Court reporting in the online age – how soon is now?

As every trained journalist knows, you can report whatever you like from a court case as long as it is “fair, accurate and contemporaneous“.

It doesn’t even matter if what is said is false – absolute privilege is a complete bar to any nasty letters from Carter Ruck or any other libel lawyers. 

To have that privilege your report must be published at the “earliest opportunity” -  while the trial is happening, or just after, not three weeks later.

The media law bible McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists says: “For all practical purposes this means publication in the first issue of the paper following the hearing, or while the hearing in proceeding.

It continues: “An evening paper might begin reporting a case in its early editions, continue to add to its report as later editions appear, and perhaps conclude it the following day.”

But in a 24/7 media age, what is contemporaneous? Increasingly, newspapers feel the need to file to only one deadline: now, online.

In fairness to MacNae’s expert editors, this is from the 18th edition published in 2005 and the newer book is better with online matters and the forthcoming edition even better. But the advice it gives on being contemporaneous is from another age: hardly any evening papers publish more than one edition, and most of them are essentially morning papers now anyway, printed over night to save money and time.

So surely “at the earliest opportunity” is now. It’s as soon as the reporter has gathered his or her thoughts, deciphered the notebook scribblings, wrote the story and emailed it or phoned it in to the newsdesk.

Judges are not the most web-savvy people (see here), so for time being the next day’s edition will be enough. But how long before the senior judges and the Ministry of Justice wake up to the fact that the whole issue of “earliest opportunity” has changed?

The Society of Editors is already warning that the Contempt of Court laws need to be shaken up to cope with multi-media realities. So how long before the powers that be take court reporting law into the 21st century?

Thanks to Alison at the Liverpool Daily Post for kicking off the debate on Twitter today. She asked whether newspapers whould break exclusive court reports online, to which I ask another question: why not?

Dealing with research students – should you give an answer?

One of the more bizarre aspects of being a reporter on a national magazine is getting requests from research students asking for help with their degrees. With the ever-growing amount of journalism MAs being studied these days, Press Gazette reporters are often asked if they can contribute to some thesis on ‘why newspapers are dying’ or ‘the influence of celebrity culture on blah blah’.

Whenever possible I try to help. Even the badly-worded, mass-emailed questions get a response, if only to send out a message that if students want a good answer, they should ask good questions.

To demonstrate the dilemma we often find ourselves in – whether to help, whether to ignore – this is what an MA student from City University, asked me via email:

Sent: 06 August 2008 16:28
To: Patrick Smith

Subject: question for my dissertation

Dear Patrick Smith,

I am an Italian journalism student in London. I am writing my final dissertation on the Treaty of Lisbon, and I would like to ask you a couple of questions about it. I really hope you can find five minutes to give me a short reply, I would really need an expert’s point of view about this.

1) Do you think that the issue of the Treaty of Lisbon (and what it represents for the UK) has been covered well in the British press?

2) Do you think there were any biases (in favour or against) in the way some newspapers have reported it, and in general, in the way they report EU-related issues?

I really hope you can reply. If you prefer, I could contact you by phone. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and your time.
Best Regards,

So far, so vague. As my followers on Twitter will know, I didn’t really get the point of this. It was committing one of the major sins in asking for expert opinion: (apart from asking someone who isn’t really an expert) it’s asking the interviewee to write the whole thesis. So I wrote:

I’d like to help but your questions are far too vague. Both questions 1 and 2 really require a lot of research to fully answer and I don’t have the time. How do you define “covered well?” What do you mean by “British press”? Do you mean national papers, regional papers or both?
The press’s coverage of Europe is a fairly complex area and certainly one worth investigating – but you will get more of an answer with more targeted questions. If there’s anything specific I can help with please get back in touch.

