Free Press Case Study: Britain's Secret Trials

Where:
Old Bailey

When:
2014

What is happening:

• Two men accused of a terror plot will go into the dock at the Old Bailey in weeks.
• For undisclosed reasons of national security their identities, as well as details of their alleged crimes, will not be heard in public
• Prior to yesterday, the media was banned from even reporting that the trial of the two men, known only as AB and CD, was due to take place in conditions of total secrecy.
• AB is accused of ‘engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts’.
• Both men are accused of possessing terrorist documents, including a file named ‘bomb making’ held on a memory stick. CD faces a fourth charge under immigration laws of improperly obtaining a British passport.
• Senior prosecutors claim the trial may not go ahead if it has to be held in public.
• But they have refused to disclose publicly the need for total secrecy.
• The trial would be the first criminal case to be held behind closed doors for hundreds of years
• Unless the appeal succeeds, journalists will be banned from being present in court to report the proceedings on 16 June or the outcome of the trial
• The evidence on which the crown relied to argue for the secret trial could not be presented in open court, he added. Whittam instead presented the evidence in private to the appeal court judges during part of the hearing on Wednesday

Free Press's importance:

• The very existence of the trial can be disclosed today only because media groups fought to have the reporting restrictions lifted
• The casting aside of the centuries-old doctrine of open courts sparked anger last night.
• ‘To hold trials entirely in secret is an outrageous assault on the fundamental principles of British justice,’ said Clare Algare of Reprieve.
• ‘This Government’s dangerous obsession with secret courts seems to know no bounds. Unless it is resisted, we risk ending up with a justice system that will not be worthy of the name.’
• Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, said: ‘For a parliamentary democracy with our reputation for a fair legal system, this sets a very dangerous precedent.
• The Court of Appeal was urged by the media groups’ lawyer to restrict the secrecy order because it represented a ‘totally unprecedented departure from the principles of open justice’.
• Justice Secretary Chris Grayling insisted it was a 'matter for the courts' but stressed sitting in secret should be 'very, very rare indeed'.
• Not Transparent
• This appeal raises important issues relating to not only the constitutional principle of open justice, but also the equally important principle of fairness and natural justice
• The Official Secrets Act enables cases to be heard behind closed doors but the legislation is rarely used in this way
• Without press we wouldn't know secret trial was taking place

Shami Chakrabati, director of Liberty, condemned the secrecy, saying "Transparency isn't an optional luxury in the justice system – it's key to ensuring fairness and protecting the rule of law.

How Film Censorship Has Changed in the UK

Current technology makes it effectively impossible to censor the written word, theatre censorship was abolished in 1968, and there has never been any systematic regulation of other art forms - anyone seeking to clamp down on such events must mount a private prosecution, a lengthy and expensive process.

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• the British Board of Film Classification was originally founded in 1912 as the British Board of Film Censors
• BBFC guidelines are based on two main factors: legal requirements (for instance, unsimulated animal cruelty, indecent images of children) and the BBFC's own policies 
• Current context-based system where artistic merit is a key factor in assessing individual films
• This is controversial, due to the inevitable inconsistency. Some films are treated much more leniently than others with very similar content, as a result of largely subjective judgements by a handful of people
• But means a number of important films being passed either uncut or with a milder age restriction
• A side-effect of its stated commitment to greater openness is that it is now easy to find out if films have been cut in their British versions and current technology makes it equally simple to order uncut and unclassified videos and DVDs from elsewhere
• When video was introduced in the late 1970s, there was no specific legislation governing its content and major distributors were reluctant to get involved with a medium they considered vulnerable to piracy, meant small independent companies to flood the market with low-budget horror films and lurid advertising campaigns
• Most had little or no artistic merit, though there was an inclusion of work to be withdrawn by respected genre practitioners Dario Argento, Wes Craven, Lucio Fulci and Tobe Hooper, arthouse auteurs Andrzej Zulawski and Paul Morrissey, and the then unknown Abel Ferrara
• May 1982 article in the Sunday Times headed "How high street horror is invading the home". This theme was enthusiastically taken up by the tabloid press, creating what Martin Barker has called a 'moral panic'
• 194 Criminal Justice Act which added a clause covering potential harm "caused to potential viewers or, by their behaviour, to society" by material dealing with "criminal behaviour, illegal drugs, violent behaviour or incidents, horrific behaviour or incidents or human sexual activity"
• This was because of the result of the 1994 Newson Report, which alleged that violent videos were capable of causing psychological damage, especially to impressionable children
• This report wrongly suggested that a definitive link had been established, with Newson merely drawing inferences from individual case studies and her case studies were sourced from often highly speculative accounts in the press rather than independent first-hand research
• In the post-war years it was fears of social unrest that were near the top of the agenda.
• The history of British film censorship is as much social as cultural: the reasons films were banned in the 1920s (revolutionary politics) and 1950s (nudity) say as much about the society of the time as anything in the films

