Law Revision

In this blog I will give the key themes in all of our sessions so far. This should be helpful for revision on our law test for the 1st December.

Court Reporting

The main difference between them is whether they are criminal or civil. The diagram to the left is the hierarchy of the courts and how they correspond to each other.

Criminal courts deal with cases of murder, theft, fraud etc and this where the cases are bought to be heard in front of the state, the DPP. (Director of Public Prosecutions) Since 2008 Keir Stammer QC has been the DPP of England and Wales.

Civil law covers divorces and consumer, agricultural and employment laws, etc. The Court of Appeal where criminal and civil law converge.

The courts are different between England and Wales (being one system) and Scotland. Scotland have a lot of different laws. They are able to vote on most of our laws but England and Wales have no say on any of their laws which makes it very one sided and also does not help England and Wales vey much. The only court that covers England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland is the Supreme Court which is at the very top of the chain.

Prejudice and Contempt of Court

Being prejudice means, writing an article that may not be in the defendants favour and giving the readers an opinion. They have to have a fair trial and and being prejudice in an article is when anything mentioned contaminates the trial or the defendant.

Contempt of court is what happens when you actually are prejudice in your article. Contempt of court can allow a person to go free from the crime they may have committed as they will not be given a free trial. The person who wrote and published the article could then face jail themselves.

When a case becomes ACTIVE legally, is as soon as an arrest has been made. As soon as this happens you can be in contempt of court. You can also be in contempt of court if any of the following have been done. When the police make an arrest, when an arrest warrant has been issued, a summons has been issued by a magistrate and of course, when the person has been charged with the crime.

Before the trial begins you may report on any of the following seven points.

* Names, ages, addresses and occupation of the defendant,

* Charges faced or a close summary,

* Name of the court and Magistrates names,

* Names of the solicitors or barristers present,

* Any arrangement of bail,

* Date and place to where the case is adjourned, and,

* Whether any legal aid was operated.

However, if the trial has anything to do with anyone under the age of 18 they are given anonimity. This means that by no reason are they to be found out. They have to have complete anonimity and this may then mean that there are some points that you can not report on. Anonimity is only ever taken away if they voluntarily talk to the press themselves and most of the time accompany it with a picture.

The key stages of the trial are:

* The prosecution opening,

* Key prosecution witnesses,

* Defence opening,

* Key defence witnesses,

* Judges summing up,

* Jury sent out, deliberation and the verdict,

* The sentencing.
If you attend the prosecution opening you must then attend the defence opening. Whether you decide to report on it or not, you must attend both.

A Magistrate is a civil officer who lays out the law. They administer sentences and only deal with criminal law. Civil cases will not make it up this far in the chain of the courts.

The categories of offence are, indictable only, which is a possible sentence of five years plus. Either-way can go to Crown or Magistrates court. Summary, stays with the Magistrates court. The powers of the Magistrates are 6 months jail, fines up to £5000, suspended sentences, conditional charge, community orders or ASBO's.

A community order is where the defendant is forced to serve their punishment in the community. They are not sent to prison but if they do not meet their conditions they may then go to jail and be punished there.

A conditional discharge is when the defendant is not punished but they have to comply with some conditions. If these conditions are met the discharge will become absolute where the defendant can walk free. Even if they have been proven guilty they may not be punished if they meet their conditions.

A suspended sentence is when the defendant would have been given their sentencing but when the Magistrate suspends it they are on probation. On this probationary period if they do not break the law the Magistrate will throw out the sentence.

Libel and Defamation

You can commit libel if you do any of the following:

1. Defamation

2. Identification

3. Publication Defamation is when you write an article that defames someone or a company.

Defaming someone means you have damaged their reputation. To be accused of defaming someone it has to be proven. You can also be accused of defamation through slander.

Identification, this is when a particular person is named. This can be an accidental problem through jigsaw identification. This is when you tell the story with all the facts but you explain enough that the reader can understand who it is. Jigsaw identification can be done accidentally so when writing a script telling facts about the defendant you have to be careful you don't explain too much.

