Political Animal: Send in the fruitcakes

Roll up, come and see the spectacle of Union Jack the clown, juggling apples and pears. Ok this does not sound like your typical circus advertisement, but then this is not your typical circus.

Welcome to the political circus and what a circus it has been over the last few months with speeding Lib Dems, a Labour leader who will not admit that he intends to borrow more if wins the next General Election and a Prime Minister who is at risk of losing control of the Conservative party.

But, in the midst of the usual suspects there has been a “Political earthquake” in the rise of UKIP. Nigel Farage is not a man I would admit to being someone I would sit and discuss economic or fiscal policy, but it has to be said that this man does not seem to be going away anytime soon.

A fruitcake or a political genius?

After Ken Clarke’s admission to calling members of UKIP “fruitcakes, loonies, waifs and strays” and David Cameron’s allegations in 2006 of Farage and co being nothing more then a bunch of “closet racists”, you would of expected the Tory faithful to remain loyal and vote Conservative right?

How wrong you would be because as the morning of Friday 2nd May came and walking into the Number 4 Milbank came a man not dejected and beaten from a Conservative smear campaign, but a man who had laid the foundations for the emergence of the fourth mainstream political party in the United Kingdom.

By the end of the day, UKIP had amassed 23% of the popular vote, had gained 147 councillors from a base of 8 seats they were defending. This may have only been a county council election, but the ramifications for the next year’s European elections and the General Election in 2015 could be dire for all three main political parties.

But, for what has been seen by many as a protest vote it has to be said that any protest vote that can split the vote this much can only be seen as political suicide. The Conservatives are panicking because the loyal right of the party is moving away from the tory line and defecting their vote to UKIP.

Even David Cameron’s own Eurosceptic backbenchers are threatening to move to campaign on a joint Conservative-UKIP ticket in 2015. At the front of the queue of rebels is one Nadine Dorries who was only let back into the Conservative party at the beginning of May, but is already stirring the pot by suggesting that a tory-UKIP alliance is “the only way to beat Labour.”

But, if this is the case then there is one major obstacle to overcome before any mention of a Conservative-UKIP coalition could even be thought about; Europe.

Is Cameron losing touch with his own MP's?

 The on-going tussle for power and authority in the Conservative party is the fact that many tory backbenchers wants to have a in-out referendum guarantee before the next General Election in 2015, not in 2017 when David Cameron has promised.

This combined with the clampdown on immigration and returning powers from the EU to Britain has cause a roadblock in David Cameron’s pledge of having a united Conservative party. But at the moment one that he has split right down the middle with rebellion after rebellion over pension reform and gay marriage.

But, where there is scraps to pick up could it be UKIP who can do this because the very issues that are splitting the Conservative party right down the middle is the core of UKIP’s message. They want to cut immigration and take  Britain out of the EU completely.

Surely if the Conservatives want to keep hold of the voters who have stayed loyal to them since the days of Heath and Thatcher it needs to base its core message and values of what the electorate want and not what they think they need. If people that vote for UKIP are “fruitcakes” and “closet racists”, then does that mean we have nearly a quarter of all voters that voted a fortnight ago who are fascist and racists?

No. The issue is that people are sick and tired with the same old stories from the same old politicians who are seen to have done nothing or not done enough to keep the electorate happy. But, also you have to take into account that Nigel Farage has something Boris about him because he can say and do things that no one over politician can say and somehow get away with it.

Would Cameron, Clegg or Miliband get away with going into a Stringfellows on a Wednesday night after PMQ’s? No there would be a national scandal and they would surely have to resign are leader of their party.

That is the thing that draws people to Nigel Farage, he is a character and it has been characters that have defined the change of British Politics over the last 40 years. It was Thatcher as the first female Prime Minister in the 70’s, the rise of the SDP and the Liberal alliance in the 1980’s and Tony Blair and “New Labour” in the 90’s.

It has been over a decade since there was such a character that changed the foundations of British politics, but after the results of May 2 2013, the United Kingdom Independence Party have laid the foundations for a new political movement in Great Britain. But, in the political jungle only

  

time will tell if Nigel Farage become the predator or the prey for David Cameron to win an outright majority in 2015.

It will be interesting to see what colour 10 Downing Street will be painted in May 2015. One shade of Blue or Red, or will it be shared by a Purple or Yellow blend?

The jury is still out on this one at the moment, but the word coalition is sounding more likely by the day.

