Legal and ethical constraints of the media industry

The video Recording act.

First introduced in 1984 this is an act that meant that all new film had to
be rated before selling it also stated that any already released videos had
to be rated within 2 months or they could no longer be sold in shops. This
was put in place mainly to protect young people from picking up possibly
dangerous films including dark themes and nudity. They put in a system
that was aged based to if a film was rated 18 it could not be sold to
anyone under 18.
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/education-resources/studentguide/legislation/video-recordings-act

The copyright act

This is a law that stop the stealing of creative content. It is important in
the Journalism industry because it stops one newspaper or magazine
stealing anothers content like photos or even an entire piece of writing. It
purpose it to protect creative content as this can be easily stolen all you
have to do is copy it so it must be protected, it also encourages original
content so papers will post original stories and thus you each is more
unique and interesting. It mainly protects smaller journalism firms as with
a low number of readers they could have content stolen and no one would
even realise so this law means that they can protect their work and this
helps with growth in a small paper or magazine. If it is broken and your
work has been copied for example you can file a copyright complaint
yourself and get compensation or sue, also there are organisation like
Ofcom who monitor publications and can launch an inquiry or take the
guilty party to court and then legal action can be taken they might be
fined or sued or in extreme cases with repeat offenders you the paper can
be shut down. In order to protect your work you can credit it to you or your
paper/magazine and images themselves can be copyrighted.

https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/uk_law_summary
An example of copyright infringement is the case between Art Rodgers
and Jeff Coons, the story is as such Rodgers produced a photograph of a
couple holding some puppies in 1985 than in 1988 Coons made a statue
of recreating the photo and sold several making a significant profit, when
Rodgers discovered this he sued Coons for copyright and took him to
court. In the end Rodgers was successful and Coons had to pay him a
monetary settlement. This is an example of copyright infringement
involving photography; which is relevant today to journalism as photos are
used in the journalism industry. This is an example of what can happen if
you use someone elses photo in an article for example.

http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/04/19/5-famous-copyrightinfringement-cases/

The films act.

Put in place in 1985 It replaced the previous law that allowed the taxation
of box office revenue in order to fund the BFI (British film industry) thus
giving funding to anyone else that wanted to make a film, once this was
abolished in 1985 it was harder to find funding for films. They still taxed
you just to record a film in the UK until 2012 that was dropped in 2012 to
encourage British film makers to film in Brittan. There are now private
funding agencies like Creative England who can help you get funding for a
film.

The importance of ethical issues

For this sector I will primarily be focusing on the newspaper the Sun because it is
infamous for its questionable attitude towards ethical issues.
The sun doesnt necessarily use bad language but they use certain words to sell
the stories in a way that you couldnt really call ethical. The main way they sell
stories using fear, all the time they use word like Terror and Terrorist to scare
people when the stories they post are always exaggerated and they dont have
any evidence to back it up.

Like this story for example they have no evidence that there was a plot to
kill the queen they are just playing on GBs strong sense of patriotism.
They try to make you scared tell you theres terrorists everywhere so that
they can then feed you stories about terrorism and people will buy the
sun just out of fear. The reality is most likely there was no PLOT TO KILL
THE QUEEN if there had been a real assassination attempt it would be
the first in over 100 years and real terrorist dont use knifes they were
probably just muggers arrested around Albert hall. They state that they
had access to guns and bombs that isnt true because if they had guns
and bombs why would they use a knife, you couldnt get 100 from the
Queen let alone close enough to stab her. This is the sort of way that they
get readers, they dont spend time or money to bother writing good
stories they just jump to conclusions also notice how they hardly show any
text on the front page because the story is probably rubbish they just
hope you pick it up and pay for it without even opening it. Finally the tone
of this story is really offensive to the Queen herself. if they genuinely think
there was an attempt on the queens life; then the fact they have an
attempt on the queen life on one hand an event which is literally history in

the making and then on the other side Jamie

Oliver 2 exclusive recipes for epic roasts its
as if they are saying our entire country was
almost shattered by two guys with pen knifes
but dont worry heres a cookbook its
ridiculous!
Now when it comes to equal opportunitys the
sun is terrible, for start the general attitude
towards woman is well medieval and it starts at
the top out of the 12 seat board of directors 3
of them are women and almost all of them are
high rolling ex-prime ministers, politicians and
ex heads of media restriction companies. They
are literally all members of the Elite, they
board of directors just seem to be a way of
Murdoch making connections that you wouldnt
exactly call legitimate, corruption is almost key to the running of the
system. There is no way to work your way up from management and there
is no equality about any of the opportunities the job goes to the highest
bidder.