Publication is when the article/programme is viewed by more than one person. When published on the Internet each load of the page is another publication.For each of these ways of defamation there are ways in which to defend yourself against it. You only need one of these defences but the more you have the more covered you are.

Justification is when what you have said is true and you can prove it. You need to be able to prove this though. This is one reason you should always keep all your rushes and notes. Especially if your notes are in short hand. This makes your evidence more believable.

Comment is your second defence against defamation. This is when it is the writers opinion. This has to be shown as definite opinion however. Many newspapers have a header at the top of the page saying comment or opinion. Sometimes guest editors also fall in to this category, especially in magazines where they get many celebrities to write a page of opinion on other celebrities, styles, fashion etc. Qualified privilege is when what you have written has been said in court. If you are going to report something defamatory and plan on using qualified privilege as your defence you must report fast, accurately and fair. The offended person does not have to show that they have been harmed but do have to show that they have suffered.

Common Law Qualified Privilege is a form of the above but it does not have to be said in court. This can be used is the following conditions have been met. The public need to hear about it, this is something that you do not need to prove. It has to be without any malice at all. The article itself and EVERYTHING you have ever written before. You should never write with malice anyway but if you have any article with malice in, you can not use common law qualified privilege. Again, everything must be fast, accurate and fair; and, for good measure there must be reasonable suspicion.

Malice and Qualified Privilege

Malice can expressed or implied. Either way is bad for journalism. No article you write should ever have malice in it. Unless you write comment pieces you should never have your own opinion in your articles anyway. When implying malice you are again, putting your own opinion in the piece which should not be done. To have common law qualified privilege you must show no malice and have no malice in any piece you have ever written/produced.

The Reynolds Defence

This is a list put together by Lord Nicholls that journalists must adhere to if they want to use the defence when publishing defamatory material. Bearing in mind that the piece in question is of public interest and is responsible journalism.

This defence came about when the Sunday Times was sued by Albert Reynolds; the former head of the Irish government. He sued because he believed that the story had deliberately and dishonestly misled the country's parliament.

In the defence of the Sunday Times they said that they were keeping within article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that in public interest in political issues and the conduct of elected politicians should be protected by qualified privilege.

The Sunday Times lost but the following defence was put together to allow future publications to publish defamatory articles in the name of public interest.

1. The allegation must be true and the seriousness of the allegation.
2. The extent to which the information is a matter of public concern.
3. The source of the information. No one with previous anger against the accused or are being paid for the story.
4. All the steps that you've taken to verify the information. This must be recorded information.
5. The status of the information. If it is all ready subject to an investigation this must be respected.
6. The urgency of the matter. Can not be old news.
7. Approach the claimant for comment.
8. Whether the article contained the gist of the claimants side of the story.
9. The tone of the article. The newspaper can raise queries and investigations.
10. The circumstances of the publication, including timing.

This has been criticised as being too narrow by judges in the House of Lords.

Copyright

Copyright covers everything from music to film, from the performers to pictures and everything in-between. Copyright covers the object or person as soon as it is published. Showing a film you have made to a friend is not subject to copyright but once you have published it to the internet or put it on to a DVD for viewing this is then copyrighted. A DVD is subject to copyright for 50 years after it has been published and a book is out of copyright 70 years after the author dies.

Fair Dealing

This is when you are allowed to use a small amount of footage from a film, music video, game etc for free. As long as you credit the company and the person you are allowed to use this. Just make sure it is only a few seconds and no longer. A great example of fair dealing is in Ewan and Grahams game piece where they are reviewing games and have a small amount of footage from the games in the review.

Confidentiality and Privacy

Privacy is linked to Articles eight and ten of the Human Rights Convention. Article eight is that everyone has the right to a private lifer and Article ten is freedom of speech.Confidentiality is linked to the Official Secrets Act 1989. It is a criminal offence to disclose official information without lawful persmission.The PCC's definition of Public Interest includes, but is not confined to the following:* Detecting or exposing crime of serious impropriety.

* Protecting public health and safety.

* Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation. This is the defence we will rely on most.With confidentiality you are allowed to keep secrets as long as they are not against the publics interest. A doctor, employee, lawyer etc can commit a breach of confidence if they discuss a secret with a third person. This is third party breach of confidence, when you are told a secret that was between two people. It is fine to publish this secret but you have to talk to the person the secret is about and inform them of the fact that you are going to publish it. If you do not inform them before it is published they will be able to sue you. A secret is only confidential when all the following points have been ticked. If any one of them are missing it is not confidential.

* The quality of the confidence, this can not be a rumour.

* If the secret was provided in circumstances imposing obligation. For example, a normal reasonable person would think it would be kept secret.

* No permission to pass on the information given.

* Detriment is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information.

Privacy

Article 8 states: 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.'Privacy mainly affects magazines and tabloids as they are more based on celebrity and their private lives.You must have consent when filming someone or taking their picture.

There are two types of consent.

* Explicit consent - The person has signed a contract. Or a release document. This will be useful if you think that the person may sue you at a later date; as you will have written proof of their consent.

* Implicit consent - They are looking in to the camera so they know that they are being filmed. You can also ask them to consent on the camera too as this would be good evidence of their consent if you were to be sued.

The case for privacy is Princess Caroline of Monaco. She campaigned for injunctions to stop the paparazzi from continuously filming her in every day life.After initially failing in court she then won on her second appeal for privacy. The ECHR ruling was that there is no legitimate public interest in knowing the whereabouts and behaviour of individuals generally, despite their fame or being in public. A legitimate expectation of protection of ones private life is to be extended to the criteria for assessment. A fair balance is to be struck between the right to privacy and the freedom of the press.

FOI Requests

Anybody is able to make an FOI request to any public authority. Only the UK security and intelligence agencies are exempt from having to give information through an FOI request. Every other company has to give you information. When filling out a request you have to be very specific otherwise they can refuse and will ask you to narrow your search. This could go on for months. The authority has 20 days to get the information to you or has to send you a reason as to why they can not get it to you within the 20 days. Your search not being specific enough would qualify as to why they can not send it to you within the 20 days; maybe there is too much. An FOI request is also free unless getting the information costs more than £600. Or if it is more than £450 for local councils.

WINOL Life - 22 November

This week went really well. We had Lorelei Reddin in. She is the Entertainment Editor at the Daily Echo. Lorelei was really friendly and gave not only great criticisms but really good information about what her job is really like. I was also impressed that with six years under her belt as the editor of entertainment she still really loved her job.

I directed again this week and I am actually really starting to enjoy it. The job is very stressful when you are using multiple cameras and everything has to be done in one shot but I pulled it off again.

In this show we had a restaurant review of Giraffe, WINOL Games review and an interview with Coldplays marketing manager. Our features are getting stronger. We still have some problems with them not being 100 percent perfect on the technical side of things but we can only get better and the second years are still learning.

We are starting to get in to a great rhythm with WINOL Life and everyone is getting used to it. We were meant to have Maria Milano as our guest in our next show so we have geared all of our features towards fashion. However Maria Milano is not able to make it so we are now on the look out.

I hope you enjoy this WINOL Life, I feel it is one of the best yet and I am sure the next will only get better.

Law - 17 November

Freedom of Inofrmation requests and Invesitgative journalism was on our agenda this week. Julie Cordier recently had a very fruitful FOI request. We had an exclusive on WINOL. This was about the fact that some officers on the police force have criminal records. She was able to find this out from an FOI request she sent asking a very direct question.

Anybody is able to make an FOI request to any public authority. Only the UK security and intelligence agencies are exempt from having to give information through an FOI request. Every other company has to give you information. When filling out a request you have to be very specific otherwise they can refuse and will ask you to narrow your search. This could go on for months. The authority has 20 days to get the information to you or has to send you a reason as to why they can not get it to you within the 20 days. Your search not being specific enough would qualify as to why they can not send it to you within the 20 days; maybe there is too much. An FOI request is also free unless getting the information costs more than £600. Or if it is more than £450 for local councils.

