Lesson video

Welcome to your lesson on responsible journalism.

My name's Mrs. Blachford, and I'm a citizenship teacher and I'm really excited 'cause today I'm going to be your citizenship teacher.

So for our lesson today, you are going to need a pen and some paper, and I would also really suggest that you find yourself a quiet space to work so that you're not going to be disturbed during the lesson.

So if you need to pause the video, to go and do that, please do so.

And then when you're ready and you're comfortable for us to get started, then please, just to start the video again.

So welcome, as I said earlier, to our lesson on responsible journalism.

So we're going to be looking at three things in our lesson today.

So we're going to look at what is a responsible journalist.

What does that mean? What does that look like? Then we're going to look at the responsibilities of the media.

And finally, we're going to look at how the media is regulated.

Now, if your a GCSE students this is a key part of your content for your GCSE as well.

So really important that you make notes as we go through today.

We are going to start our lesson today with a bit of a recap about what we did in the last lesson, where we looked at the role of the media in a democracy.

And this has some sentences and you have to choose the correct words from the bottom of the slide.

So I'll show you that now.

So here is the slide.

So this is the paragraph and you can see some words being blocked out.

We've got eight words at the bottom to fit into those eight gaps.

And it does say it's a recap on the role of the media in a democracy, which is an important learning point, because really it helps us to put the need for regulating the media and the need for responsible journalism in context, as we go through the lesson.

And so pause the video here.

And then add those key words.

So hopefully your paragraph reads like this: In a democracy, one of the key roles of the media is to ensure that the public are kept up to date with what is going on in society, this means that they can make informed decisions.

The electorate need to be able to hold their elected representatives to account for the decisions they make and their actions.

The media helps to do this as they scrutinise the government and others in positions of power.

The media also ensures that those in power are kept informed of public opinion on the important issues of the day.

Okay so as I say that sets the context for why it's so important to regulate the media and to also have responsible journalists.

Now, the first task I'm going to ask you to do on responsible journalism is get you having a think about what characteristics or values you would expect a responsible journalist to demonstrate.

And you can either list your ideas or you could use them to create a mind map.

So characteristics and values, before you have a go at this.

So characteristics is like a feature or a quality that belongs to a person.

And the value is the standards of behaviour we would expect.

In this case, we'd expect from a journalist.

So I might use the word, honesty.

I might expect my journalist to be honest in the reporting.

So pause the video here.

And remember, I'm asking you to write down your ideas about the characteristics or values you would expect a good journalist to demonstrate, and then you can resume once you've written your list.

Okay so I wonder how many of these you share with my list.

So characteristics and values that I think are important.

So journalists cannot always obviously guarantee the truth, but they need to try and get the facts right.

It's a basic principle of journalism.

They need to always strive for accurate reporting and try and give all the relevant facts they have and ensure too that they've checked those facts too.

If they can't corroborate information, they can't find another source, they can't check out the source then they need to be honest and say that in their report.

Fairness and impartiality.

So really in this point, we're talking about the idea to have both sides of the story.

There's no obligation for journalists to present every side in every piece, but stories should really be balanced and add context.

Can't always be objective.

And actually there's times when you might not want to be objective.

So if it's kind of a human rights abuse, you're not going to be objective.

But impartial recording reporting even builds trust and builds our confidence in journalists, as well.

Next one there's humanity.

So journalists shouldn't be doing any harm through the stories that they publish or broadcast.

Sometimes what they say might be hurtful, but they need to be aware of the impact that the words and images are going to have on the lives of others when they're reporting.

And that final point there about accountability.

So, responsible journalism is about the ability to hold themselves accountable for their actions and for their reports.

So if they have an error in their report, then they need to correct that error.

And also they need to be sincere in that regret that they have for the errors they've caused.

They need to listen to any concerns that their audience might have, and they might not change what, it might not change what they write but they should always provide remedies when they actually are unfair.

So I've got a quote for us now.

This is from John F.

Kennedy, John F.

Kennedy, U.

S.

President from January, 1961 until he was assassinated in November, 1963.