       What colour paint will Downing Street officials by buying from B & Q in 2015?

Word Count: 979

Pictures courtesy of WikiCommons and Flickr creative commons 

Magazine Editor Interview- Ian Foster, Match of The Day Magazine

Living in the Unknown- Living with Dyspraxia

Krystal Shaw is a student studying Animation at Southampton Solent University. From the offset she seems a normal university student, but she has been living with a unknown disability for 18 years. She was recently diagnosed with Dyspraxia, a rare disability which affects co-ordination and motor skills. I speak to Krystal about Dyspraxia, her childhood and how she feels about coming to terms with living with Dyspraxia.

A day in the life of news- London

WINOL Critical Reflection- Did the project work?

This has been the third semester that I have been involved with the independent, student run project Winchester News Online (WINOL). The project is run by a group of journalism students at The University of Winchester, which is split into individual teams covering news, sports, features, production and web production. We venture and produce content for all mediums of broadcasting including television, online and radio. 

 

This semester has been the most rewarding and challenging for WINOL as it became clear early on that we had finally established a true competitor in the form of East London Lines (www.eastlondonlines.co.uk), which is run by journalism students at Goldsmiths College, The University of London. The demographic for each news operation is different as Winchester is covering a population of just over 70,000, whilst London is covering an area of just over 8 million people. Therefore, the scope for news is much greater for East London lines than it is for WINOL.

 

Establishing a competitor was ideal as it gave the team a goal to achieve and this saw a few major changes made to the operation, including a major overhaul of the WINOL website (www.winol.co.uk). The website was redesigned into a broadsheet format, which looked better and made the overall layout of the site more professional. The focus of the site was to use stronger pictures to push the top stories on the site, but also combing the strong features section that included for the first time a dedicated online "fashion" magazine. This pushed WINOL towards the female demographic much closer than we have before. The quote from a famous journalist I have known for the last three years was that "people come for the news, but stay for the features" and this was evident in the strength of the features produced, which was running the core of the website. 

 

The use of social networking has also pushed the publicity of the site with reporters using Twitter and Facebook to promote their stories and to push traffic towards the website. This has become a major factor as it clear that we have now created a established audience that returns to the site on a regular basis as statistic have shown that 50% of the WINOL's website users are "return users". This means that they will constantly come to the site to watch the weekly bulletin or to see the latest features. Therefore, we have created a loyal readership. 

 

In the second part of the semester my role as Managing Editor has been to track the competition and to ensure that WINOL came out on top. This has resulted in WINOL establishing itself as the number one student journalist operation in the UK. This is shown in the graph below comparing the Alexa ranking of both WINOL and ELL over the last four months:

 

The comparison shows that even though WINOL was behind ELL by 10,000 at the start of the semester, we have steadily caught up and thanks to our superior website layout and content, we have managed to beat them by over 15,000 places to become the number one student journalism website in the country. WINOL has also placed under 500,000 worldwide and this is way ahead of our nearest local rival, The Hampshire Chronicle.

 

This shows that we are making the most of our target audience, which has now branched outside of Winchester into the majority of Hampshire and The Isle of Wight. WINOL covers stories in Southampton, Portsmouth, Basingstoke, and London and beyond. This has shown another change in the website with dedicated sections to certain areas and topics like “Southampton” and “Campus”. This shows that we have directly targeted the split in our audience between the local residents in Hampshire and the student population in Winchester.

 

The work that has been put in this year has reaped success across the board with our former cohorts sweeping the board at the BJTC Awards (which was also hosted and produced by WINOL), earning recognition from the BBC College of Journalism and Journalism.co.uk. This has combined with two live WINOL specials covering the results of the US Presidential Election and a Debate for The Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner election, showing student journalism at it’s finest hour.

 

 The course has also seen a number of major names in the journalism industry come in as “Guest Editors”, who have given praise to how professional the WINOL operation is and that it seem like a professional news team, rather than student led.

 

Guest Editors have included Geoff Hill, Editor of 5 News who said that was hard to hit both of our target demographics, but we did this “very well” and WINOL “replicates a local news bulletin”. WINOL also had the presence of Mike Bushell, Sports reporter on BBC Breakfast commented on how WINOL is “well-rounded, professional, polished programme.”

 

Positive feedback from leading figures in the field of broadcast journalism has been a testament to how well the WINOL teamwork together and in my own opinion this has been the most successful semester of the three I have been involved in. This is down in part to the positive communication links between everyone as we all work together as a team to strive for the same common goal of producing the highest level of content every week that we can broadcast or publish.