The following website give guidelines on this act as well as amendments when they happen. With law amendments can be made and rules changed so as journalists we need to keep up to date with the new or changed rules regarding FOI requests and other media acts and laws. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/introduction

Photo By: Auntie P

WINOL - 16 November

This week mostly went to plan. We started rehearsing later than normal and so there were some points we were not as sharp on as we could have been. We did manage to start recording at three but there was a lot of post production for Jack.

William decided about 2pm that we were going to have Rebecca Gray, our News Editor as an in-studio guest to talk about unemployment in the UK. She did break it down locally eventually but Angus said that we should have started with that as there were a lot of statistics. I think she did really well though as this was decided very late in the day.

We should have had another camera on Rebecca too. I was on vision mixing so I only had the choice of a two shot. We should have had the two shot, a shot just on Rebecca and a shot just on Gareth. This would have made it a little more interesting.

George, our director was great this week. Especially with the late changes he took them in his stride and worked really well.

We had two reporters in Estonia this week. Justina Chlad and Aimee Pickering. They did really well in getting some footage for us and sending it back to us. They had an angle and a story they wanted us to follow but somewhere in communications this was lost. We reported that Shira Pinchuk was in Estonia to win an award for her documentary called, Karet. This was a fatal error on our part as Shira was not there to win an award but to simply showcase her work to other artists. We also did not accredit Justina or Aimee for their part in the story when I think we should have as they were acting as foreign correspondents.

Angus said that we were right to put in a story about the Estonia Festival. This is because it is something positive for our university and so we should support it. This is the same as putting in a story our editor wants no matter how much we may disagree with it.

We messed up a couple of times in the gallery. I very stupidly clicked on to VT in the middle of a link. I have no idea why I did this and it annoyed me greatly. I normally know exactly what is going on and am compeltely confident, if a little nervous. I am putting it down to only a 30 minute rehearsal as I was not confident at all and was actually a little flustered.

No WINOL next week due to rehearsals for our big November 30th production. I will of course keep you updated with this too.

A Guide To ... Los Angeles

As there was no Law lecture this week I thought that I would indulge in a little travel writing. I love to travel and although i have all ready travelled quite a bit for someone of my age there are still many places I would still like to experience.

I have travelled most of England and a few places in Europe but by far my favourite holiday destinations are Los Angeles, New York and Egypt. I have all ready written a guide to Egypt and New York which you can find linked to their names.

Los Angeles, home of Hollywood, Venice Beach and The Dodgers. I stayed on Venice beach at a hostel owned by Britney Spears father, Jamie. It is called Cotel and was my first hostel I have ever stayed in. I am a girl that loves her creature comforts, good food, a bell boy to carry my suitcase to my room and a comfortable bed. I am not made of money but I do prefer to spend most of my money on my hotel. So... imagine my horror when I first arrived, three flights of stairs, an 18KG suitcase and no bell boy.

Cotel is right on the beach, you walk out of the front door and you are there. There is a huge atmosphere on the beach with people cycling, jogging, rollerblading and even people on Segways. One side of the street is lined with restaurants, hire stores, books stores and the normal beach shops with spades, buckets and bikinis. The other side is lined with little stalls with people from every background on. They sell henna, face painting, food, spices, paintings, anything you can imagine.

The homeless people even have style on Venice beach with sarcastic signs about what they will do with your money and how they deserve it too. This is one of the only bad points of Los Angeles, the line between rich and poor is very fine. At one end of Venice Beach is Santa Monica Pier which caters for the standard family with their amusements and the other end is Muscle beach where ripped men work out all day. However, in between these two ends of the beach it is lined with homeless people in doorways, slumped against lamps and sleeping on a cloth on the floor.

Whilst I was there I saw a phone commercial filmed for AT&T, on the street of our hostel. This was exciting and just what I wanted to see in LA. I also visited Universal and Paramount studios in which I saw a film being filmed. I am not sure what the film was but it was outside with a typical New York cab. These are must see places to visit in LA. You can not visit the land of the rich and famous without popping in to a studio for a tour. I am a huge fan of films and television shows and being on the set of some of them was amazing.

