Reporting Family Courts – New Proposals Published
The Government’s proposals for a new regime enabling limited reporting of family court proceedings have been published as part of the Children, Schools & Families Bill. The provisions will enable publication of court orders and of judgments – but in neither case is the right to publish absolute.
The Bill also provides for the publication of “authorised news publications” – reports produced by or taken from reports by accredited media attending the proceedings – but again subject to a reserve power for the court to prohibit or restrict reporting. In all cases there are detailed and stringent anonymity requirements both in respect of children and adults who are parties to the proceedings.
The NS is presently considering the detail of the new provisions and will be attending a meeting with Ministry of Justice officials next week. Our initial assessment is that the proposals give rise to some issues as regards their scope, complexity and possible impact upon the publication of information not derived from the proceedings, the wide powers for the court to restrict or prohibit reports altogether, or extend anonymity to parties such as expert witnesses.
Members are reminded that the MoJ has separately asked for feedback on how the regime allowing accredited media to attend family courts, introduced in April, has been working in practice (see NS News 19 November).
Please let us have your comments as a matter of urgency in order to inform our discussions with the MoJ.
For further information please contact Sue Oake on 020 7632 7463 or e-mail sue_oake@newspapersoc.org.uk.
Trinity Mirror to Bid for IFNC Pilot
Trinity Mirror, Press Association and TV production company Ten Alps have formed a consortium to bid for the regional TV news pilot scheme planned for England and will press for the North East to be chosen as the pilot region.
The consortium brings together PA’s expertise in covering and commissioning content, Trinity Mirror’s on-the-ground news-gathering strength and Ten Alps’ award-winning programme-making skills, Trinity Mirror said.
Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey, said: “The North East region is home to 2.4 million adults meaning it is large enough to host a fully robust pilot of scale, while also being compact enough to launch quickly and cost effectively. The area is highly representative of Britain with its mix of urban centres and rural communities.
“We are convinced that our plans for the North East are the ideal blueprint and will offer crucial learning experiences to the industry ahead of the full national roll-out of local news consortia.”
PA managing director Tony Watson said: “One of the essential criteria being stipulated by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is that the pilot must go live quickly and deliver an enhanced offering across not just TV but also digital platforms – and all within a very tight timeframe.
“The advantage the North East has over other regions is that it is the right size to allow for swift development of the multi-layered service the DCMS is seeking. With the consortium partners we have in place, we believe we can launch an innovative new service in the North East fast, and to a high standard.”
Chief executive of Ten Alps, Alex Connock, added: “The consortium partners have a clear view of our respective roles and how we would dovetail together.
“We are all very excited about the potential for creating something original and fresh that isn’t just about a TV show but spans a range of online channels as well.”
The consortium said it had been in discussion with a number of organisations within the North East and would announce additional partners soon.
- Other groups have registered their interest in bidding for the pilots: Guardian Media Group is leading discussions with other publishing groups to bid for the North West region, while a consortium backed by Northcliffe Media is interested in the South West region. An alliance of newspaper publishers – Newsquest, Johnston Press and DC Thomson – is keen to bid for the Scottish news contract.
- Government Response to the Consultation on Sustainable Independent and Impartial News in the Nations, Locally and in the Regions (DCMS Website)
For further information please contact Paul Sinker on 020 7632 7424 or e-mail sinkerp@newspapersoc.org.uk.
RMRF Insight Day 2010 to Focus on Budget-Savvy Research Techniques
The Regional Media Research Forum’s annual Insight Day is planned to take place on 13 January in London. The theme for 2010 is ‘How to use research to make money’.
Those attending the conference will hear from industry speakers including representatives from Nielsen Online, technology specialist agency Banner and media sciences company Dolly Wagon and there will be a session on the new Locally Connected print/online planning currency. Further speakers and an agenda will be confirmed in due course.
RMRF membership primarily comprises people involved in the commissioning and use of media research within local media publishing centres across the UK. The annual conference presents an opportunity for members to meet with and learn from leading practitioners how to make the best use of available research and apply it to their work.
For more information and to book a place for the Insight Day, please contact Keith Donaldson on keith_donaldson@newspapersoc.org.uk.
St Bride’s Christmas Carol Service on 8 December
This year’s Christmas Carol Service for printers will be held on 8 December at 6pm at St Bride’s Church on Fleet Street.
The event is supported by the British Printing Industries Federation, Stationers’ and Newspaper Makers’ Company, Unite and the NS.
Places are limited so anyone wishing to attend should contact Heena Bulsara at the BPIF on 020 7915 8338 or e-mail heena.bulsara@bpif.org.uk
Publishers and Editors Gear Up for Lord Mandelson Lunch
Local newspaper editors, publishers and senior executives are set to attend the Newspaper Conference annual lunch with guest speaker Lord Mandelson.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills will address guests at the 30 November lunch hosted by Conference chairman Matt Chorley, London editor of the Western Morning News.
The annual lunch is the main event of the Conference calendar which consists of lunches with senior politicians who speak exclusively to Westminster-based regional press political correspondents.
For further information, please contact Paul Sinker on 020 763 274 24 or sinkerp@newspapersoc.org.uk.
