Category Archives: regulation

Do blogs make reporting restrictions pointless?

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The leaked DNA test on 13-year-old alleged dad Alfie Patten has revealed a big problem with court-ordered reporting restrictions in the internet age. (NB This is a cut down version of a much longer original post on blogging and reporting restrictions that was featured on the Guardian).

Court orders forbidding publication of certain facts apply only to people or companies who have been sent them. But this means there is nothing to stop bloggers publishing material that mainstream news organisations would risk fines and prison for publishing.

Even if a blogger knows that there is an order, and so could be considered bound by it, an absurd catch 22 means they can’t found out the details of the order – and so they risk contempt of court and prison.

Despite the obvious problem the Ministry of Justice have told me they have no plans to address the issue. Continue reading →

Kitemarks to save the news industry? Q&A with Andrew Currah

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Reuters recently published a report entitled: ‘What’s Happening to Our News: An investigation into the likely impact of the digital revolution on the economics of news publishing in the UK‘. In it author Andrew Currah provides an overview of the situation facing UK publishers, and 3 broad suggestions as to ways forward – namely, kitemarks, public support, and digital literacy education.

The kitemark idea seems to have stirred up the most fuss. In the first of a series of email exchanges I asked Currah how he saw this making any difference to consumption of newspapers, and how it could work in practice. This is his response:

Yes, the kitemark idea has triggered quite a response… Unfortunately, as the discussion online suggests, the term has implied to many a top-down, centralised system of certification which would lead to some form of
‘apartheid’ between bloggers and journalists. Continue reading →

Don’t make them disappear

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Bas Timmers on the problems with updating on the web.

Imagine this: you read an exclusive breaking news article on a website that says Gordon Brown is about to resign voluntarily. An hour later you come back to that same site, same article, but it now tells you David Miliband is about to step down after an argument with Brown. What to believe now? Continue reading →

PCC to regulate newspaper audio and video

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[Keyword: , ]. Journalism.co.uk reports on the move by the PCC to extend its regulation to cover newspaper audio and video, with chairman Sir Christopher Meyer quoted as saying: “We have now persuaded the newspaper and magazine industry of the United Kingdom to agree also the principle of our regulating moving pictures and sound on newspaper’s websites […] we are going to make an announcement, I hope, pretty soon in the next few weeks about exactly what that entails – there are some definitions to be sorted out – but it’s a major step forward, and it’s the first time, I think, that newspapers have voluntarily agreed without outside pressure to extend the remit of regulation through the PCC.”

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media