I visited the Farmers Market which I was told was where I would find many celebrities doing their shopping but this was not for me. It was smelly, cramped and very big. I made a de-tour from the smelly stalls of foreign food and came across a little place called, The Grove; and I loved it. I can only describe it as a mini disney land. The streets are lined with designer boutiques, music in the perfect flower beds and trams that you can hop on and off. I walked around here with my friends on an early evening and it really felt very surreal.

The Hollywood sign was a huge disappointment, we could not get very close to it and so only saw it on the streets of Hollywood and it was teeny tiny. i did feel a little warm nuzzle in my heart that I was seeing one of the worlds most famous landmarks but it was a disappointment. Be warned of this when visiting.

My highs of my holiday were: playing volleyball and cycling/rollerblading on Venice Beach, sitting in the audience of the Jay Leno Show and sitting on the couch in Central Perk, (FRIENDS).

I had the most amazing eight days in Los Angeles and I think the fact that I went with a huge group of friends really added to my enjoyment of my time there. We could literally hang loose and do whatever we wanted. The bus is only one dollar so we could go wherever we wanted too. The fact that I stayed in a hostel has actually made me see that I do not need to spend an absolute fortune on my room for the length of my stay. The hostel was clean, friendly and safe. I guess that is all the really matters and I do not need a four star hotel to make my holiday.

WINOL - 9 November

The standard this week was not as good as the quality we have been producing recently. I worked on sound with Ewan shadowing/helping. I actually quite enjoyed it as I have not worked on sound as much as I have on other jobs on production. The only problem was that I did not have a script and so this meant that I did not know when there was an OOV or a package. It does not help that in the sound booth I can not hear the director very well and that the music and sound from the bulletin is very loud in the booth.

We had to re-film the handover as the first time round, in the 'live' version we cut to camera 2 when it was still framing George; our news presenter. This is a split fault of the camera person, (Jack) the director, (Graham) and the vision mixer, (Justina). We have a television right in front of Justina and Graham that shows what all the cameras are looking at and the frames. Before we cut to camera 2, Graham and Justina should have watched the television and seen that Jack had not finished framing the shot. This is something we do a lot but by sheer luck it turns the frame always turns out OK. We all need to focus on the television showing all the frames a lot more than completely focusing on the output television.

The pictures in the headlines were too long and "flabby". They need to be "tightened" by making them shorter and showing our best pictures. They need to be about two seconds longer than what the presenter is going to say. This is a problem every week but this week it stood out a bit longer because Jack tried a different way of filming the headlines. This way made it harder to fiddle around with the headlines but after speaking with him he did not know the simpler way. We have now discussed this and hopefully next week the headlines should be a lot tighter and more tabloid-esque.

This week we also need to freeze the last shot of the headlines as we always go to a black hole. This is because the headlines end very abruptly and it is hard for the director and the vision mixer to cut back to camera two quick enough. Freezing the last shot will make it easier for us and there will be no black hole.

We also had our first live Skype of the year. I went in to town on the Monday and found posters about a demo happening in London by students about tuition fees again. I phoned the story through to Becky, the news editor and she put a reporter on to the story. Tom and Ali then went to London for the demo but they had to film in a Starbucks for their WiFi. This meant that we did not have any views of the demo happening. What we could have done would be to ask Tom and Ali to take some stills of the demo earlier in the day and then to send them back to us so we could cut between Tom and the pictures. This did not happen so it was continuous talking from Tom and George, blurry, against a white back ground. This could have been done in the Starbucks in Winchester and not London. We did not exploit the fact that we were in London at all and did not get any filming from the actual demo. It was also very hard to hear Tom.

Please find the bulletin above. Thank you, also the first years that helped out on production.

Law - 3 November

Confidentiality and Privacy was the subject of law this week. These are laws that keep changing so we need to keep up to date.

Privacy is linked to Articles 8 and 10 of the Human Rights Convention. Article 8 is that everyone has the right to a private life and 10 is freedom of speech.

