Legal and regulatory constraints

Handling of stories involving minors

If a radio station is reporting upon the stories involving the
proceedings of the youth court, the radio stations are not allowed to
report on certain subjects. The stations will not be able to report
upon the persons name, address, school, and may not show a
picture or detail what the persons looks like. This is because the law
requires that these stations be not allowed to identify the persons in
any way whatsoever. However, this is not always necessarily the
case as this is only with the youth court. In other courts there are no
actual automatic restrictions, however the court can make an order
to prevent the identification of the youth.

Contempt of court
The contempt of court is when it is deemed that somebody has
interfered with what is known as the administration of justice. The
administration of justice definition is The personnel, activity and
structure of the justice system - courts and police - in the detection,
investigation, apprehension, interviewing and trial of persons
suspected of crime [1]. Contempt of court may take place in several
different forms, but each will result in justice if it is not carried out
properly. Contempt of court is considered a very serious offence,
and could possibly result in multiple prison offences. For example,
2012 the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror were both fined 10,000
each after they covered background information upon a criminal in
which they were both reporting a case on. It was reported that what
was reported had gone far beyond what the jury had been told,
making it a serious contempt of court.

Libel and defamation

Libel and defamation is a law that can protect an individuals
reputation, allowing individuals to sue for the damage of their
reputation. Something can be deemed as defamatory if it; lowers
them in estimation of right-thinking members of the public; causes
them to be shunned or avoided; disparages them in their office,
trade, or profession; exposes them to hatred or contempt.

Coverage of elections
Impartiality is built into the Ofcom Broadcast Codes. It is detailed in
this that broadcasters must cover certain rules during election
periods. One of the rules in section six of Ofcoms code states that
Equal coverage must be given to all major parties during the
election period, and broadcasters must also give appropriate
coverage to other parties and independent candidates. The BBC are
the only ones who do not have to follow this as they are a public
service broadcaster, however they still do have their own
regulations on impartiality.

Official Secrets Act

This is a law use in every country that protects the governments

secrets that could potentially endanger the nation if released. A
prime example of this would be the 2010 Wikileaks scandal; in
November 2010 it was reported that Wikileaks had garnered major
amount of diplomatic cables, which was then reported to be able
for the public to download off the Internet. This has resulted in a
major public scandal and legal actions were required to take place
on the founder of the website.

News Values
Story Priority
Story priority is the order in which news stories are presented in a
broadcast. This is determined by the broadcasters, which can make
it a very controversial issue. For example on 11th June 2015 it was
revealed that the actor Christopher Lee had died at age 93. This had
become a very big news story, particularly because of how it was
one of the top stories on most broadcasters. Christopher Lee was
cited as one of the greats in acting, having critical acclaim with
almost all of his performances. This had meant that he had a
massive following, with a being on the home page on the BBC News
website. However on the same day, there was also a report that UN
peacekeepers were bartering goods for sex, however this was not
on the home page. It was not in clear sight, requiring for the readers
to have going to a very particular section to find the article. This is
an example of story priority that is a subject of great debate, as the
first article could be deemed as less important than the other. Some
people would argue that the article about the UN peacekeepers was
more significant than the death of Christopher Lee as it shows us
something that actually affects us as an audience. On the flipside,
though, some people would argue that the death of Christopher Lee
had more of an interest to wider audiences; Lee played such a
significant role in British film that his death would affect many
different people.

Immediacy
Immediacy is a report that is based upon a pre-existing report. One
of the primary goals for news broadcasters is to get the breaking
news, particularly important in the film industry news. It is regarded
as such a big thing to break news as it means that they are the first
peoples to report the news, meaning that they will have people
either listening, reading, or watching the news report on their
broadcast. When another newspaper wants to report something that
has already been broken, they will then take all the information they
need, report it, and give credit to the source that broke the piece.

Follow-up angles
This is when more news is reported on a story that already exists.
This will include more details on the story, any developing news,
reactions by the public etc. Follow up angles are reported on
practically on a daily basis, as many reports are further reports on
reports from earlier in the week.

Availability of audio
This is having audio clips to support news broadcast, which then
helps to add depth and reliability to the broadcast. It will enhance
the audiences understanding of the report as they can get an
understanding of what is going on by somebody with a specialist
perception. The audience can then understand that the story is
truthful, plus making the report more interesting.

Human interest
This is when a story is reported in an emotional way about a group
of people or individual. The audiences can then sympathize with the
people, in which the story is surrounding, adding to their
enhancement and understanding of the story. Primarily these kind of
stories will only have a specific target audience, or a niche
audience.

Public interest
This is a story that is reported in way that targets a large group of
people. These are the kind of stories that involve government
information, traffic reports etc.