discovered a miscarriage of justice and helped to resolve it, whether that’s getting someone released from prison, or put behind bars. 

Emile Zola is considered the father of IJ, and one of the greatest journalists of all time. In his famous letter called J’Accuse Zola claimed that a French artillery captain, Alfred Dreyfus, was wrongly accused of giving military information to the German’s which helped them win the Franco-Prussian war. Zola found many errors in the case and court proceedings and a lack of evidence, he was found guilty of libel after the letter was published in a French newspaper and had to flee to England. This article is considered one of the best pieces of IJ ever written and has had a big effect on modern day journalism. 

A modern example of a miscarriage of justice case is the “Who Bombed Birmingham?” story produced by World in Action. This was a television production focusing on six men who were arrested and falsely convicted of carrying out a bombing in Birmingham. After the program was aired and after several years of articles bringing to light the fabrication of evidence and suppression of evidence the men were released in 1991. They were released after their third appeal which shows that without the influence of the journalists who investigated the story these men could still be in prison today for something they did not do. 

Probably the most famous case of investigative journalism is the Watergate scandal which caused Richard Nixon to resign from the position of President of the United States, the first time this has ever happened. This shows how much power investigative journalists have if they follow the correct procedures and work within the law. This post on the Washington Post outlines the entire Watergate case http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate.

One important thing IJ have to remember is the evidence gap. In criminal cases the evidence must prove that the crime was committed by a person beyond reasonable doubt but in civil cases the evidence must only prove a balance of probability. This means it is much easier to prove someone is guilty in civil court than in criminal. The example of this given in the lecture was a story about a racist gang who murdered a teenager. They claimed they were innocent but refused to give alibies and the police did not have enough evidence for a conviction. But when the Mail accused them of the murder and defamed them they did not sue because the Mail had enough evidence that it was likely they would win the case through the balance of probability.

The Reynolds defence is also an important defence for the “serious and responsible investigative journalist, who works without malice” as Chris puts it. If the 10 steps of the Reynolds defence are followed by a journalist then they should be covered in court. 

The way an IJ gains their information is very important for the 10 point test and sources are the main way a story will emerge, for example without Deep Throat, as he was known, the Watergate story may never have been known and Nixon would most likely have continued with his corruption. The most important thing a journalist must do is protect a confidential source; this is a fundamental part of the journalist code of conduct. This can lead to problems for journalists including contempt of court if ordered to give the name of the source by a court. This has led to journalists being jailed in the past and this will probably happen again. 

Another method an IJ can gain information about a story in through subterfuge. This is the discreet recording of a person. For a journalist to be allowed to do this they must first gain permission from the head of ethics if at the BBC or Ofcom for other broadcasts. To be allowed to use the recordings as evidence you must have permission from the person you are recording, but without permission you can still quote it. 

Hopefully in a few years some of the people in this lecture, including me, will be using these laws to bring down corrupt governments and expose injustice, rather than reporting on a local church fete.

Copyright

Copyright is very important for anyone who produces any intellectual property and stops someone using your work and claiming it as their own. It is important to remember that copyright does not protect ideas, only physical work. For journalists it is important to remember who owns the copyright, if a piece of work was written by a freelance journalist then they own the copyright, and then if they sell the story to a news organisation they can retain the copyright. Whereas if a journalist works for a wage most of the time when they write a story or produce a broadcast the organisation that pays their wage will own the copyright for  that piece and can then sell it on and not have to give the creator any of the extra profits.  

Only certain work is protected by the laws of copyright and copyright can only protect an item for a certain length of time. “Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 copyright protects any literary, dramatic, artistic, or musical work, sound recordings, film, broadcast, or typographical arrangements” this is the definition of what copyright protects taken from Mcnae’s essential law for journalists. This restricts people from using any content that falls under there categories, which they did not make, unless they gain permission from the creator to use it. 

If someone uses content which is protected by copyright and they do not have permission from the creator then the owner can seek damages or prosecute the person who breached the copyright.  This can be a large fine; the maximum fine a magistrate can impose is £50,000. This is why it is important for journalists to know copyright laws so we don’t breach copyrights and get fined. 

There are several defences journalists have against claims of a breach in copyright; the main defence is fair dealing. Fair dealing means that a copyright can be breached if it is for the purpose of reporting current events, provided there is a fair acknowledgement of the author and provided the work has been made available to the public. Although this defence does not work with photographs, section 30 of the Copyright act excludes photographs from the defence of a fair dealing. This means that to use a picture you must get permission from the original photographer. 

If a copyrighted item is being reviewed or commented on thenthe reviewer is allowed to use pieces of the material to prove a point, as long as there is acknowledgement. This means that you can quote books, plays, films and broadcasts, which is why reviewers can use film clips in broadcasts without fear of infringement. The most important thing to remember with fair comment is that the work must be available to the public; this means that material that is not lawfully available to the public is still subject to copyright laws even if it could be viewed as fair dealing. This means that private letters and confidential material are always subject to copyright laws.