 

For WINOL to continue in this path the communication links must stay close as it was evident at points this year when senior members of the team were ill, communication links failed and problems started to arise. This is my one main criticism of the project this semester as there were

times were links between news and production were not met and this caused the bulletin to not go out on time or for problems with packages, which had to be rectified in post-production. In broadcast journalism, it would be a disaster for BBC or ITN to go late for a live bulletin and WINOL should follow this example and aim to go out every Wednesday at three, without fail.

 

In order for the success for WINOL to continue the team must continue to progress with the development of the website that has seen great improvements already and to continue the close communication links that will help the smooth running of the operation. There is also room for improvement, but this semester has shown that WINOL in my opinion look more like a professional journalism project, rather then student led journalism.

 

For my final semester of WINOL, I continued my role in news, but as Political Editor. I have had the opportunity in taking my experience of political reporting from the first two semesters and taking this to the next level.

 

For this semester I decided to come up with the idea of producing a live debate for The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police and Crime Commissioner election, which was due to take place in early November. My work began throughout the summer with various meetings with the Vice Chancellor of The University of Winchester, Joy Carter, who I had to obtain permission of to organise and produce the debate. After consultation she obliged and my work began.

 

I had to get in contact with each candidate once they had announced their candidacy to run for the post. This is where my contact book came into my favour, as I had to contact a few of my existing contacts to gain contact information for the candidates. This shows in journalism that you need contacts to fulfill your ideas.

 

The HPCC election was the first of it’s kind; therefore there was a new set of election guidelines and regulations that I had to follow. I followed the BBC Editorial Guidelines that said I had to remain impartial throughout, have clear balance over time for all candidates, not just from the main three political parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats). I also had to remain accurate in my reporting and to ensure that all of my facts were correct and ensure that I did not breach any part of the Representation of the People Act. 

 

During the build up to the election, I previewed each candidate in a series of news packages. I had to ensure that each profile was exacting the same time for each candidate and that all of the facts included were correct. I created a new graphic sequence that profiled each candidate and then include a small interview grab. I felt that each package got more professional as the weeks went on and would be similar to news packages you would find on local BBC or ITN news during election season.

 

I was able to add another MP to my list during this process in the form of former Labour Minister, John Denham. This was a personal achievement as I have been trying to interview the Southampton Itchen MP for sometime as I live in his constituency and is the established marque name I have been looking for to add to my list of political interviews.

 

Due to an ongoing legal problem, I was unable to interview the Conservative candidate, Michael Mates. Conservative MP for Meon Valley who I interviewed in his support of Michael Mates. This helped because I was able to go up to Westminster a couple of days before the election to drive how important the outcome of the election was, which made the package I think as close as you would find on a regional or national news bulletin.

 

 

Then came the main event, the actual debate. I had gone through various sources to obtain a chair for the debate that would have the level of experience needed to take charge of such a forum of debate. I decided upon contacting BBC South Home Affairs Correspondent, Alex Forsyth who was more than happy to take part in the debate. We had the candidates, the chair and the venue; all I needed now was the audience.

 

 

Thursday November 1^st 2012, the night of the debate I feel was my best night as a student journalist by far. In front a live packed out audience of 300 and over 100 people watching online, the candidates took part in the debate, which was streamed live by the WINOL team. BBC South Today covered the election the following evening and there was subsequent coverage used during the BBC South supplement of The Sunday Politics. There was also coverage in The Hampshire Chronicle. This I feel was a major achievement for an election that had very little publicity and quite a low turnout. I feel that the coverage the debate received was testament to the hard work I had put in over six months and the efforts of the WINOL team that night.

 

The coverage that followed with my interview with the newly elected Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Hayes was personally my best news package as it included a face-to-face interview, graphics and coverage of the live debate to summarise the results of the election. This concluded six months of work, which I did have some doubts about when I decided to take on the task, but I feel that I showed great persistence and was able to deliver on everything that I promised I would do. As a journalist you need to deliver and I feel that this project has helped me when I undertake employment for the first time in the field of journalism.

