Four legal dangers of links in articles and blogs — Sarah Hartley October 14, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentSummary of points from legal briefing, relayed by Sarah Hartley of MEN. Perhaps on the precautionary and technical end of the spectrum? (Fair enough.) She says in response to a comment: “It seems no org has yet been to court to make case law – stuff is being settled out of court.”
The four points boil down to:
“* A linking convention of opening in a new window will not save us if we do link to something defamatory or otherwise unlawful.
* Linking to a foreign site or article could lead to a contravention of a British court order.
* Never link into the archive for active cases.
* Be aware that the material being linked to could change from something safe to something less savoury.”
Liverpool Daily Post liveblogs Rhys Jones trial and banking crisis October 10, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : Journalism, News, Newspapers, Online, blogging, convergence, reporting , add a commentIt’s nearly a live broadcast of the trial — an impressive exercise in liveblogging by the Post (below), particularly given the legal restrictions on court reporting with which the paper’s reporters and editors have to comply. Reporter Ben Rossington seems to be including lots of details and quotes.
As the page notes at the top of the liveblog section,
Submitted comments cannot be published for legal reasons throughout the trial
(Are comments being submitted anyhow — to be published after the case, perhaps?)
I imagine there’s also a risk of having to edit material already published if, for example, the judge decides during the proceedings that a particular defendant must not be named.
Then there are the logistics, which must be easier where it’s a high-profile case (such as this) and proceedings are video-linked to a separate press area. Otherwise — assuming laptops are not permitted in the court itself — it would probably need a reporter to duck out of the gallery every so often and post from his shorthand notes.
Post editor Mark Thomas hasn’t had any responses so far to his blog request for feedback on the paper’s liveblogging. Deputy editor Alison Gow posted some interesting reflections on her experience of liveblogging at the Post last month, with some dos and don’ts. (If either of you would like to say more here about the Rhys Jones trial or bank crisis liveblog, please add comments.) The paper has used the technique to cover different events this year, including football matches and the giant spider robot La Machine.
The liveblog on the banking crisis (below) seems to be a joint effort with the Birmingham Post and The Journal (Newcastle), among others. Looking at the liveblog on the Post’s dedicated business site, I can see it’s been attracting a few comments — it would be fascinating to know the impact of either liveblog on the sites’ hits/pageviews. Both use the Cover It Live software.
The liveblog of the Rhys Jones trial isn’t the first time a UK paper has covered a case live (or as live as possible) — the Evening Star in Ipswich and the East Anglian Daily Times used similar methods earlier this year to report the trial of Steve Wright, with brief live updates.