• In our era of far greater equality the BBFC is noticeably tougher on sexual violence today than it was thirty years ago, though correspondingly much more relaxed about most other issues

• As the nation relaxed into the 1960s, nudity becomes a prime concern. 
• The early 1970s saw film-makers keen to push at the limits of acceptability.
• Viewed from 2011, many of the board's decisions seem odd, quaint even, and we are able to see many of the scenes originally deemed unacceptable on DVD reissues.
• In the 1980s the board changed its name from British Board of Film Censors to that of Film Classification and it was levels of violence that capture the attention.

Read More:
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/445733/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15107384

Censorship Case Study: The Wild One

Problems:

• Disrespect to figures of authority
• Contempt
• Brando was seen as imitable
• Thought it reflected Teddy Boys at the time

BBFC's Response:

• Called a 'spectacle of unbridled hooliganism'
• Didn't issue a certificate
• Columbia desperate for it to be shown
• Related to subject as whole - thought it would be difficult to cut
• Ban stuck until 1967

Then 'Rebel Without A Cause' passed as 'X' which then limited not just the audience (over 16) but also the cinemas that were prepared to show it - BBFC did't want children to witness 'ridiculous and ineffectual parents'

Noam Chomsky on the media

What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream - Z Magazine, October, 1997

• Different media directs the mass audience - hollywood, soap operas, certain newspapers, while some media outlets target the elite/privileged such as CBS and The New York Times
• These elite media outlets influence the others
• Real mass media is trying to divert people from the important issues to sport, celebrities etc, leaving the elite outlets to focus on the important stuff
• Media outlets often owned by big companies, making them part of the existing system
• Media is a doctrinal system
• Work with universities who give them things to say
• All different institutions are not independent - depend on support
• Press owned by wealthy people who don't want certain things to reach the public
• Media outlets sell a product and that product is audience - selling product to market and advertisers
• Reflects the interests of the power systems around them
• Not purposeful censorship, but people with subversive views don't advance to the top of the system
• Mass audience supposed to be the observers not the participants

Other Quotes:

“If the media were honest, they would say, Look, here are the interests we represent and this is the framework within which we look at things. This is our set of beliefs and commitments. That’s what they would say, very much as their critics say. For example, I don’t try to hide my commitments, and the Washington Post and New York Times shouldn’t do it either. However, they must do it, because this mask of balance and objectivity is a crucial part of the propaganda function. In fact, they actually go beyond that. They try to present themselves as adversarial to power, as subversive, digging away at powerful institutions and undermining them. The academic profession plays along with this game.”

"The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

"Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business…the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products."

"You don’t have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system – a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as “Commissars” – for that is what their essential function is – to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies."

“Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for meaningful democracy.” 

Comparison of the PPC and the BBFC

• Both independent from the government
• PCC regulate after media content been published, BBFC before - although with internet this could change
• Need BBFC's permission whereas PCC has a more limited remit
• Both funded by industry - newspapers signed up to the PCC pay in money according to their circulation and distributors pay to have their films classified
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Film Classification Case Study: The Hunger Games

BBFC's classification:

When: 23/03/2012

Ratings Process: It was initially given a 15 rating and during post-production, the distributor (Lions gate UK Ltd) sought and was given advice on how to secure the desired classification. Following this advice, certain changes were made prior to submission, and 7 seconds were cut to reduce an emphasis on blood and injury.

The cuts were implemented by digitally removing sight of blood splashes and sight of blood on wounds and weapons, and were made in accordance with BBFC Guidelines and policy. These reductions were implemented by a mixture of visual cuts, visual darkenings and the digital removal of sight of blood.

The trailers had been given PG and U ratings as did not show much of the violent arena scenes.

Issues: intense threat, moderate violence and occasional gory moments

Response to Classification:

Who: Daily Mail campaigned against the Hunger Games' 12A rating, parents posting complaints on Mumsnet and social media

Why: Some parents have complained the film scenes of murder and bloodshed were too graphic to be appropriate for children and suggested it should be rated 15.  