Regards,
Patrick Smith

I thought that would be the end of it. But no, within the hour our man wrote back:

—–Original Message—–
Sent: 07 August 2008 16:37
To: Patrick Smith
Subject: RE: question for my dissertation

Dear Patrick,
I am sorry that I was not clear enough with my questions. I will try to re-write them and be more specific.
1) When I say “covered well”, I mean: when British newspapers covered the Treaty of Lisbon, were they covering it properly in terms of knowledge and insight of the issues (highlighting what would have changed, what would have not, what was happening day after day in Brussels and so on)? Or were they (at least some of them, mainly the tabloids) simply taking an anti-EU stance no matter what, and taking advantage of every possible occasion to criticise EU politicians and highlight that Britain had to stay “out of this”? (and if so, weren’t they forgetting the journalistic need to balance
sources, even if you do not agee with them?)
For example The Sun ran a campaign asking for a referendum, highlighting the fact that Gordon Brown had promised it. But they never highlighted that it was extremely difficult to ask people to give an overall opinion over a 400 and something pages long document, nor they allowed too many pro-EU commentators in their interviews.

2) when I say, “British press”, I mainly talk about the NATIONAL newspapers, and in particular I wanted to ask you if you noticed any difference between tabloids and broadsheets in terms of coverage. The impression that I had was a very negative journalistic performance in some tabloids (which were simply shouting NO to the EU), whereas there was more insight and attention in the case of national broadsheets (although with some differences, for example the Telegraph sounded more anti-EU than the others, and the Guardian seemed timid when it came to take a clear stance).
What impression did you have (just in general terms, I am not looking for a very deep insight)?

Hope I have clarified a little more what I meant. Thanks in advance for your help.

Fair enough, he came back with better questions. But, I was quite annoyed with his inherent liberal bias in his questions – i.e. anyone that opposed Lisbon is a bad journalist. This is a common theme in many students’ questions and as someone who covers the full spectrum of British papers, it often unnerves me. So I replied:

—–Original Message—–
From: Patrick Smith
Sent: 07 August 2008 18:23
Subject: RE: question for my dissertation

Well done for getting back to me so fast. My answer:
1. It’s impossible to say whether they were covering it properly – it’s an entirely subjective question, and it depends what you mean by properly.
The Sun took an anti-EU stance and its editorial content was of course influenced by the paper’s proprietor, its editor and probably the majority of its audience – all of which are traditionally Euro-sceptic.
Personally, I have no problem with a newspaper taking a line on an issue and writing stories based on that. Left-wing people only dislike The Sun’s propagandising because they don’t agree with it. You could hardly accuse great left-wing journalists like Robert Fisk or John Pilger of being particularly impartial in some of their most famous work – which is what makes it so powerful.
On the question of balance – journalists have to be fair and accurate: they have to report the world as it is, report people saying what they say. But the combination of news and opinion is as old as journalism itself. It is the job of newspapers to “criticise politicians” or at least hold them to account.
The Independent campaigned strongly in favour of the treaty and ran several front pages (one lifted from an EU Commission press release) urging readers to support it, but they are not mentioned in this debate of EU bias.
And, to be fair to The Sun, their reporters write news and opinion in clearly labelled boxes in the paper, so readers know which is which.

2. I’m afraid I don’t understand this. You seem to equate good journalism with supporting the treaty, which doesn’t make any sense. And if you read The Guardian’s leader column it came out in favour of the Treaty I seem to remember. Just because they don’t splash their views on their front pages doesn’t meant the broadsheets don’t have an opinion on the issue.

I hope that can be of some help. I might also suggest that you ask even more specific questions, you are still being quite vague. Surely the issue is WHY is Murdoch so anti-Europe? Why is he so pro-China? Could it be that he has business interests in China to protect and promote?

Regards,
Patrick Smith

————-

Flat Earth News revisited

In need of inspiration, I am re-reading Flat Earth News by Nick Davies.

It was a big story for Press Gazette – we serialised it and hosted a debate at London College of Communications (Private Eye was less than impressed incidentally – as were one or two people who turned up.

It was a top reporter, probably one of the leading investigative journalists of his generation, setting his sights on his friends and colleagues mercilessly. (And if proof were needed of Davies’ credentials as a writer check out this mighty piece on the anti-globalisation demonstrations in Genoa in 2001).