So his quote says: In a free and open society, there can be no place for secrecy, secret societies, secret oaths or secret proceedings.

We decided long ago that the concealment of the truth or pertinent facts and relevant information far outweigh the dangers which are cited to justify it.

So I just want you to pause for a moment and think about why John F.

Kennedy is supporting the work of the media here in this quote.

So, I think for me, what he's saying is that around the world there are many societies where the news might be censored, and debates stifled, so people can't express their opinions and views, and often mistakes get covered up.

And facts maybe that the public should have the right to know are being withheld.

And in parts of the world, the government ensures that policies are not published, they're hidden, they bury mistakes.

And anyone who disagrees with the governments are silenced, not praised for speaking out.

Nobody questions what money the government's spending.

Rumours get printed, secrets are kept secret.

Really, in a healthy democracy, John F.

Kennedy's saying here that no government should be afraid of being scrutinised for its plans or actions by the media, and also sort of scrutinised by those they represent as well, 'cause from that scrutiny, then we can understand, we can either support or we can oppose policies and views.

And both of those are necessary to promote debate and discussion and enable the public to make informed decisions.

For the media to be credible it has to take responsibility for getting its facts right.

And that can often mean digging deep, talking to a range of people to get different sides of the stories and checking facts rigorously.

The media really shouldn't hesitate to expose lies and corruption.

But it has to ensure that the facts that it is presenting are verified, they've checked them out, because you don't, what you don't want to do is be exaggerating or scaremongering, frightening people, just in order to sell newspapers.

Stories based on rumours or sourced from someone who maybe has an axe to grind are what makes people joke that you can't believe anything that you read in the newspaper or see on a TV reports.

So, they need to be accurate, and they need to fact check.

So you need to avoid that exaggeration and scaremongering, that helps to build trust in the information.

They need to be accountable as well.

They need to abide by the law.

They need to put their name on their work, and they need to be there holding those in power to account.

Let's say, they need to make sure that they are upholding the law, because if they drift into sort of law breaking, then again, the media can lose respect of its readers or respect of the public citizens who are looking to them for information.

And we'll come onto that in a case study that we're going to look at in our lesson today, They also have the responsibility to inform us, help us to understand issues, we said, abide by the law.

Report in a timely manner as well, let's publish the information quickly.

So we're going to look at how the media is regulated.

How is that responsibility kind of checked if you like? So the two major rules which are set out, which journalists are expected to follow.

So what we're looking at here is really print journalists, so, newspaper journalists, magazine journalists.

And we're going to look at two of those in detail.

That's the National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct and the Editor's Code of Practise.

Things like the BBC has its own rules and regulations to follow.

And that's set out in its Royal Charter.

And also looked after by an organisation called Ofcom, you're independent organisation, you look after broadcast media and regulate the broadcast media.

So we're going to be going through quite a bit of information now on the National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct and the Editor's Code of Practise and an organisation called IPSO.

So what I'm going to suggest you do, and I'll remind you as we go, but I'm going to suggest you pause the video after each of these key learning points and make some notes.

How you make those notes is up to you.

So it could be a mind map.

It could just be a bullet point list, however works best for you really.

So let's look at the NUJ, the National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct.

And the NUJ is the voice for journalists and journalism.

And it represents a broad range of media professionals.

So from broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, books, public relations, photographers, and also some of the new media, journalists in new media as well.

So if you remember back to our first lesson, that's things like and social media, like Twitter, for example.

The NUJ works to improve the paying conditions of its members.

It's their voice, really.

And anyone who joins the NUJ, so any journalists who join up, anyone involved in the media profession who joins has to sign and agree to follow the NUJ Code of Conduct.

And you can see a copy of that on the right hand side there.

But we're going to have a look at some of those on the next slide.

So NUJ Code of Conduct sets out, as I said, the rules for journalists to follow.

So here's some of those rules.

To uphold and defend media freedoms. That's the right to a free press, the right to publish opinion pieces, for example, to criticise those in positions of power.

Correct harmful inaccuracies.

So if they've mentioned in a story, a piece of information that's inaccurate, they need to correct that information.

