IPSO public interest exceptions 7
- Detecting or exposing crime or threat of crime or serious impropriety
- Protecting public health or safety
- Protecting the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation
- Disclosing a person or organisation’s failure or likely failure to comply with any obligation to which they are subject
- Disclosing a miscarriage of justice
- Raising or contributing to a matter of public debate, including serious cases of impropriety, unethical conduct or incompetence concerning the public
- Disclosing concealment
- Remember there is a public interest in Freedom of Expression
Editors must demonstrate they reasonably believed publication or journalist activity would both serve and be proportionate to the public interest and explain how they reached that decision at the time.
An exceptional public interest would need to be demonstrated to over-ride the normally paramount interests of children under 16
Ofcom public interest exceptions
- Revealing or detecting crime
- Protecting public health or safety
- Exposing misleading claims
- Disclosing incompetence which affects the public
Clause 8 IPSO and Clause 8.8 Ofcom
- Permission must be sought from the institution’s management to pursue inquiries in non-public areas
- Permission to film, photograph or record must be sought from individual
- Patients have a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ in non-public areas
- Subject to public interest exceptions
Harassment and Persistent Pursuit Clause 3 IPSO
- You should stop if there is no public interest, and you are asked to stop
- Such methods can be ethical if justified under the code’s ‘public interest exceptions’
- An editor able to demonstrate a sufficient public interest element will not be in breach of Clause 3
Harassment and Persistent Pursuit Section 8 Ofcom
If an individual’s privacy is being infringed, and they ask filming, recording or live broadcast to be stopped, the broadcaster should stop unless it is warranted/it is in the public interest
Prima Facie
Journalists using persistent pursuit techniques in the public interest should have prima facie evidence or reasonable belief a public interest exception justified a breach of the code.
They should create an audit trial - info about dates and times of interviews, emails, etc, to show regulators
Doorstepping - 8.11 of the Ofcom Code
- “The filming or recording of an interview or attempted interview with someone or announcing a call is being filmed or recorded for broadcast purposes, without prior warning.”
- “Doorstepping for factual progs should not take place unless a request for an interview has been refused or it has not been possible to request an interview, or there is reason to believe that an investigation will be frustrated if the subject is approached openly, and it is warranted to doorstep.”
- It is an ambush technique (and not one just used on doorsteps) which can be used in the public interest
- It overrides the normal provision in the code that ‘informed consent’ is needed to film or audio-record people for interviews
Doesn’t apply to high-profile figures in the news in public places - eg outside Downing St or on the red carpet.
Clandestine and Subterfuge Clause 10 IPSO
‘hidden cameras’ and ‘clandestine listening devices’ should not normally be used unless justified by a ‘public interest exception
Covert filming and recording Section 7 Ofcom Broadcasting Code
‘serruptitious’ filming or recording should not normally be used because it may infringe privacy
Unless its use is warranted to gain information/evidence ‘in the public interest’ - and then only when the material cannot reasonably be obtained by other means
Section 8 (privacy) Ofcom
‘Surreptitious’ filming or recording which infringes on someone’s privacy should only be used if necessary for the credibility and authenticity of the programme.
You must tell other party if you are recording the call unless warranted and in the public interest not to tell them
Subterfuge
Going undercover is not normally allowed unless in the public interest and you have prima facie evidence there is something in the public interest which needs investigation.
Both codes say these tactics should not be used unless you can’t get the info another way.
But it is not a crime for a journalist when undercover to claim he/she has another occupation or to fail to declare he/she is a journalist.
Recording phone calls
- journalists are allowed to record telephone calls if they are one of the parties involved
- IPSO regards this as a form of note-taking
- Okay not to tell them you are record
- But Ofcom says you must inform the other party they are being recorded - because what they say could be broadcast
- In Ofcom code the public interest exception applies to this part of the code
- S8 Ofcom says you must tell other parties if you are recording the call unless warranted and in the public interest not to tell them
- Ofcom guidance says a journalist can record phone calls for note-taking if they have no intention of broadcasting what is said
- It is illegal (unless you are a police or intelligence officer legally authorised to do this) to ‘tap’ or intercept a phone call
Section 5 of Ofcom Broadcasting Code - ‘due impartiality in news’
- must be impartial
- present both sides
- can be achieved over a series rather than in one programme
- personal views can be shared as long as its made clear at the start of the programme
- BBC has similar impartiality guidelines to Ofcom
- print media are allowed to campaign and take sides
Section 5 of Ofcom Broadcasting Code - ‘due impartiality in news’
- must be impartial
- present both sides
- can be achieved over a series rather than in one programme
- personal views can be shared as long as its made clear at the start of the programme
- BBC has similar impartiality guidelines to Ofcom
- print media are allowed to campaign and take sides
Ipso Clause 1 (accuracy)
The ethical obligation to take care to be accurate, as expressed in clauses 1.i and 1.ii
Ofcom code Rules 5.1 and 5.2
Due accuracy in news
Filming and taking photos in public
There is no law restriction the taking of photos and footage in public
But shopping centres, train stations, airports etc slightly different as land is owned privately
College of Policing guidelines tell police that journalists can do this – so if you are told to stop filming tell officer to look at the guidelines!
It is good practice for police to give media a viewpoint if an area is cordoned off
Police can only seize film, footage or a camera at the scene on the strictly limited grounds that it is suspected to contain evidence of a crime
Once photographer has left the scene police can only seize film, footage or images if empowered by a court order
Police have no power to insist that footage or images in a camera be deleted
Relatives in court Clause 9 Editor’s Code of Practice
- Warns relatives or friends of defendants should not usually be identified in media coverage unless such a relative is genuinely relevant (ie witness, victim etc) to the story.
- Subject to the relevant code’s public interest exceptions, which means identifying the relative of a defendant or suspect may be justifiable in some stories, including if they are publicly supporting their spouse
- But as regards children, the ‘public interest justification’ will have to be strong to identify them if they are not ‘genuinely relevant’.
Relatives in Court Section 8 of Ofcom
- Says that children do not lose their right to privacy because of a parent’s notoriety
- Subject to the relevant code’s public interest exceptions, which means identifying the relative of a defendant or suspect may be justifiable in some stories, including if they are publicly supporting their spouse
- But as regards children, the ‘public interest justification’ will have to be strong to identify them if they are not ‘genuinely relevant’.