Confidentiality is linked to the Official Secrets Act 1989. This is a criminal offence to disclose official information without lawful permission. You can find more about the act at, http://www.ros.gov.uk/foi/staff_handbook/Official_secrets.html. We can not use the public interest defence and the offence itself is punishable by 14 years in prison.

This can be done easily as a journalist if you are filming for a story on an army base or a submarine for example. As if you film or take pictures of a prohibited space you will be in breach of the official secrets act.

The PCC's definition of Public Interest includes, but is not confined to the following:

• Detecting or exposing crime of serious impropriety.
• Protecting public health and safety.
• Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation. -> This is the defence we will rely on most.

With confidentiality you are allowed to keep secrets as long as they are not against the publics interest. A doctor, employee, lawyer etc can commit a breach of confidence if they discuss a secret with a third person. This is third party breach of confidence, when you are told a secret that was between two people.

It is fine to publish this secret but you have to talk to the person the secret is about and inform them of the fact that you are going to publish it. If you do not inform them before it is published they will be able to sue you. As a side note, when contacting them, never say, "you have possession of the information," but that, "you have seen the document." However, it is a catch 22 as if the secret is big enough to publish it is probably big enough for them to get an injunction from a judge. This will mean that you will not be able to name and shame them. Their identity must be kept secret. This is only a delaying tactic though as it will then go to court and the judge will decide if it is in the public interest to know this or not. The case can go on for years and will cost a lot so this may dissuade some editors from having it published.

A super injunction can also be taken out and this means that not only does the person the secret is about has anonymity but you can not print the story or anything about the injunction. It is completely 100 percent anonymity to everyone, no one can talk about it.

A secret is only confidential when all the following points have been ticked. If any one of them are missing it is not confidential.

• The quality of the confidence, this can not be a rumour.
• If the secret was provided in circumstances imposing obligation. For example, a normal reasonable person would think it would be kept secret.
• No permission to pass on the information given.
• Detriment is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information.

Privacy

Article 8 states: 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.'

Privacy mainly affects magazines and tabloids as they are more based on celebrity and their private lives.

You must have consent when filming someone or taking their picture. There are two types of consent.

• Explicit consent - The person has signed a contract. Or a release document. This will be useful if you think that the person may sue you at a later date; as you will have written proof of their consent.
• Implicit consent - They are looking in to the camera so they know that they are being filmed. You can also ask them to consent on the camera too as this would be good evidence of their consent if you were to be sued.

The case for privacy is Princess Caroline of Monaco. She campaigned for injunctions to stop the paparazzi from continuously filming her in every day life.

After initially failing in court she then won on her second appeal for privacy. The ECHR ruling was that there is no legitimate public interest in knowing the whereabouts and behaviour of individuals generally, despite their fame or being in public. A legitimate expectation of protection of ones private life is to be extended to the criteria for assessment. A fair balance is to be struck between the right to privacy and the freedom of the press.

Photo By: RestrictedData

WINOL - 2 November

This week we had a member of the BJTC come in called Martin Herd. He looked over our whole bulletin day and the making of the bulletin in the gallery at three.

I worked on the vision mixer this week and actually really enjoyed it. Normally I stand back and make sure that everything is running smoothly and that if anyone needs help I am right behind them to help. It was nice to get back in to the actual making of it during the recording. I have actually missed vision mixing.

Martin said that he enjoyed the day and that we were very lucky in the stories we got. Some reporters quite rightly were annoyed at this. I think I can see what he means. He must have been to other universities where they do a news story once in a while and the story is not even news worthy. Whereas we do news packages every week that are newsworthy and that should be in the bulletin. We all work very hard at making contacts and editing down to the last minute to make sure that our packages are worth being put in to the bulletin.

Julie was not lucky to get an interview in Westminster with Steve Brine, she worked very hard to arrange the interview, the travel and did everything off of her own back. She travelled there with a camera by herself and asked him questions that allowed her to get great answers. It was not a coincidence and lucky that she was in London and able to get an interview with him. Luck did not come in to it.