They need to distinguish clearly between fact and opinion.

Need to be, if they're writing an opinion piece, it needs to be labelled as such.

They need to gather the material openly and honestly, so, you know, not paying a criminal to get information about a crime that's been committed, doing that openly, and honestly.

Not invading privacy unless required and appropriate.

So it might be there is a time and a place where we have to invade privacy in order to break a story that is in the public interest.

But that has to be kept to a minimum, it has to be appropriate, that invasion of privacy as well.

Protecting the identity of sources is important.

In some instances, if we know that harm could come to them, if we divulge who the source is, then that is something we need to be mindful of.

And not copying the work of fellow journalists.

We call this plagiarism, where we take somebody else's words and use them as our own, and not credit them for it.

So at this point, I'm going to ask you just to pause your video and write down some notes about the NUJ Code of Conduct.

And also just that key information that the NUJ is the voice for journalists and journalism.

And then when you've done that, you can press play again.

So, let's just check that we understand about the code of conduct.

So which of these actions would break the rules that we've just described? It's got four options to choose from.

Is it publishing a story from a source which later turns out to be false? Publishing a story which is an opinion piece on a government policy? Printing information which has not been fact checked for accuracy? Using another journalist's story but not giving them credit? Which of those would break the rules of the conduct that we looked at? Now I'm hoping you realise that actually two of these would go against those rules.

The first one, if you publish a story from a source which later turns out to be false, well, you didn't know that at the time, you printed it in good faith, but you would have to go back and obviously correct that information.

It's fine to comment on government policy.

So that's fine.

But it's not fine to print information which you haven't fact checked for accuracy as a journalist or to use another journalist's story and not give them credit, those two.

So option three and four, well done, if you had picked those two out.

We're going to look now at the Editor's Code of Practise.

The Editor's Code of Practise sets out rules that newspapers and magazines regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation or IPSO have to follow.

So it's sets the framework really for the highest professional standards that members of the press subscribing to IPSO have undertaken to uphold.

Actually it's a system of self-regulation.

So IPSOs the independent regulator for the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK.

They hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press.

Because membership of IPSO is optional not all journalists are required to follow these requirements.

So let's look at some of what is in the Editor's Code.

So it includes rules about accuracy of information.

The press must take care not to publish inaccurate or misleading or distorted information or images for that matter.

Respect, so respecting the privacy of individuals, everyone is entitled to the respect for his or her private life or family life, their health and their correspondence or anything, letters that they might write or receive.

And this also includes digital communications, as well.

So if it was emails, for example, that were sent, text messages or voicemails that have been left, this covers those as well.

Not intimidating or harassing people.

So, journalists can't engage or mustn't engage in intimidating people or harassing them or persistently pursuing them trying to get information from them.

They also shouldn't be intruding into people's grief or shock.

Now there's often cases which may involve somebody's personal grief or shock at an event that's happened.

And if journalists are making approaches for information, they need to be made with sympathy and discretion and to be handled really sensitively.

Discrimination, so the press should avoid being prejudice in their reference to somebody's race, their colour, their religion, their sex, their gender, their identity, their sexual orientation.

Or also to any physical or mental illness or disability that the person might have.

So trying to make sure that they again are sensitive.

If it's important to report about those characteristics, absolutely fine, if it's important to the story, but making sure that's done in a fair way.

Reporting has to be in the public interest as well, really important.

And that idea that if it's in the public interest it's something that should be revealed 'cause it's so important that it affects everybody as opposed to those things that people are interested in.

So we might be interested as members of the public in a story, doesn't mean it's in the public interest.

And this idea about confidential sources, that they have a moral obligation, journalists, to protect confidential sources of information.

And it might be that's because somebody might be put at risk or in harm's way if they reveal their identity.

So let's just focus then.

I've mentioned briefly about the public interest.

We're going to have a look at this in a little bit more detail now.

So, in the public interest, this is used when we're talking about people's rights to know the facts about a particular situation.

But it's really important that we separate what's in the public interest from those things members of the public are just interested in.

They are not necessarily the same thing.