Now the worst of the suns ethically questionable spree is the way it seems
to despise diversity. Its not just the way that they user language like
Terrorist to make you scared they are always talking about immigrants
and how they destroy the economy this of course is ridiculous in fact its a
complete lie immigrants actually contribute 5 billion to the UK economy
they use what is borderline racism to distract you from the real reason the
UK was bad it because all of the elite are hoarding all the money, but
News Corp is run by the elite so they want to shift the blame to other to
hide their greed. And thats just the subtle destruction of equality theres
also the pure unbridled sexism, it in every paper on only the third page.
Page 3 is quite frankly disgusting I cant show because the Collage
computer block the images but you can imagine. The fact that they can
objectify women like that an outrage, and can imagine if there was a
paper showing equally vulgar pictures of men it would be shunned, there
is no way there will be any measure of true equality as long as the sun still
publishes its foul proper gander.
Having looked at the suns outrageous ethical approach I see how vital it is
to keep the peace as the sun does all the this and is constantly being
legally attacked and the only reason they still stand is the fact that they
dont actually do anything strictly illegal but if a newspaper that wasnt
owned by a multi-billion conglomerate they would be shut down but with
all his money and friends in the right places Murdoch seems to be holding
all the cards.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/media/62373/rupert-murdochs-news-corpavoids-us-corruption-charges
just to show you what I mean this is a story about how Murdoch avoided a
corruption charge after an FBI investigation, now he was not charged
which is most strange because the FBI dont just do a full investigation
because they think something is fishy they usually have to have evidence
which means that there is a rather high chance Murdoch was breaking the
law. But he got off scot free, doesnt that seem a little odd. Theres a
chance he was innocent but it seems more likely he just has his fingers in
all the right pies meaning he may have used corruption to get off a
corruption charge and no one even bats an eye lid because of his
enormous corporate wallet. So not only is sun unethical on the surface it is
corrupt and rancid to the highest level. In a world where freedom goes to
the highest bidder and youre impact on the laws and governments of the
land you call home is determined by your gender and your check book. In
a world like this every journalist, paper and media based corporation must
be whiter than white or the whole thing fall apart and in the day comes
when these words ring true there will always be a dark presence of
corruption, inequality and injustice in the journalism sector; that is why it
is so important to be as ethical and fair as the sky is blue.

Gender equality in journalism.

Now without jumping straight into the infinitely grave fathoms of sexism
that is the sun its not the only culprit and it isnt necessarily the worst.
Hello magazine is pretty much a factory for low self-esteem, as a primarily
female orientated magazine they should really be more responsible when
talking about figure. The first brick in the wall of misoginism is the fact
that they always portray women in a way that is only about appearance,
with all the celebrity stories they only seem to focus on the way look
either how great they look or that they dont look great enough, like they
have a say in what they look like. Then theres the cornerstone of the
wholes thing they set their standards so high for appearance as they pick
away at every little flaw in a celebs look like shallow prospectors digging
away at the dust of self-esteem. They make normal people feel like they
should meet these standards when it is impossible because the celebrities
have one thing in their wardrobe that no one has walking down the street.
Photoshop. They pick on women and only talk about appearance readers
might not even realise it but this is genuinely sexism. They dont talk
about men much at all on the whole web page there is no more than 3
articles about men, so they dont practise equality.
They make woman feel week like there not good enough, this is also
coupled by the fact they are obsessed with fitness and talk about the
ideal weight they put pressure on women to be slim and this objectifies
them, making them feel inferior.