Locally Connected: UK’s First Print/Online Currency
The local media sector, working closely with agency and media research experts, is getting set for Tuesday’s launch of Locally Connected, the UK’s first integrated print and online audience planning currency.
Lynne Anderson, NS communications director, said: “Local media is reaching bigger audiences than ever, delivering trusted local news and information to 40 million print readers a week and 37 million web users a month. Locally Connected will give agencies the hard data they need to target local communities in print and online. It is the result of an extraordinary collaboration between publishers and agencies, the NS, JICREG and ABCe, to achieve a unique cross-media planning tool.”
The project was instigated by the NS back in 2006, working alongside JICREG and ABCe, with the aim of extending the regional press readership database to encompass newspapers’ online audiences and provide agencies and advertisers with a geographical system for analysing the combined net reach of a newspaper and its website within circulation areas down to postcode sector level.
Telmar was commissioned by the NS in 2007 to develop the methodology for integrating internet audience data with print readership data. The internet audience data are underpinned by audited web traffic data, survey data (combined sample size of 100,000+ adults) and statistical analysis and modelling. The NS and JICREG have worked with publishers, agencies and the IPA to develop and test the planning tool at each stage of the project.
Internet audience data were released alongside print readership figures on the live JICREG planning system in July, with the all-important data showing net reach of regional and local newspapers and their websites to be delivered this month.
Audited traffic figures for more than 60 of the largest local media sites are now being released by ABCe alongside newspaper circulation data on a six-monthly basis. JICREG audience figures are updated twice a year in line with new circulation data and, now, web traffic data.
For further information please contact Lynne Anderson on 020 7632 7421 or e-mail lynne_anderson@newspapersoc.org.uk.
Media Attendance at Family Courts – MoJ Request for Feedback
The Ministry of Justice is seeking views from key stakeholders, including the NS, as to how the arrangements for media attendance have been operating in practice since they came into effect in April – in the context of the present reporting restrictions before they are revised.
This is an opportunity for the media to comment on any aspect of how the present regime has been operating but, in particular, the MoJ is asking for feedback on the following topics:
- Are you making use of the new rules to attend proceedings and if so, how often?
- In cases where you have sought to attend, has the court decided you should not be admitted and if so on what grounds?
- What issues have arisen for adult parties to proceedings whether from the media attending or from the possibility of media attendance?
- What issues have arisen for children involved in proceedings, again whether from actual media attendance or the possibility of media attendance?
- If you feel there have been positive impacts for anybody involved in proceedings, what are those impacts and why do you think they have arisen? If any negative impacts, what are they and how have they arisen?
This is an important opportunity to raise any difficulties which have arisen and to point out the benefits of increased transparency and open justice, in the lead-up to the proposed revision of legislation affecting reporting restrictions in the family courts.
The NS would urge member local media publishers to please provide the NS with your comments, criticisms and suggestions, in order to ensure that our response to the MoJ is as detailed as possible and reflects your front-line experience of reporting family courts – or of trying to reporting them.
Please send your comments to Sue Oake, PERA, whose contact details are below.
Meanwhile, the family courts information pilots have commenced in three cities, making written judgments available online to the media and other parties.
The MoJ initiative to provide judgments from the county court and family proceedings courts in Cardiff and Wolverhampton, and the family proceedings courts in Leeds commenced this month, and is intended to continue for a year.
The judgments will be anonymised and placed on the legal information website.
The project includes only interim care/supervision orders or final orders made at a hearing (magistrates court, county court or high court) and where:
- Either parent is given leave to permanently remove a child from the UK.
- A final order prohibits direct contact between a child and either or both parents.
- A final order is made in a Children Act public law case.
- The final order has depended on contested issues of religion, culture or ethnicity.
- The court has had to decide between medical or other expert witnesses where there were significant differences of opinion.
- The court has had to decide significant human rights issues.
- The interim care/supervision order was contested.
For the above cases, courts will made judgments available. In other types of case, publication of the judgment is “encouraged” by the MoJ – including, contested cases where the outcome “in the discretion of the judge” would be worthy or reporting publicly; contested adoption applications or placement orders, cases involving dispensation with consent and contact and emergency protection orders.
For further information, please contact Sue Oake, PERA, on 0207 632 7463 or sue_oake@newspapersoc.org.uk.
Government Outlines Timetable for IFNC Tender Process
The Department for Culture Media and Sport has outlined a timetable for piloting and roll-out of its independently funded news consortia scheme.
Later this month, the DCMS is set to appoint an independent selection panel which will oversee the tendering and evaluation process before publishing a “pre-qualification questionnaire” inviting bids from Scotland and Wales.
The department aims to decide which English region will host the third IFNC pilot by Christmas.
Final tenders for pilots should be submitted by February before recommendations on which bids could be successful are made to culture secretary Ben Bradshaw the following month.
The timetable forms part of the DCMS response to a consultation launched in June on proposals for a contestable element of the television licence fee to fund “sustainable, independent and impartial news”.
The government “remained convinced” that public funding would be required to sustain the scheme but did not give a firm recommendation on how this should be implemented, adding that the pilots would be an opportunity test this.