So you might have lots of people in the public who are interest, for example, celebrity lives or popular culture.

And they're actually not as interested in perhaps the reality of public services and government policy.

But the potential for dramatic impact on people's lives makes the provision of those government policies or public services, like transport, education or health vital matters of public concern, they affect us all.

Just because the public's interested in something has nothing to do with whether it's in the public interest.

So the public interest is in making sure that we have safe, healthy, fully functioning societies.

So in a democracy, journalism plays a central role in that.

It gives people the information they need to take part in the democratic process.

So some of the things that might be included, things like detecting or exposing a crime, protecting the public from being misled, safeguarding public health and safety, discussing improper conduct by perhaps those in positions of power, for example, and identifying miscarriage of justice.

So maybe somebody has been wrongly accused and convicted of a crime and that needs to be publicly admitted, publicly exposed.

It's really important that you have a definition of what we mean by in the public interest and that comparison with, of interest to the public.

So what I'd like you to do now is to pause the video here and just make a note of what we mean by, in the public interest, some examples, and you can take them from this slide here of the sorts of things that we might deem to be in the public interest.

So likely you've got a note down of that and you've restarted the video.

So what I'm going to ask you to do now is to act as if you are the newspaper editor, and you're going to decide whether or not each of the following, I think we've got eight scenarios given on the following slides and whether or not they're in the public interest.

You've also got these scenarios on worksheet two that you can download.

So you might want to have that downloaded so you've got it beside you, that'd be absolutely fine.

Again, if you need to pause the video to do that, and you want that beside you, please do so, and then just start again when you are ready.

Let's have a look at the scenarios then.

So scenario one, and I'm going to give you about five seconds just to have a little bit of time to process that after each one.

And then we'll have a think about whether it's in the public interest or not.

So the first one, company testing medicine is suspected of cruelty to animals.

Public interest, not public interest? Okay, so for this one, hopefully, you have got that it is in the public interest.

So it might be a company that we're buying things from, medicines from, and we want to know if they've treated animals cruelly in the testing.

And there's very clear guidelines about how animals used in experiments are to be treated.

Scenario two, a reformed criminal wins the lottery.

In the public interest, not in the public interest? Well done if you said not in the public interest.

Again, it might be something we'd like to know.

We might have an opinion about it, but it's not in the public interest.

We don't need to know about it.

Scenario three, a celebrity has a drastic new hair style.

Again, this is something we might be interested in as members of the public, but it's not in the public interest.

Not going to affect our daily lives that a celebrity's had a new hairstyle, however drastic that might be.

Scenario four, then.

Products sold by a supermarket have been contaminated with bacteria.

In the public interest or not? Okay, so well done if you said this was in the public interest, Obviously if products are being contaminated with bacteria, members of the public might have bought those, and we need to make sure they know about it so that they don't use those products and can return them to the supermarket.

Okay, four more scenarios for us to look at then.

So scenario five, personal issues arise between two members of the Royal Family.

Is this in the public interest or not? Okay so, for this one, I would say it's not in the public interest.

Again, might be something we're interested in, but does not affect our daily lives.

Scenario six.

A politician awards a contract to a family member.

Public interest or not? So for this one, it is in the public interest.

Politicians are there as our elected representative.

So we need to be able to scrutinise what they're doing.

Now, it might be perfectly innocent, nothing wrong with the contract being awarded, but it needs to be done in a fair way.

Perhaps it's been open to tenders, so it's gone through a process of selection and that just needs to be open and fair.

We need to be able to scrutinise that.

Scenario seven, then.

A local council has overspent on its budget despite past warnings.

What do we think about this? Public interest or not public interest? So for this one, it is in the public interest because the money sent to local councils to spend comes from the public, whether that be in the form of council tax or whether it be in the form of government grants, that money is paid for by public taxes.

So therefore we need to know if they're underspending, underspending, overspending, either way actually on their budget, because actually it looks like they've already been warned about this and they've gone against that.

And then the final scenario, a celebrity's medical records.

So this one isn't in the public interest.

This would be an invasion of privacy if we published medical records of a celebrity.