In the laser piece Martin thought that it added another dimension to the news but there was an abbreviation in it which should not have been used as the viewer, and me did not know what the abbreviation stood for. This is a small, simple matter that just needs it explaining a little more.

This week the headlines took a lot longer than they should have done. However this was because the template had been saved wrong. I tried to fix it and make another template but I used the wrong music on the first it of the opening sequence and so it had to be changed again. In a lot of the clips there was upsot which I managed to sort out so everyone could see when the sound would come up. I also made some audio transitions so it did not just ping to life but sound much better. As the template was changed I do not know if this got changed too but it still sounded really good. So we are winning the upsot battle in the headlines. The only down point is that the straps on the headlines were done wrong, they were huge, in the middle almost and swiped different ways. This is a small problem that needs to be changed for next week.

Also, if you are putting a caption of someone in the headline do not change what they say as this could be misconstrued.

Lastly, in the form of straps, we should not have them on the screen until the person we are captioning starts talking.

Try to place the story in context. In Ali's Bournemouth piece we did not know he was in Bournemouth unless he said. This is because we did not see anything that showed the viewer he was in Bournemouth. Such as the BIC, the beach or the town. Small problems but they will help in the long run.

Overall a really great week for both news and production. The features team also did really well this week with WINOL Life and sport with Sports week. We are producing nearly an hours worth of news, features and sport every week now and we just keep improving too.

WINOL Life - 1 November

I directed our second episode of WINOL Life and although I was very nervous I actually quite enjoyed it after. I made sure we did many, many rehearsals and we managed to pull it all together.

In total we had four cameras, when we usually only use two and we used lots of different shots. For a change we had the television in the middle of the couches and instead of rolling VT and going to VT straight from the link from the presenters. We rolled VT and had the presenters and our guest watch the television. We then went to VT about three or four seconds after it started rolling. I think that this looked very professional and made it a touch more like a real feature show.

This week we had Elizabeth Barnett in as our guest editor. She is actually editor of Hampshire Life. She was extremely nice and local too. She went to university at Solent and within six years of graduating she is now the editor. This makes me hopeful that I will be able to get a job when I leave and that if I work hard I can work my way up.

Elizabeth did a separate interview after WINOL Life giving us tips and telling us how she got the job. This was very helpful and actually showed me that it is possible for me to get published in magazines before I even leave university. Please find above the WINOL Life show and find the interview with Elizabeth on the Winchester Journalism YouTube page.

Law - 28 October

Peter Hodges was our guest lecturer this week. He was the Head of Rights at the BBC but is now independent. He covered copyright and fair dealing with us.

Copyright covers everything from music to film, from the performers to pictures and everything in-between. Copyright covers the object or person as soon as it is published. Showing a film you have made to a friend is not subject to copyright but once you have published it to the internet or put it on to a DVD for viewing this is then copyrighted. A DVD is subject to copyright for 50 years after it has been published and a book is out of copyright 70 years after the author dies.

We should have release forms and get any interviewee or performer to sign these. As well as anyone that may be in your shot. Only for educational reasons are you allowed to use copyrighted products but out of education everything has to be checked for usage. For example if you film a busker singing Lady Gaga you will need the buskers permission to show the filming and Lady Gaga's people's permission for her music.

If you want to use a book or extract from a book the author must give written consent.

We watched two films. An opera called La Traviata and a film called Conspiracy Theory. Watching these we had to pick up on everything that was copyrighted and so would need to be checked. From these we gathered that each individual actor, the music, the composers, the costume designers, the set people and sometimes even the lighting people are credited. Everything that you would normally look over is actually copyrighted and needs to be in the credits.

Fair dealing is when you are allowed to use a small amount of footage from a film, music video, game etc for free. As long as you credit the company and the person you are allowed to use this. Just make sure it is only a few seconds and no longer. A great example of fair dealing is in Ewan and Grahams game piece where they are reviewing games and have a small amount of footage from the games in the review.

Picture by: Mikeblogs