Examples: Scenes that have upset some parents include one where a girl screams for her life as she stung to death by killer wasps, another when a young child is skewered with a spear, another battered with a brick and scenes were piles of bodies lay fallen after bloody battles between the combatants. 

BBFC's reason for classification: ‘The company chose to make cuts in order to achieve a ‘12A’ classification.When the finished version of the film was submitted for formal classification, cuts had been made in four scenes of violence and in one scene showing details of injuries. These reductions were implemented by a mixture of visual cuts, visual darkenings and the digital removal of sight of blood.

Case Study: The Financial Times' Regulation

Why interesting: Was part of PCC, decided not to join IPSO or get involved in Royal Charter, but to regulate itself

Who's in charge: Lionel Barber (its editor) who says its system will be will be "accountable, credible, robust and highly adaptable to meet the pace of change in our industry."

Why?

• They say that 'The FT has established a track record for treading its own path at a time of wrenching change in the news business'
• The FT has 'consistently taken decisions which have marked a break with established industry practice when it is the right thing to do for our readers and business'
• It 'reflects the FT's standing as an increasingly digital news operation with a global footprint'
• IPSO and Royal charter are national systems of media regulation, whereas the Financial Times's audience is more international, with 'more than three-quarters of our readers are now outside the UK. Our main competitors are global news organisations, each of whom applies its own system of independent regulation'
• FT "has been a long-standing member of the Press Complaints Commission' and their exemplary record 'shows that in the overwhelming majority of cases the FT has been exonerated from criticism' (only one ruling against the paper out of only 7 cases)
• 'Every newspaper and news group must make their own choice regarding regulation'

What will this self regulation look like?

• appointment of an ombusdman-style person, called an editorial complaints commissioner, who will be independent of the editor
• 'set up a new mechanism to handle reader complaints in the event that they feel our internal procedures fail to provide an adequate response or redress'
• creating a new position of editorial complaints commissioner
• The remit and reporting line will be set out in a public advertisement in due course. The successful candidate will be appointed by a three-person committee

Views on this: 

• Hacked off The public already know that Ipso is nothing more than a shabby facsimile of the discredited PCC. The FT's announcement today that it won't join demonstrates that Ipso will have even less credibility than the failed self-regulator it replaces.
• Roy Greenslade (who predicted this) 'unsurprised but the other major players who have yet to sign contracts with Ipso - The Guardian and The Independent - may not follow suit'
• Scottish Newspaper Society director and Ipso supporter John McLellan “It’s disappointing but not entirely unexpected. The rest of the industry will await with interest to see how the FT’s new in-house system deals with its first significant complaint.”

Social Issues That Affect Media Regulation

• Changing audience consumption
• Changing social attitudes to sex, drugs, violence - more relaxed
• More worried about internet
• Emphasis on classification rather than censorship at bodies like the BBFC
• More concerned about sexual violence, imitable use of weapons, self harm
• More openness, less secrecy
• More concerned with social equality
• Harm test

Film 

• Scapegoat for societal problems
• Moral panics
• Increased illegal consumption via the internet - unregulated and not restricted by age ratings
• nanny state?
• art pushing boundaries
• better understanding of how children consume films/its effect on them

Press 

• Need to protect free press
• freedom of speech
• press's role in democracy
• 'public right to know'
• Phone hacking scandal
• Globalisation
• Internet and self-regulation
• Citizen journalism
• Super-injunctions

Different Views on the Future of Press Regulation

Steven Barnett:

• Press campaign to try to paint charter as intruding into press freedom
• an all-party agreement built around a Royal Charter which could, for the first time, provide a mechanism for effective, independent and enduring self-regulation of the press
• Parliament standing up to the corporate might of some very powerful media enterprises
• press focused on celebs to cover up other transgressions
• three crucial ingredients: a Board which is independent of influence either from the industry or from politicians; a speedy complaints process for complainants; and a Code of Conduct which will spell out the boundaries of what is acceptable—just as the Press Complaints Commission code does now—but which, crucially, will include ordinary working journalists rather than being controlled entirely by editors, define public interest exceptions to breaches of the Code rather than leaving them – as now—vague and inchoate

David Cameron:
warned the press that it runs the risk of facing "hideous statutory regulation" in the future if the Independent Press Standards Organisation declines to seek recognition under the terms of the new royal charter.

Should join now before a less liberal government forces new regulations on the press

Not a press law

Ryan J Thomas:

• Since emerging from the shadow of the Star Chamber, however, the British press has long been operationally free.