 

 

 

 

I was also part of the small team that created WINOL 99, the first daily bulletin undertaken by a student journalism course in the country. My role in the team was to be the news planner each day and write the script. This was a new challenge for me as I have never scripted a bulletin together and I found this to be slightly tricky and I had to ensure that my top line was also about people doing or being affected by things, as this is the core of any news stories, people. I feel that I this helped as establish that I still can work and develop on my news writing as it is one thing to write a story for your own new package and it is another to write links for a entire news bulletin, even in this case a very short one.

 

The last four months have helped me grown as a journalist to the extent where I am now on first name terms with the majority of the senior political figures in Hampshire. I feel I have contributed massively to the success of WINOL this year and helped it grow and improve. I was skeptically about being a political journalist when starting on WINOL, but it has helped me and I have shown that I have the three things needed to be a journalist. I have ideas, I have contacts and I always deliver without fail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Media Law, Lecture 9: Investigative Journalism

Investigative journalism is the hidden world, the story off the agenda, something that is there to shock and surprise the viewer. It is about discovering the truth and to identify what truth you can expose as the journalists goes to the news, the news never goes to the journalist.

Gonzo journalism is a prime example of investigative journalism, which consists of presenter0led investigation  The news agenda starts to become more exciting, than your standard court story. It is seen as more fulfilling than ordinary journalism and can open doors to the unknown, putting the journalist inside the story.

The fourth estate once again crops up as journalists we are there to expose the truth to the viewers and investigate corruption at every level. There are many examples of this historically with the Dreyfus Affair and the founder of investigative journalism, Emile Zola. But, who is Emile Zola and why is he important?

 Time for short history lesson.

After the French defeat to the Prussian (German) army in 1870, the French army were trying to find someone to blame and started to blame French-Jewish soldiers. They were  accused of selling French army military secrets to the Prussian army. Captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused of being the ringleader of the group. He was found guilty in a show trial and was sentenced to life on Devil's Island in French Guiana and placed in solitary confinement. 

Emile Zola believed that the French army had framed Dreyfus, however after being trialed and found guilty for criminal libel, Zola was exiled to live the rest of his life in Surrey. The trial was brought about due to the letter  Zola published, which possibly  is the most famous piece of investigative journalism in history.

J'accuse was an open letter written by Zola in the French newspaper L'Aurore. The letter was directed at the French Premier, Felix Faure, accusing the French of the unlawful and wrong imprisonment of Dreyfus and brought upon the famous quote: "We name the guilty men". This was supported by the first usage of photojournalism, exposing the corruption of the French army.

Even though it would take 15 years after Emile Zola's death for Alfred Dreyfus to be exonerated, it proved that the famous words of Zola laid down the foundations for the careers and success of all investigative journalists, up to this very day. 

Investigative journalism comes with risk as we have to ensure that we protect our sources as we expose people or groups for what they have done. Anyone who provides us with information must be protected and kept anonymous at all costs. 

There is a difference between information that we are given either on or off the record, Any information  provided off the record, must be stricken from the record and never used. A example of this was the leaked information from BBC reporter, Frank Gardener from a discussion he had with The Queen over the extradition of radical cleric, Abu Hamza. 

The evidence gap is seen as the one major legal problem that can face a journalist when trying to defend a investigative report in court. For someone to be convicted under British law it must be "beyond reasonable doubt" in criminal cases. In civil cases it is much easier to convict someone as this required lower levels of proof and it can be determined by the balance of probability. 

There are two cases that are key examples of the evidence gap involving The Death of Stephen Lawrence and The Omagh Bombings. 

Case Study: Stephen Lawrence

Stephen was 18 when he was killed on the night of 22 April 1993 in Eltham, South East London. It was claimed that he was attacked a killed by a group of 5 white men at a bus stop by two stab wounds to the stomach. On February 14 1997, The Daily Mail published a front page with the five men who has been accused of Lawrence's murder with the headline "Murderers" and claimed that if this was not the case then for the paper to sued. 

The men did not sue and ultimately a review to the Criminal Justice Act in 2003 determined that the "double jeopardy" ruling would not apply if there was enough evidence to do so. This happened and in 2011 two of the men; Gary Dobson and David Norris were both found guilty of murder and sentenced both to life in prison. 

This was a example of where the evidence gap did not affect the final outcome, but the Omagh Bombing is a key example of where the evidence gap is proven as a investigative journalists weakness.

Case Study: Omagh Bombing 

On Saturday August 15 1998, a bomb in Omagh in Northern Ireland left 29 people and another 220 injured in the worst single act of terrorism in the history of Northern Ireland. There were claims that the police knew who were responsible for the bombings, but they did not have enough substantial proof to charge anyone with the bombings. It also would of been hard to select a jury due to the strong support for the IRA throughout Ireland during the late 20th century. 

