Written evidence submitted by Dr Bernhard Gross, Marcus Keppel-Palmer, Dr Sally Reardon, and Dr Tom Smith
Evidence to the DCMS Inquiry on Sustainability Of Local Journalism
Submitted by Dr Bernhard Gross, Marcus Keppel-Palmer, Dr Sally Reardon, Dr Tom Smith (all from the University of the West of England)
Who We Are
We are a team of interdisciplinary academic researchers comprising two members of the School of Journalism (Reardon and Gross) and two members of the School of Law (Smith and Keppel-Palmer), all from the University of the West of England. We have been undertaking field work projects into aspects of the reporting of the Courts by journalists. The first project specifically considered the reporting of Magistrates’ Courts, concluding there was a significant absence of reporting at that level. Our results were disseminated at several conferences and in a paper published in Journalism (2021). Details are in the appendix. The most recent fieldwork has been to interview journalists who are regular reporters of court proceedings on their experiences of covering courts during the first Covid lockdown in 2020. Our results from this fieldwork have so far been presented at the Future Of Journalism Conference (2021). We have also presented papers to the HM Courts Media Guidance Committee and submitted evidence to the Justice Committee’s Report on Court and Tribunal Reforms (2019) as well as to the same committee’s report on Court Reporting in the Digital Age (2021).
Introduction and Background: Court Reporting in Local Newspapers
Our submission is based around the opportunities presented for local journalism to undertake a prime role in reporting the Courts, particularly to fill in the gap in the absence of reporting in the local Magistrates’ Courts.
Court reporting is a public “good” and journalists “are the eyes and ears of the general public” (Sir John Donaldson MR in AG v Guardian Newspapers (No 2) (1990)), playing an essential role in maintaining open justice and scrutinising the work of the Courts. Open justice requires that media observes and reports what happens in courts. As the Rt Hon Nadine Dorries, Culture Secretary, stated in during the 2021 Media Matters Campaign local news media “keep us in the loop with the stories that impact our day-to-day lives - from council or court decisions to the rise and fall of local sports teams.” (emphasis added).
With this in mind, it is clear that local journalism should report on day-to-day local court hearings at all levels, not just infrequently on particularly high-profile cases. However, our research shows that Magistrates’ Courts hearings happen almost entirely outside the public gaze. During a one-week in-court observation project at Bristol Magistrates’ Court in 2018, we observed every hearing in the Courts (240 cases in all) but only noted the presence of one journalist covering a single case. (Keppel-Palmer et al, 2018). Our research showed that at least 25% of cases would have made “good news stories” being of interest to the public, judging by the norms of news values (Galtung & Ruge 1965).
Results from our research of the media coverage of Magistrates’ Courts across England and Wales (2019) suggest very limited coverage across the board with some courts not being covered at all. We looked at local newspaper reporting for a single week in February 2019 and mapped that against the number of cases heard in Magistrates’ Courts that week. Out of the 43,416 cases heard that week in the Magistrates Courts of England and Wales, fewer than 1% were reported in our survey of 401 local newspapers. Out of the 153 Magistrates Courts hearing cases that week, 55 courts were totally unreported in any local newspaper within our survey of 401 local newspapers. Of these 401 local newspapers surveyed, 177 did not report a single case from the Magistrates’ Courts that week. Based on our 2018 observation, we would have expected that 25% of the cases heard in the Magistrates’ Courts would have been reportable, thus approximately 10,000 cases which would equate to approximately 25-30 stories in each local newspaper. It is worth noting that many of the stories logged were not generated by the local newspaper itself with an in-court reporter, but a list of those convicted supplied by the CPS. We submit that this is not fulfilling the role of being “the eyes and ears of the general public”.
Our research was limited to under-reporting in the Magistrates’ Courts only. Research, however, by Rozenberg (2009), Moran (2014), Thornton (2017), and Townsend (2019) indicate that the situation is not much better at the Crown Court level.
