Privacy injunction for Kate Winslet family

Today, the Guardian wrote this piece about a privacy injunction made by Kate Winslet and her husband, after The Sun were planning to publish pictures of Edward RocknRoll (her husband) partly naked, but Mr Justice Briggs made the injunction.

The reasoning for preventing them being published was to protect the couple's children from being teased at school.

The Sun had informed them of the intention to publish the photo's(but didn't reveal the source).

he full judgement can be seen here. In it he refers to Articles 8 and 10.

Looking at Article 8, the images showed him at a private party with friends and family, and the partial nudity shows a manner in which he would unlikely act in public, and would therefore have an expectation of privacy. The Judge also claimed there was no sign that the photographs were taken with consent, including Edward saying that he didn't know the photographs were going to be posted on Facebook(which is where they were found).

One way to step around Article 8, can be for certain public figures, as we have seen in the past with people such as Princess Caroline, but the judge explains why that doesn't a play a role in this particular case - 

'Taking those points separately, the claimant's employment with Virgin Galactic comes nowhere to placing him in that narrow category of persons who, although engaged in no public office, may be regarded as having reduced expectations of privacy due to their important role in national affairs. They may include the chairmen of major public companies, and the captains of national sporting teams, but the claimant was, so far as the evidence goes at this stage, no more than a not very conspicuous middle manager in his uncle's private business empire. In any event, that role ceased some two years ago.'

Overall, the decision was that Edward's privacy was of higher standing than freedom of expression for The Sun.

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Covering Elections

Covering elections is an example of journalists carrying out a public duty, or public service. Reporting elections help inform people about information on the parties running, their manifestos and other information.

During an election, while these are important for a journalist at any time, it is particularly important to have fairness, impartiality and accuracy, particularly for broadcasts.
Broadcasters have special rules regarding elections and political bias, whilst newspapers can be less balanced.

'Keep an eye on the clock' - this refers to the amount of time each political party gets on screen. For broadcasters, it is important to give each of the major parties equal coverage. You must talk to the major party candidates, and possibly minor party candidates if they could influence the result.
It can also be a good idea to use small parties, particularly when they are visually interesting and add colour to your piece.

The sort of things that can be covered during election time includes -
Constituency profiles, Candidate Interviews/Profiles and Local Constituency issues.
When covering local issues, speaking to one candidate about them is not good, you have to either speak to all of the key candidates or you can't run the story.

Their is a duty to the voters and candidates to be fair/impartial. Politicians can come after you if they feel your report was unfair or unbalanced. Their is both scrutiny and power for journalists at election time. Citizens can base their choices on your reporting, which can make accuracy and impartiality even more vital.

Relevant laws to focus on for election reporting are the Representation of the People Act 1983, which has been amended regarding exit polls.

Their are a particular areas of the law that journalists need to be careful of when reporting elections.
- False statements about candidates
- Maintaining impartiality - broadcast only
- Reporting opinion polls or exit polls
- Keep an accurate log of part coverage - keeping a tally of how often/long the candidates are featured.

It is a criminal offence to publish opinion polls and exit polls before the polls have actually finished. Their should be no exit poll speculation either. Eg - Vox Pops of voters saying why/how they vote can't be shown until after polls have closed.

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