Class memories

The Information Commissions Office has issued new guidance to schools saying that parents and other family members should not be prevented from taking photographs or video of their children at school events citing the Data Protection Act.
The Act has been widely used to prevent people taking pictures at school events such as nativity plays and sports days. Now the commission office wants that to end and says such pictures are the basis of albums of happy memories. This does not open things up for press photographers though who still need to get permission from the school to take pictures of children at these events.
It does however open up the debate and starts to put schools and other authorities that have tried to prevent photography on notice that they will have to be more convincing with attempts to prevent photography.
This is not the only bit of good news for photographers. Section 58 of the Counter Terrorism Act introduced in February makes it an offence to take pictures of the police for use in terrorism. This has caused a bit of stir in some newspapers but Lord Carlile has recently ridden to the rescue.
The Lord, who revies terror legislation, has said that the law sets a high bar. Giving the green light for photographers, amateur or professional, to continue taking pictures he warns police officers that they may face prosecution themselves if they continue to force photographers to delete pictures. The clause that says taking pictures for use by terrorists is a high bar and one that would require proof said his lordship.

Good news from Belfast

Good news that journalist Suzanne Breen won the right to protect her sources at a court in Belfast last week. Ms Breen had been contacted by the Real IRA following the Massereene barracks murders claiming responsibility for the atrocity. Police investigating the case wanted her to hand over all records, phones, computers and notebooks in a search for clues. They had given little detail of what they wanted and Ms Breen refused to hand over any material. She told the court that her life would be in danger if she were to hand over material to the NI police sevice. The Belfast Recorder agreed, saying there was a real risk of the group carrying out its bood-thirsty threats. However he also said it was a difficult decision to make. Ms Breen had been supported throughout byh the National Union of Journalists.
Ms Breen will not now be obliged to reveal her sources, not only ensuring her life is not put at risk but also allowing her to become the latest in an honour roll of journalists prepared to take a stand at considerable personal risk for the integrity of their profession.
Freedom of the media to investigate wrongdoing and inform the public about it often depends upon getting information from people who have a lot to lose if their identity were revealed. Only by promising confidentiality are journalists able to ensure people are still willing to talk.
Suzanne is to be praised for her brave stand which has left journalism in a stronger positon.

PCC's annual report

The PCC has just released its annual report. Not surprisingly it again claims the year has been another success for self regulation: the rise in complaints to more than four and a half thousand is good, it says, but the small number of adjudications and fall in resolutions is also good. Sir Christopher Meyer will leave his job as chairman this month surrounded by the heady scent of smug self-satisfaction.
It will be interesting to learn how the Select Committee now investigating the PCC's activities views the PCC's performance after hearing the evidence of Gerry McCann and Max Mosley. The two men may have very different reasons for detesting the Press, but both believe that self-regulation is not a sufficient control.
Despite the 4,600 complaints, only 42 were adjudicated by the PCC with fewer than half upheld, most of these such gross breaches that there was little option but to uphold. To read the annual report of the PCC is lead one to believe that the British press is a paragon of professional virtue. It is doubtful if many recognise this as an appropriate description.

PCC starts new year with a bang

The PCC got off to a busy start in 2009, launching an investigation into its own complaint about several newspapers and websites covering the case of a man committing suicide with a chain saw. The Newspapers includ the Metro, The Guardian, Daily Star, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Sun, Daily Mirror and the Independent and their websites. The Metro (but not its website) and the Guardian did not have complaints upheld against them, but all the others, both print and websites, did have complaints upheld for giving too much detail about the suicide method and how the man had managed to kill himself.
The suicide clause is a new one for the PCC (see below) and one they are determined to uphold.

PCC and privacy

The Press Complaints Council has today release a new adjudication, upholding a complaint against OK! magazine for invading the privacy of a woman attending an AA meeting.
The article concerned a male celebrity attending an AA meeting with a friend - the complainant.
The article published information the complainant felt was private about her addiction and treatment. It also published a picture of her.
The adjudication is interesting for two reasons. First, the magazine made no attempt to suggest that this publication was in the public interest. Second that the magazine made no attempt to disguise the identity of the complainant even though the story was about the celebrity.
The story raises the age old issue of whether celebrities deserve less protection than ordinary people merely because of their celebrity. According to the Appeal Courts McKennitt verdict, it would depend upon the celebrity and the lengths they had gone to previously to protect their privacy. So, if we accept that there is a difference between celebrities and non-celebrities, and take into account this new adjudication, journalists would be well advised to prevent non-celebrities in circumstances such as these being identifiable and concentrate their stories on the celebrity - or find a good public interest defence.

PCC censures magazine for deception

Newspapers and magazines are not immune to deception. The Press Complaints Commission has censured Chat magazine for printing a staged picture of a murder victim, realistic enough to fool one of the family. The magazine failed to make it clear that the picture of the murder vicitm, wrapped in bin liners and printed beneath the heading "Beaten, raped and brutalised" was staged. The PCC upheld the complaint of inaccuracy but went on to say: "But of particular concern to the Commission was the fact that, in using the misleading picture near to the first anniversary of the death, the magazine also showed a total disregard for the family of the dead woman."
They said that the magazine's "cavalier approach" was a clear breach of the PCC code.
http://www.pcc.org.uk/cases/adjudicated.html?article=NDgyNw==

BCC and the sound of crying

The BBC has run into another row about deception according to the Guardian of November 16, 2007.
John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford released video of recently-born quintuplets and the BBC used the video, adding its own soundtrack of crying babies. The BBC told the Guardian: "We received the film without sound and although we don't believe viewers were materially misled, we should not have added sound to the pictures."
This is the latest such ethical mistake in a growing list for the BBC that includes premium phone line abuses, faked footage of the Queen and has led to Director General Mark Thompson to try to ban 'noddies' - the method used by TV journalists to allow cutaways and give the impression the interview was filmed by two TV cameras instead of the one that is all news can afford to send on most stories these days.
Adding sound or new backgrounds to video these days is very easy, but careful consideration needs to be given before doing it. I was approached recently by a private group to film my views in a rebuttal of a BBC programme. I was surprised at the use of a white muslin background for the recording, but even more surprised at the sumptious study in which I was shown in the final edit. Chromakey had done its work to set me in this new environment and whilst no-one was materially misled, the recording was not recorded where it was shown to have been recorded.
It is very easy to say that these additions do not materially change the truth, but they are a slippery slope to other editing tricks that do substantially change reality. Putting me in a study befitting a university professor may not be too bad even if the reality is that my study looks more like a library dumping ground. But if the background gave the impression that I was chatting amongst friends, some of whom were later cut into the edit to give views that made it seem I was responding to their promptings, an entirely incorrect picture might have been painted.
The same is true of added audio. Adding babies crying to film of a neo-natal ward may not be too deluding. But what if that crying were added to a documentary about orphanages in Eastern Europe to give the impression that these orphanages were ill-treating their charges? The same is true of adding music. News traditionally does not have a music soundtrack, making it unusual for TV and radio. Ths is clearly because of the emotive effect of soundtracks - it would be impossible to claim that news is unbiased if a sound track were added. But many documentaries now add sound tracks of music, setting the scene and pointing the viewer in a particular direction, often without them realising it.
Adding additional sounds or music, or changing a video background as well as adding or deleting items in pictures or video should be avoided at all costs in order to prevent misleading the audience. Only if some far worse ethical incident would occur if one did not, should this be considered. There's always one surefire way to be accused of manipulating the truth and attempting to deceive and that's by deliberately manipulating the truth.