Our research shows that there is a dearth of court reporting at the most local level. We would recommend that rectifying this could drive a sustainable source of content for local newspapers, most relevant to their audience as well as protecting open justice at this level. However, it appears that local newspapers have been reducing coverage. Reasons for this appear to be partly due to a) economics – a survey by Winchester University (Thornton, 2017) found more than half of local newspapers do not have a court reporter, b) newspaper closures – see Mayfew (2019) considering net loss of 245 local newspapers since 2005, c) perception that cases in the Magistrates’ Courts are not newsworthy enough, a perception we submit our research refutes, d) the need for specialist knowledge and skills for Court Reporting, e) the penalties associated with contempt and breaching reporting restrictions, and f) the difficulties attaining information about hearings in the Magistrates’ Courts and the lack of easy access to transcripts of hearings.
Local newspapers report that they are unable to afford the luxury of having a reporter located all week at the Courts. Based on our research, we would suggest that this would generate approximately 25 stories per week. However, we will be recommending to HM Courts Service that greater provision of detailed information by the Courts on a daily basis would aid local newspaper journalists in deciding which cases to watch.
What our research (Reardon et al, September 2021) into covering digital courts during the first COVID lockdowns in England and Wales suggests it that giving journalists remote access to courts can make some aspects of court reporting, those that focus on the essence of the court proceedings easier. However, journalists reported a negative impact on other aspects of court reporting that would be limited to remote access. Despite this, it is clear that one way to enable local newspaper journalists to access more cases would be to make all hearings available digitally, so journalists can work from their offices as well as watching hearings in Court.
We also suggest that one method of enabling local newspapers to cover more Magistrates’ Courts hearings is for there to be specially trained independent Court Reporters who cover the cases and provide copy for all local newspapers to access. Local newspaper editors are wary of this as they are concerned about potential liability – given these Court Reporters are not on staff. We would have suggested that these could have been trained and employed by the proposed Institute of Public Interest News (The Cairncross Review, 2019)) and would urge reconsideration of a publicly funded body to train and employ specialist Court Reporters.
How are public service broadcasters, particularly the BBC, supporting or disrupting local journalism?
In the context of our team’s wider focus on court and justice reporting and a more specific focus on the reporting of these issues on a regular basis on a local level, there are two dimensions to consider here;
a) the public service broadcasters (PSBs) as a local news provider and thus as a potential competitor or disruptor of non-PSB local journalism outlets: we have not found any evidence that this is the case;
b) the BBC specifically as the underwriter of the Local Democracy Reporter Service (LDRS) and thus as a potential supporter of non-PSB local journalism outlets: we can see the potential but have not found any evidence that this is the case.
Regarding a) in our research into the coverage of Magistrates’ court in 2018, we did not discover any evidence that would suggest that the PSB is disrupting local journalism. In the process of our court visits during which we took systematically checked for the presence of journalists in court, no PSB journalist was observed. While the evidence base is limited to one working week, considering other indicators, e.g., court coverage in local media, it would not be unreasonable to consider this an average or typical week. This would lead us to the conclusion that day-to-day, local court reporting (especially in the Magistrates’ Courts) is not an area in which PSB is positioned as a competitor or disruptor to local non-PSB news outlets. BBC and ITV coverage of court hearings is limited to stories seen to be of national importance and interest. Where these occur, they tend to be in the Crown Court and the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey.
The Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020 provides that coverage of sentencing remarks in the Crown Court may be broadcast. This may be something that could be carried out by the online presence of local news outlets. However, in order to do so permission must be first given to outlets by the Lord Chancellor and it is clear that the bodies to be permitted would be BBC, ITV, Sky and the Press Association (per Lord Keen of Elie, Hansard 8th June 2020). This would close off direct access for local media outlets.
Regarding b) the Local Democracy Reporter Service, underwritten by the BBC, has the potential to support local journalism in relation to court reporting. However, our systematic analysis of newspaper content in 2019 did not identify any content produced by LDRS. This is of course in line with the framework within which LDRS operate. This framework prioritises other local government institutions over a day-to-day focus on courts. Still, we would suggest that the LDRS offers support to local journalism in that it potentially frees up resource, i.e., reporting capacity, that can be deployed in other areas, for instance, courts. Whether this actually happens or whether LDRS provide opportunity to reduce in-house capacity, we are not in a position to say. However, the partnerships with local media could provide some assistance in this. However, the existing LDRS model would not provide sufficient local reporters needed to cover all Magistrates’ Courts.
What has been the impact of the 2019 Cairncross review on local journalism, and what more needs to be done?