It added: “Funding of IFNCs does not require implementation long in advance of the roll-out; nor does it require primary legislation.
“The government will therefore make a final decision on the source of the public funding of IFNCs nearer the time of roll-out, in the light of the lessons learnt from the pilot experience.
“The government will want to understand how enhanced localness can be delivered; the extent of syndication achieved; audience reach and impact; and how public funding and commercial revenue can deliver a high quality independent and impartial news output.”
The DCMS said that a UK-representative survey conducted for the consultation showed that 84 per cent of the public consider it is important to have a choice of different sources of news regionally or locally.
A national roll-out of the IFNCs is still scheduled for 2013.
For further information, please contact Lynne Anderson on 020 763 274 21 or lynne_anderson@newspapersoc.org.uk.
Lord Chief Justice Cites Independent Press as ‘Cornerstone’ of Free Society
The Lord Chief Justice told the Society of Editors annual conference that “an independent press and an independent judiciary are twincornerstones, and bulwarks of a free society”, “Cornerstones because the entire fabric of a free society is dependent on an independent press and an independent judiciary. Bulwarks because these are the instititutions which must defend a free society when it is threatened.”
Lord Judge warned about the dangers of spin and urged newspapers not to abandon the reporting of courts and local councils. He argued that newspapers should not fall under the influence of public authorities.
“But notice, if you will, that I have spoken about an independent press. I do not mean a handout by the government of the day, or the local authority, or any other institutional organisation which affects the lives of the citizen of the country, producing its own broadsheet. I do not want the press to become the broadsheet of those institutions. I do not want proceedings of the local council to be reported by an employee of the local council. I do not want the proceedings of court to be reported by a member of the judicial communications office. Spin is neither a cornerstone nor a bulwark of a free society. We need independent , objective reporting,” he said.
He underlined the importance of press coverage of the courts “Just as an independent press can expose the errors made by local authorities and governments, so too, the administration of justice in the courts should be open to the public scrutiny which an independent press provides”.
“It is my personal belief that in any society which embraces the rule of law it is an essential requisite of the criminal justice system that it should be administered in public and subject to public scrutiny. And for these purposes the representatives of the media reflect the public interest and provide and embody public scrutiny.”
Lord Judge explained that his core belief in open justice had led to his putting his full support behind the first production of the JSB/ Newspaper Society/ Society of Editors court reporting restrictions guides, some ten years ago and his personal support behind the recent update.
He explained how the guide can be used by reporters to make submissions directly to the court to point out either that the law did not permit press exclusion or prevent reporting, or, where it did, whether the court should exercise those powers to do so, with reasons why it should not.
He spoke of the importance of the survival of the local press, so that its representatives could be present in court and in local councils and anywhere else that the press should be. “I am not content if there is no one to go into court and observe and then to write up. If there is no one to walk in, the public interest is damaged. That is the harsh reality.” He commented that such information “matters hugely to the fabric of our society”.
Lord Judge also spoke about the impact of modern technology on the jury system super-injunctions, libel forum shopping and conditional fee agreements in his speech to editors and newspaper executives at the Society’s conference in Stansted.
The full text of his keynotespeech can be read on the website of the Society of Editors
Baroness Buscombe, chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, delivered the annual lecture.
The conference also saw Donald Martin, editor-in-chief of Newsquest’s Herald & Times Group in Glasgow, begin his tenure as the Society’s president taking over from Nigel Pickover, editor of the Evening Star.
For further information, please contact Paul Sinker on 020 763 274 24 or sinkerp@newspapersoc.org.uk.
‘No Business Case’ for Fortnightly Council Newspaper
Thurrock Council has axed plans for a fortnightly newspaper after the leader of the council admitted there was “no business case” for the publication.
The decision to scrap proposals for a £300,000-a-year newspaper has been heralded as a victory for local taxpayers who opposed the scheme.
It had been estimated that the local Thurrock Gazette would have lost a quarter of its advertising revenue if the paper had been launched.
Announcing the decision at a recent meeting, the council’s Conservative leader Garry Hague said: “We are looking to save money on communications, so anything we do will have to be done within our budget.
“I don’t think we can make a case for a fortnightly publication, it’s not something we will be pursuing.”
Labour group chairman councillor Carl Morris, who had campaigned against the plans, welcomed the decision.
He said: “Councils don’t do newspapers very well, whether Labour or Tory authorities, all they are is just propaganda sheets, they go straight in the bin.
“I’m all for communicating with the public but this civic newspaper was just a dumb idea.
“Common sense has prevailed, and I’m happy about that.”
Steve Lewis, editor of the Thurrock Gazette, added: “Clearly this is a victory for the local media and for the many taxpayers who voiced their opposition to this.
“I don’t really feel any great delight though, because quite frankly this should never have got this far and has wasted a lot of people a lot of time and money
“What I do hope is that this sends a message to other local authorities that may be considering this sort of thing that they just won’t work!
“I hope it serves to strengthen the position of local newspapers and local journalists across the country.”
For further information, please contact Paul Sinker on 020 763 274 24 or sinkerp@newspapersoc.org.uk.