Certainly if it was done without permission, because we don't need to know this, this isn't, again, it might be something we want to know about, but it does not affect our daily lives.

So it's not in the public interest.

Really well done if you got those right.

And it's really important as I say, that we are clear about public interest 'cause it's going to be a theme that runs through some of our lessons that follow this one, as well as the one today.

Just to recap, there then.

So these are the four articles that would be in the public interest.

And I've put a pause point here because it might be a good point here for you to add these as examples, just to remind you about what we mean by public interest, those things that affect us all.

Again, as I say, you might want to pause and just make a note of those.

And if you do so then just start again when you're ready.

So we're going to be looking at how the media is regulated as well today.

So here is a case study to help us do that.

So most people would agree that the media should be able to publish any story involving ordinary people, organisations, businesses, politicians, or celebrities, as long as it's accurate and going back to that previous task, it's in the public interest.

So people's privacy should only be invaded if it's required because it would be in the public interest.

So we're looking at a case study of the News of the World, which was a tabloid newspaper, which regularly featured stories about celebrities.

Between 2005 and 2011 a number of journalists who worked at the News of the World were investigated for hacking into the phones of certain people of interest to the newspaper.

In July, 2014, a former, editor Andy Coulson was found guilty of conspiring to hack mobile phones and was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.

On July the 10th, 2011 the News of the World ceased publication because of this phone hacking scandal that they'd been involved in.

So in 2011, the government set up the Leveson Inquiry, so it was led by Lord Justice Leveson.

And he was looking specifically into press conduct.

The Leveson Inquiry heard evidence about the culture, the practises, the ethics of the media and the role of the media in a modern society.

With lots of celebrities, including people like Elton John Hugh Grant, they were part of the phone hacking, they'd had their phones hacked.

And information was then released in the form of stories within the newspaper.

And they settled their court cases against the publisher of the News of the World.

So they were given a payment, damages we would call that because of the harm that had been done to them.

And because of the fact the information was got through means which were not appropriate, hacking into those phones.

The report made recommendations about how the press should be regulated.

But actually there was disagreement with the recommendations from many newspaper owners and editors.

And what that did was it led to the establishment of their own independent body.

And we talked about it earlier and it was IPSO.

And that self-regulates most of the newspapers in the UK.

So I want us just pause at this point and reflect upon the News of the World hacking scandal.

And I just want you to do some thinking around this.

So I'd like you to consider some of the questions below and use these to help shape your thinking.

So four points I'm going to ask you to start thinking about: Can hacking voicemails ever be justified? Was it right for the newspaper to be shut down? Should those responsible have been punished further? And does media regulation go far enough? So I want you to use those questions to help shape your thinking.

And then you could talk that through with someone at home or a classmate maybe that you're in touch with and compare your ideas on those four points there.

So just to remind you then, you're going to pause the video here and you're going to reflect on the News of the World hacking scandal, and you're going to use the questions and you can find those questions again on the worksheet.

And that would help you shape your thinking around that scandal.

And as I said, remember to talk it through with someone at home or a classmate you're in touch with and share your ideas on those 'cause actually you might not agree on these and it'd be good to hear each other's viewpoints on that.

So I hope you've enjoyed the lesson, found the tasks interesting and insightful, and also I hope you've completed all the tasks as we've gone.

And you should now hopefully be able to do the following things, so let's just check in and make sure you can.

Can you describe the characteristics of a responsible journalist? Can you explain the media's responsibilities? And can you explain how the media is regulated? Thanks very much for taking part in the lesson today.

It's been really wonderful to be able to work with you.

If you're able to, please, could you take a picture of your work and ask your parent or carer to share it with your teacher so they can see all the fantastic things you've learned today.

And if you'd like to ask your parent or carer to send a picture of you work to @OakNational on Twitter, and then I'll be able to see your lovely work, too.

That would be really cool.

Thank you very much if you can do that.

And then just one final thing, well done for taking part in the lesson, but don't forget to complete the exit quiz now.

And good luck with that.

All that's left for me to say is thank you.

Take care and enjoy the rest of your learning for today.