• In the 20^th century, a series of crises of media ethics and the emergence of the strictly regulated broadcasting industry prompted the formation of the General Council in 1953 as an industry regulator. The General Council began under a non-binding framework, tasked with shepherding the press to a more ethical performance after a lapse in public trust in the media. Funded by newspaper proprietors and staffed by newspaper editors, the General Council was created as an alternative to the specter of statutory regulation, establishing a trend that would last for over fifty years.


• 2004, when journalists from the Daily Express approached the PCC with claims that they were being pressured to write racist articles
• early 2011, the Express Group of newspapers and magazines opted-out altogether of the PCC, meaning that members of the public have no recourse if they are aggrieved by the content of an Express Group publication

Gordon Rayner:

Sir David Calcutt QC:
In 1993 complained that the PCC was “in essence, a body set up by the industry, financed by the industry, dominated by the industry, and operating a code of practice devised by the industry and which is over-favourable to the industry.”



John Mann: (Labour MP):

• Maria Miller should be stripped of her responsibility for determining the future of press regulation, the MP who triggered the investigation into her expenses has said
• The Culture Secretary has repeatedly said that newspapers should not be allowed to police themselves when it comes to implementing Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations for a new regulatory body. 
• “It is ironic that you have MPs self-regulating and self-policing themselves while Maria Miller, the MP they were taking this decision about, is the very minister responsible for taking decisions on self-regulation of the press.

Roy Greenslade: http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade+press-regulation

• Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, and another man similarly plucked from obscurity, Sir Hayden Phillips
• Phillips one is a former supreme court judge, its founding president no less. Phillips two is a former senior civil servant
• according to the report presented by Lord Justice Leveson back in November 2012, the appointment panel "should contain a substantial majority of members who are demonstrably independent of the press"
• the panel seeking a candidate for the £150,000-a-year post are hoping to avoid appointing a peer or anyone connected with politics
• Some publishers and editors who have yet to sign Ipso contracts are said to be waiting to see who it is before deciding whether to jump aboard - The Guardian, The Independent (which includes the London Evening Standard) and the Financial Times
• Ipso is no different in structure than the PCC and it's purse-strings will be in the hands of the Regulatory Funding Company, and its powers are weighted towards those groups that pay the largest fees
• It will be a publishers' club in which the better-off members will dictate how that club is to be run
• Worse, it is a club that will be impossible to leave because it binds those who sign its contracts to a five-year deal
• Criticizes the PCC's criticism of The Guardian for daring to publish stories about phone-hacking at the News of the World (while letting the hacking paper off the hook) and apparently Under Ipso, The Guardian would have to accept it
• One key Ipso extra's future is in doubt, the piloting of a potentially useful arbitral arm, as is not endorsed by several publishers
• Unlikely to use its huge fines
• not genuine reforms of the previously discredited system
• the alternative is joining Impress which will seek recognition under the royal charter which is influenced by Hacked Off
• The charter could, however, be amended by politicians
• The three abstaining bodies could set up their own regulator which would temporary and would have to pay the costs of staffing, but he doesn't think the Financial Times would do that
• The financial Times would probably not want any part of Ipso nor a regulator recognised under the royal charter especially as they see themselves as an international newspaper as it sells more print copies in the United States than in Britain and is read more widely outside the UK
• He likes the idea of handling complaints in-house, through a Guardian-style Readers' Editor or an internal ombudsman which Private Eye has always done
• Leveson did not recommend the royal charter (he preferred Ofcom)
• Ipso is only about the freedom of publishers, not the public
• A charter-recognised regulator offers freedom circumscribed by the state and that, by definition, is not press freedom

Peter Preston: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/12/hacked-off-harangue-ipso

• Thinks its 'absurd' that Lord Phillips is choosing people involved in IPSO
• lay members from high positions and journalists on IPSO's new board - ratio is 4:2
• Thinks Hacked Off's criticisms miss the point - hysterical
• the means of monitoring its performance still needs tightening
• If people like the two Phillipses can't be trusted to appoint new superintendents of press regulation, it is hard, frankly, to see who can
• One of the 'lay members' in Lord Brown who was involved in surveillance - what about revelations about government spying?
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Hacked Off

