One of the most important elements with regards to court cases is the presumption of the accused's innocence until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This concerns journalists a great deal, as to in any way broadcast a suggestion, whether on purpose or by an accident of bad phrasing, that one may not be innocent can lead to fines and libel cases. To even create the opportunity of implanting the jury with prejudice is in contempt of the court. This extends to even the smallest detail, and just because the layman listening to the news won't realise the world of difference between the terms 'accused' and 'defendant' does not mean journalists can be sloppy with the jargon; if that sloppiness reaches the public, the journalist may well incur a fine of up to £5000 - and probably damage their career too, I'd imagine.
Prejudice in a legal sense means to pass judgement before the accused has had a chance to prove their innocence in court. Reading McNae's, and from the lecture, I got a very strong sense of how terrible it would be for the jury to be prejudiced. After all - and correct me if I'm wrong to use the term here - the defendant's freedom rests in the decision of the jury. The jury themselves are just twelve regular adults of a working age picked at random from a list, and so it is doubly important that no prejudice is implanted into their heads. The average person is far more influenced by the things they hear than they might realise, and even the smallest gesture could implant some form of prejudice within their minds.
Since prejudice is such a big offence, a news report on court proceedings must have a purely factual basis - of course this is true for all news reports, but you certainly won't find any opinion columns in the paper on an ongoing court case. One example in recent news that stuck out to me, of an article that does its very best to maintain its impartiality, is Wednesday's Guardian article, "Saudi prince 'battered servant to death', court told". The article stresses the apparent homosexual relationship between the prince and his servant, and nearer to the end justifies the stress on their relationship by telling us that 'Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw, QC, told the jury that while a defendant's sexuality would normally be of "absolutely no relevance to a criminal trial", it was crucial in this case because there was a "sexual element to his mistreatment of Bandar."' Without this quote, the article could have appeared to imply that there was, as fact, a homosexual element, which the defendant denies and which has not been proven in court. In that case, it could have created prejudice within the jury, should they read the article and have the idea that the unproven sexual element is a fact implanted in their mind. It also could have been interpreted as malice by the defendant and his lawyers, had they not justified why the homosexual element is relevant.
Like prejudice, malice also has a definition in law, which in the case of journalism is deliberately telling a lie and broadcasting known falsities. This of course can result in a case of libel against the journalist or publisher of the particular article, which then can result in a large fine or prison time - not to mention hurt ones credibilities and lose a journalist their qualified privilege. The Daily Mirror was my tabloid of the day on Friday, and its article 'Beast raped victim twice in 3 months' exhibited to me how the press can perhaps be safely malicious. I don't mean to defend the rapist, but to call him a 'beast' in the headline and 'pervert' in text could most certainly be malicious. However, the article does not mention either the names of those involved or where it takes place (under the law, rape victims and I think also accused rapists are granted full anonymity), and is so vague that were the accused to read it, they couldn't take the newspaper to court for libel (correct me if I've phrased that wrongly).
There's definitely more to be said on court reporting - the topics of public interest, presumption of innocence and recklessness all have big circles around them in my notes telling me I need to address them, but I feel like if I don't push at least this out now, I won't get around to the others topics later.
The blogging continues.
good work
ReplyDelete