The police in Omagh decided to go the BBC Panorama program in order to try and help establish who was truly involved in the bombings and to bring the people responsible to justice. Panorama revealed the information they had behind who could potentially be responsible for the bombings. However the broadcast would backfire as the IRA retaliated by bombing the front of BBC television centre on 4th March 2001.

No one has been convicted of the Omagh Bombings 14 years after they occurred and this is down to the evidence gap as even though the police may know who is responsible without any evidence, witnesses to convict them "beyond reasonable doubt" is very unlikely. As journalists this may be the biggest constraint that we have from expressing the truth as in all professions, there are limitations. 

Media Law Lecture 6 and 7: Court Reporting and Privilege

Crime is all around us as journalists from assault to murder, from libel to slander, there is crime being reported everywhere you go. It can be at the scene of a crime that has just happened or at the conclusion of a trial where the defendant has been found not guilty, we are still reporting about it. But, when reporting on crime there are many different areas we need to notice and be aware of.

But, it is not just what happens inside the courtroom on what we report on, it is breaking crime, the arrest that is made and the person who is accused. But, we need to remember that their is a difference between being arrested and being formally charged with a crime. When a crime takes place, it becomes a frenzy with journalists looking to report on the arrest, but once they are arrested or charged and the case become active, there are a whole new set of rules that you have to follow.

What you have to remember though when you are reporting on a crime, you must get all of the facts right. You must get the accused correct spelling of their name, their address, their age and every that is important when reporting on the case. Once the case is active, we have to abide to a strict lists of rules to follow.

First let establish the difference between someone being arrested "on suspicion" and someone being formally charged with a crime. The accused can be held under arrest for 24 hours, 36 for a indictable offence (murder), but this can be extended by a magistrate court to 96 hours. The only situation where someone can be held for more than 96 is if they are under suspicion of a act of terrorism (Terrorism Act, 2006).

With a active case in progress, there are seven pieces of information a journalist can provide before a pre-court hearing, before the jury is selected and the court case has begun:

* The name of the court and the name of the judge.
* The names, ages and addresses of the defendants and witnesses.
* The charges of each defendant.
* The names of each barrister and solicitor.
* if proceedings are adjourned, the date and location of where it was adjourned.
*  Bail conditions.
* If any legal aid was granted.

It is illegal to take photographs in court rooms and to make audio recordings. Everything that you report on must be fair, fast and accurate, meaning that their should be a fair account of the days proceedings, you must report on it as quickly as possible, but remain accurate in your facts and checking them over before handing in your final report.

Any discrepancies can find journalists in the pathway of two criminal offences; Contempt of Court and Prejudice.

Under the Contempt of Court Act of 1981 ensure that anyone who is found to be disrupting or threatening the legal process in a courtroom can be held for contempt. For journalists it is reporting over proceedings that could impend or show prejudice to any active court proceedings and has the likeliness of affecting the final outcome of a case.

Therefore, it is strictly forbidden to reporting on any information on a case, once it has become active under any circumstances. If we report on findings that we have found during a court case, this is a clear contempt of court and we are liable to our career's before tarnished and a custodial sentence.

Prejudice is where you report of something, which can give influence to a trial's outcome and that is likely to affect the jury's final outcome of the case. Again if we cause prejudice to a court case, your career is over.

However, as I explained in a previous blog post there are defences against contempt of court. The main defence is privilege. Journalists have absolute privilege in court, but only Qualified privilege when reporting on them. This allows a reporter to say what was said during a day's proceedings at court on the basis that I mentioned earlier that it is fast, accurate and fair, without malice and it is a matter of public interest. In a court case the jury must also be present during all proceedings.

There are two types of QP: With subject to explanation and contradiction and without. Press conferences and public meetings are also examples of QP, as well are written handouts. Press conferences and public meeting are occasionally broadcasted live, so we have to be aware of the risks that something may go wrong. This was the case during the live debate of The Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner vote where we streamed a live debate, but with a 5 second delay. This may seem very small, but it gave us the scope in case something was said that was defamatory and we had to pull the plug on the broadcast.

Until next time, remember to keep your reports fast, accurate and fair and do not try and reveal any details of court proceedings or you will end up in the dock yourself.