You cannot copyright the news; the facts in a news story are not subject to copyright claims. Any journalist can write a story about Liverpool beating Chelsea 2-0 yesterday, but they cannot take a quote from Steven Gerard about the match that was obtained by a journalist, because the copyright for that specific quote or interview belongs to the journalist or organisation. What a rival journalist can do is “lift” the quote and use it in their story. If they do this it must be clear in the story that the quote not exclusive to that journalist. This can be done by attributing the quote to a separate journalist or paper by saying “Steven Gerard told a newspaper or told reporters”.

Tabloids and the Mail

After reading Professor Peter Cole’s articles about newspapers in the UK I found out many things I didn’t know about newspapers, especially the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail has had the same owners for the past 100 years, which Cole attributes, partly, to its success because the paper has had the same underlying morals and ethics for such a long time its readers know exactly what to expect. 

Knowing your audience is an important for newspapers and Cole highlights the Mail’s knowledge of their target audience as another reason why is it the second most successful daily paper in the UK: “It comes down to confidence, the Mail's dominant quality. It knows it knows its audience. This is often described as "middle England" and predominantly it votes Conservative.”  The Mail knows exactly who their audience is, AB, C1, C2 and predominately women, and provides them with relevant news every day. 

Some people, including myself, don’t read the Mail because of its very Conservative viewpoint, for example in the news today the Mail featured a story about how children from divorced families are more likely to commit a crime. Whereas the Guardian’s headline today focused on Barak Obama’s recent speech and difficulties in the current elections, this just shows how the Mail is focused to suit its target audience who are more concerned with immigration and family values than world politics. This video is just a funny song about the types of sensationalised stories that can be found in the Daily Mail : The Daily Mail song. 

 

Obviously these are sensationalised versions of what is actually printed in the Daily Mail but are the type of stories which feature frequently on the cover. Cole summarises the viewpoint of the Mail quite nicely is his first article: “Those Mail views can be characterised thus: for Britain and against Europe; against welfare (and what it describes as welfare scroungers) and for standing on your own feet; more concerned with punishment than the causes of crime; against public ownership and for the private sector; against liberal values and for traditional values, particularly marriage and family life. It puts achievement above equality of opportunity and self-reliance above dependence.”

Cole comments on the skills it takes to be a tabloid journalist in his second articles one the Guardian’s website although they aren’t as trusted as broadsheet journalists because of certain incidents, for example the recent News of the World’s illegal phone tapping. Cole said that this is a shame because “Some of the best journalists work for tabloids and the techniques of tabloid journalism are the hardest to acquire.” The decline is sales of tabloids can be attributed to the “Big Brother news”, as Cole calls it, especially in the Star which has lost a vast majority of its readers. 

Even the Sun, the UK’s largest selling daily, has lost about 800,000 readers since 1987, Cole attributes this loss partly to the age of the Sun’s audience. As the readers have gotten older they have stopped reading the Sun and are likely to start reading a broadsheet or the Daily Mail once they reach 35. Cole said “the emphasis on sex and semi-explicit pictures makes them less likely to survive the settling down life stage” and that a father would not want to expose his children to the Star or Sun.

The history of online news services

With technological advancement in the 1990s and an increase in the number of people who have access to computers and the internet, the world was a changing place, and quite early on newspapers realised that there were advantages to providing online news services. 

The first online news site is believed to have been made by students at The University of Florida’s school of journalism in 1993. There was not an online news service from a major British newspaper until the Telegraph launched its website in 1994. At the time of the launch, the editor, Derek Biston, wrote: “Our brief was simple: explore this new medium; evaluate the usefulness of establishing the Telegraph as an online brand; learn about the technology and the commercial possibilities.” The Telegraph online was the only major online news service available for 3 years, until BBC online was launched in 1997. 

BBC online merged several smaller BBC websites and formed a single site which was immediately praised for its construction and content. Since its launch the website has become one of the largest online news resources and has won several awards including a Webby for Best News site. 

After the launch of the BBC’s website and the success of the Telegraph’s online news services the Guardian was the next of the major British newspapers to launch an online service. The Guardian Unlimited, launched in 1999, is a network of websites produced by The Guardian and provides users with access to all varieties of news; by 2001 it had 2.4 million unique users, making it the most popular newspaper site in the UK, at the time. 

During the early 2000s the RSS feed was created which provides a constantly updated list of the most recent and popular stories at the time. This meant that the news reached readers much faster than before and helped make the internet the quickest source of current news. 

The Daily Mail was the last of the major British papers to form a website, their service was launched in 2004 and tried to change the way viral media is used within the news. Their website utilised footage from camera phones and hand held video cameras making the news more current.

In the late 2000s technology once again changed the way newspapers manage their websites. With the advances in smartphones and wireless technology people can view news websites at any time. This has made the websites change how they present the news. The Telegraph has recently started producing an audio news feed which coincides with the latest news stories so people can listen to bulletins while travelling. 

Recently The Times has introduced a subscription service and it looks as though other newspapers will follow soon. The need for the newspapers to do this shows the popularity of online news services, and how it is influencing newspaper sales. Some people think that this shows newspapers are soon to be replaced by online news sites.