• the appointment panel fails to meet Leveson's criteria which stated that it must contain a "substantial majority of members who are demonstrably independent of the press."
• shows the newspaper companies' utter contempt for the very idea of independence
• not transparent
• IPSO includes a serving editor [Witherow] employed by Rupert Murdoch who has displayed an extraordinary bias against the public in his papers' coverage of press affairs
• exactly the kind of shifty operating that made the PCC such a disgrace
• whoever is nominally in charge of Ipso will be the puppets of the big news publishers, just as the PCC was
• Mr Murdoch, the Mail and the Telegraph have ensured that they will hold the purse strings and call the shots. 
• the PCC was run for the benefit of the press, rather than the public. The same is true of the Ipso project
• he newspaper industry needs to do to win the public's trust is to establish a self-regulator that meets the basic standards recommended by Leveson and embodied in the royal charter
• Royal charter not allowed to be meddled with by politicians so press will remain independent

Hayden Phillips:

• wide range of candidates of quality and experience will come forward to serve on such an important new national institution

Ian Hislop:

• Private Eye not criticised in the Leveson Trials but will be forced to join new system which will penalize it
• If journalists break the law should be taken to court - all major incidents were breaches of the law - contempt of court, hacking law, the law needs to be observed
• as soon as the door is open it might be hard to shut
• Watchdog appointed by the establishment
• Freedom of press threatened
• Not just 'bogus right wing lunatics' who are protesting
• Private Eye criticises press so didn't join the PCC
• Hacked Off too close to Royal Charter

Johnathan H (of Impress)

• IMPRESS would not necessarily seek recognition under the Charter
• aim to be recognisable but only to seek recognition if the founding members wished to do so
• agree with free speech groups like Article 19 that the Charter does not in itself pose a threat to press freedom, and that any risks in the Crime and Courts Act can be mitigated
• many journalists are uncomfortable with the post-Leveson framework
• if recognition under the Charter was a deal-breaker,then could find another way of ensuring the regulator's independence and effectiveness
• IMPRESS has the added advantage not 'belonging' to the newspapers being regulated

Ed Mliliband: Too long we've had a system were the press have been marking their own homework

Christopher Jeffries: (wrongly accused of Joanna Yates murder)

• Royal Charter will work
• amendment will give it legislative force
• impossible to be watered down unless there is a 2/3s majority in Parliament - Hacked Off, Labour and Lib Dems wanted

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Case Study: Human Centipede 2

Why interesting: Could only be released after cuts of two minutes and 37 seconds of cuts during eight sequences of the film



Classification:

• rare step of refusing to give it a rating, warning that it could fall foul of obscenity laws
• tried to justify the film as "art"
• film's distributor agreed to 32 cuts to gain an 18 certificate for DVD release
• Even so, one member of the board felt he was unable to back the decision. Gerard Lemos, one of the BBFC's vice presidents, did not feel it was classifiable and abstained from putting his name to the decision
• The film was also banned in Australia for a short period of time. It is banned in New Zealand.

Plot:

An obsessed horror movie fan grafts a number of people together for kicks

the BBFC said: "There is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience."

It added that the film breached classification guidelines and "poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers"

cuts related to "sexual violence, graphic gore and the possibility of breach of the law relating to obscenity"

Response:

Director Six responded to the BBFC's decision in a statement released the next day to Empire magazine. Six criticised the BBFC for including film spoilers in their report, and stated that the film was "...fictional. Not real. It is all make-belief (sic). It is art..." and that viewers should be able to choose for themselves whether or not they decided to view the film. Six also referred to the BBFC's refusal to classify the film as "exceptional".

The notoriety of the UK ban has been used to help market the film in other countries

Researching Media Regulation

Press:

PCC:
Pressure Groups:
http://hackinginquiry.org/
http://www.theguardian.com/media/hacked-off-campaign
http://mediastandardstrust.org/projects/hacked-off/

http://www.theguardian.com/media/press-regulation

The leveson inquiry:  http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http:/www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15686679
http://www.theguardian.com/media/leveson-inquiry
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/leveson-inquiry/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/

Film:

BBFC: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/
http://www.cbbfc.co.uk/what-bbfc

Changes to ratings: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-bbfc-has-announced-new-film-classifications-for-teens-but-can-the-ratings-war-be-won-9062688.html
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/aug/30/filmnews.filmcensorship
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/13/bbfc-wants-age-rating-system-introduced-online-videos

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25684461

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/19/bbfc-change-film-certs-here-are-mine

http://www.southhillpark.org.uk/1012/cinema/bbfc-classification-18.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/pat-higgins/bbfc-killing-independent-film_b_5000755.html

http://www.empireonline.com/features/sex-and-censorship-bbfc

Social Media:

Twitter:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/turkey-blocks-twitter-prime-minister

Media Effects:

http://www.mediawatchuk.com/

http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html

http://rsa.revues.org/839

Media Education:

http://www.mediawatch.com/