Examples of this are in every fashion or lifestyle

magazine.
Look at this example they talk about the Wrights
expensive honeymoon just to rub it in readers
faces that they cant afford that, this could make
female readers feel sad because they cant have an
as fancy honeymoon.

this is another example, so Amanda Holden makes

a joke an innuendo and it make the news and is
taken as saucy and raunchy. This is gender
inequality because if a male presenter said this
none would care at all but because shes a woman
it is suddenly saucy and make the news because
they know people will be drawn to any story with
the words Amanda Holden and raunchy
because people find her attractive.

Representation of religious beliefs

The sun is the worst by far when it comes to
religion. The amount they attack Islam is crippling
to the Muslim population they spread
Islamaphobia like a virus; they blame them for
everything, they insult there food and they make
people fear them. All just because of what they
believe, this is similar to the way that the Nazi
party manipulated the Germanic people to fear
and dislike the Jewish population in the several
years leading up the Holocaust. Now Im not
saying the sun are like Nazis that would be ridiculous but they are playing
a dangerous game!

How should men and women be treated?

Well the answer to that question is simple, equally. We live in a modern
world men and woman are the same, there is almost nothing a man can
do that a woman cant. We have had a woman prime minister in the UK I
agree she wasnt the most loved leader in history but that was not
because of her sex. My point is that in a world where men and woman are
more equal than ever it is still important to move further toward true
equality, well as true as we can because there will always be an attitude
of sexism to fight because of this it is so important for a newspaper to
promote equality.

How does the newspaper you chose treat men and woman?
Well the paper I have studied most in this article is the sun and just
sticking to the public stuff like the way they talk about woman in the
articles they publish. So just based on this small window into the sun it not
good the way they talk about woman is demeaning full stop. Looking at
some examples is just shocking.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/fury-sexist-sun-depict-first5314278
This is a story about how the sun depicted First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in
a less than modest tartan outfit riding a wrecking ball like Mylie Cyrus.
This story is an example of sexism because they have only done it
because Nicola is a woman as if to poke fun at the fact that she is a
woman politician, its hard enough to be a female MP without ridicules
from the sun.

The Press Complaints Commission PCC

This an organisation that handles complaints about the press these can be
anything from offensive stories to reporters harassing people. The big
rule they put in place it the editors code this is a code that all papers must
commit to. It states that all papers must practise the highest professional
standards, this sets the benchmark for ethical practise within the press to

protect the public and its right to know the truth meaning that they can
take action against papers using false statistics. The code must be honour
or the PCC can and will take action.

http://www.pcc.org.uk/cop/practice.html

http://www.pcc.org.uk/cases/adjudicated.html?article=OTAyOQ==
The PCC deals with many cases one of complaints against the press one
continuing with the theme of the sun is a case where the sun broke clause
4 Harassment. They harassed a victim of a sexual assault by Max Clifford
and a witness at his trial. She complained that the newspaper had
harassed her by attempting to contact her on four occasions for her
comment on the case, despite requests to desist made on her behalf.
They continued to harass her even when she told them to stop, they broke
the law and the complaint was up held and it is possible that the reporter
lost his job and the newspaper would have been find.

PCC issues
The PCC face many issues when dealing with a complaint, firstly the fact
of consumer choice if a paper is publishing offensive material you could
argue that the fact that it is the choice of the consumer weather they
choose to read such material, this however cannot be an excuse in the
most extreme cases for example you really say that if there is a story that
is directly offensive towards an individual.
Freedom of information is a second important point if there is a scandal
like the recent MP expenses scandal people have a right to know about it
so if an MP complained that a story revealing his illegitimate expenses
claims was damaging to his reputation the fact that the public have a right
to know about his corruption would be an obstacle.
Censorship is another problem PCC might encounter say if you made a
complaint about vulgar content in a paper or magazine the complaint
could be overruled if the paper had a rating such as 18+ the vulgar
content would be allowed because of age rating.
Taste and decency is more of an opinion based thing so you need a lot of
complaint for the PCC to take action for example if a paper published an
article about a celebs privet life that was considered indecent then they
would need more complaints about the fact that said article was indecent
to take action.