Not just that, it was a Guardian reporter – albeit on a freelance retainer – serving up justice to The Observer, Guardian News & Media’s Sunday paper. We were, to say the least, quite eager to read the book.

As were our readers. PG became a sort of sounding-board for people to air their praise and criticism of the book: Press Association editor Jonathan Grun wrote an angry letter as did David Leppard of the Sunday Times Insight team and two Observer executives.

But looking back at the coverage of the book, I can’t help feeling that a lot of people missed the point.

The book’s essential argument is that control of the flow of information in public life is now controlled by PR firms and goverment departments, something none of the reviews I read managed to disprove or even deny. Davies argued that 80 per cent of stories in his five studied newspapers during one week contained PR or wire copy or both.

The diary of the local newspaper reporter who spends all his time in the office re-writing wire stories and even recycling nibs from other papers, is very sad to read.

You can’t blame the papers for defending themselves, but I wondered whether anyone would say, “OK, fair cop, we do rely on PR/PA a bit too much”. But it never happened.

My own criticism – which I put to Davies when the book came out - is that his statistical analysis only deals with what he calls “respectable papers”: Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Times. He says that “nobody needs a book” to tell them tabloids are full of lies, whereas I find that a bit elitist.

But it’s an inspiring book, a call to ask more questions and reject what you are told. I even tried my humble hand at exposing PR mistruth myself, albeit on a much smaller scale.

And what effect – I wonder – does PR have on the blogosphere? In an age of publicity-hungry clients paying richly for their Google rankings and even paying bloggers to blog, does Flat Earth News spill over into the online realm?

Why aren’t PRs using Twitter?

Arguably the most important social media tool around is Twitter. For journalists – the ones that “get it” at least – it has meant a new network of contacts, shared information and friends. 

News is increasingly broken by ordinary people with iPhone Twitter apps or normal office workers sat at their desks updating Twitter by web or Gtalk and not by dashing reporters in long macs, or even agency reporters in far-flung bureaux. It is the canary in the news coal mine.

So it’s great and everybody loves it.

But where are the PRs? As Michael Cooper (@michaelcooper) rightly said a while back, “If newsdesks had Twitter at their disposal, the relationship between hacks and flacks could change dramatically”.

He says: “From instant updates like ‘Don’t bother me. I’m on deadline!’ through to ‘Looking for urgent case study about….’ journalists should be using Twitter as a tool to interact with PRs. If newsdesks are evolving into 24-hour bodies, maybe it’s time for their journalists to move away from resources like ResponseSource to a more immediate communication tool.”

Indeed. But more and more, on some national papers and forward-thinking regionals, journalists are getting it big time. Trinity Mirror seem to be leading the way in both Liverpool and Birmingham where journalists use Twitter to connect with people locally as well as to break and aggregate news. But are PR officers seizing the opportunity?

Though I know people who have, I’ve never been approached by a PR on Twitter and I would quite happily discuss story that way. Or what about sending press releases or statements out that? Downing Street does. Even the Mars Lander does.

And for PRs it could be a good career move - Todd at PR-Squared says he has hired people because they handled themselves well on Twitter.

So if you want me to write about your newspaper/website/magazine follow me and let’s start talking. And if you are in public relations and already a prolific Tweeter, get in touch and prove me wrong.

UPDATE 07-08-08 – A Twitter friend tweets to say that tech PR people are ‘all over it, unsurprisingly’. That would make sense, it’s just not something I’ve seen myself.

Just another drop in the digital ocean

This is the first post of a blog about the news media, new technology and how journalism is changing.

I’ve been meaning to set this up for many years but have held fire until now. Why another blog about news?  I thought. Is there anything left to say on the supposed death of newspapers and why ‘mainstream’ media execs just ‘don’t get it’, whatever ‘it’ actually is?

Well, you can think that or you can think that if you don’t have your own say you get marginalised and ignored.

As a reporter at Press Gazette I’ve seen up close all the interesting things that are happening to reporters’ daily lives and how UK newspapers are becoming simultaneously less important to the man on the Clapham omnibus but increasingly very important to readers around the world.

So this is another drop in the ocean, but… why not?