Our research does not provide any evidence that the Cairncross Review has had an impact on court reporting. The proposal for a new Institute of Public Interest News (IPIN) made in the Cairncross Review would have been an in-principle driver for funding, training and supply of news reporters specialising in attending and reporting on local courts. Court reporting is a complex area with the consequences of getting it wrong potentially very serious. Without understanding the complexities, contempt of court can easily be committed, and trials could collapse. Hence, proper training for specialist court reporters through the proposed IPIN could have overcome the resistance by local newspaper editors to the idea of sourcing court reports from non-employees, such as citizen journalists, and supply local newspapers with a set of stories available for publication, thus increasing the coverage of courts, providing greater scrutiny and ultimately a higher degree of open justice. However, the idea of an IPIN was not taken forward (UK Government, 2020). The decision to instead focus on LDRS has, as noted above, not had a significant impact on local court reporting. However, recommendations made by the BBC in their 2020 review of Local News Partnerships through which the LDRS is delivered included an expansion of the service to include the under-reported aspects of public life including Court. The LDRS should be “considering the provision of new specialist roles to cover layers of UK public services not yet covered, and as defined by public need – for example emergency services or court reporting” (BBC, 2020).
How can the Government support local news outlets to develop sustainable business models?
From our perspective, we would submit that a focus on ensuring and protecting Open Justice in the Magistrates’ Courts (and also greater Open Justice in the Crown Courts) would lead to a greater role for local media in this area. In order to achieve this, we suggest that Government consider:-
What role does social media play in local journalism?
In the context of Court Reporting, widespread acceptance of the use of twitter during Magistrates’ Courts hearings by HM Courts could assist local media outlets.
How are partisan and hyper-partisan news outlets disrupting local news production?
We found no evidence during our research on this point.
APPENDIX
AG v Guardian Newspapers (No 2) (1990)
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Chamberlain, P., Keppel-Palmer, M., Reardon, S., & Smith, T. (2021). It is criminal: The state of magistrates’ court reporting in England and Wales. Journalism, 22(9), 2404-2420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919868049.
Available from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1492517
Galtung, J, & Ruge, M. ‘The Structure of Foreign News: The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers’ (1965) Journal of Peace Studies, Volume: 2 issue: 1, page(s): 64-90
Hansard, Debate on the Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020 (Vol 803, 8th June 2020) Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020 - Hansard - UK Parliament
Keppel-Palmer, M., Smith, T., Reardon, S., & Chamberlain, P. (2018, March). Court reporting and local newspapers. Presented at SLSA Annual Conference 2018, Bristol University, Bristol, England.
Available from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/872239
Mayfew, F. ‘UK local newspaper closures: Net loss of 245 titles since 2005, new Press Gazette research’ (Press Gazette, 2019) UK local newspaper closures: Net loss of 245 titles since 2005, new Press Gazette research - Press Gazette
Moran, J (2014) Mass-mediated ‘open justice’: court and judicial reports in the Press in England and Wales. Legal Studies, Vol. 34 No. 1, 2014, pp. 143–166
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Reardon, S., Smith, T., Gross, B., & Keppel-Palmer, M. (2021, September). ‘Justice in lockdown: Court reporting in a time of Covid’, Paper presented at The Future of Journalism Conference, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
Available from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7918863
Rozenberg, J (Law Gazette, 2009) ‘Why newspapers lack interest in court reporting’ http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/why-newspapers-lack-interest-in-court-reporting/53266.fullarticle
Smith, T., Reardon, S., Gross, B., Keppel-Palmer, M., & Chamberlain, P. (2020, March). 'Arresting the decline: Court reporting in England and Wales'. Paper presented at HM Courts and Tribunals Services Media Guidance Launch Event, Old Bailey, London, UK.
Available from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7400829
Smith, T., Reardon, S., Keppel-Palmer, M., & Chamberlain, P. (2019, September). Readjusting the balance: Initial results from a pioneering project to increase court coverage. Paper presented at Future of Journalism Annual Conference, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Available from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7400804
The Cairncross Review ‘A Sustainable Future For Journalism’ (2019)
Thornton, B ‘The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Court Reporter’ (Justice Gap, 2017) The mysterious case of the vanishing court reporter – The Justice Gap
Townend, J. (2019). We must see them in court. British Journalism Review, 30(4), 35–39.
UK Government ‘Government Response to The Cairncross Review’ (January, 2020) Government response to the Cairncross Review: a sustainable future for journalism - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)