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1. Reece Mechan PR18
Legal and Regulatory Constraints in Radio
According to BBC guidelines when reporting stories about or involving minors they “must ensure
that the physical and emotional welfare of children and young people are protected during the
broadcast of our content”.The mainconcern of the BBC when doing reports involving minors is the
physical andemotional welfareof the childrenandthattheyare protected.The BBC makessure that
the interest and safety of minors take priority over any editorial requirement. The BBC has other
principles.One of themisthattheyhave toensure thatminorshave not developedanyunnecessary
anxiety or distress through their involvement of the news story or as a result of hearing the story.
The Office of Communications (Ofcom) says that the purpose of having the guidelines is to ensure
that minorsare keptsafe. Ofcom’sguidelines say that some news stories are allowed to be shown
at appropriate times.The newsstoriesspokeaboutare usuallyjudged by the nature of the content,
the nature of the station,the age range of the childreninthe audience, and the time of day and the
start to finish time of the programme. An example of this would be if there was an inappropriate
showbeingbroadcastedit will be broadcasted after the watershed time or there will be a warning
before the show is aired so parents know whether to let their child watch it.
RadioNewsbroadcastershave totake legal constraintsintoconsiderationbefore airing.Anexample
of thisisif a newsstory is about a young offender there are not allowed to be named on the radio.
Thisis notallowedinordertoprotect them. One of the otherprinciplesof the BBC is that they must
make sure people under 18 aren’t caused any anxiety and distress from their involvement in the
news story or by the release of the story. The involvement of children and young people must be
editoriallyjustified,andconsentmustbe obtained as appropriate to the circumstances of the child.
The nature of the contributionandoutputandsupporthas to be givento themwhenand if needed.
Contemptof court isan offense of beingdisrespectful towardsanddisobedient to a court of law. An
example of this is the story about The Sun and The Mirror being fined when speaking about
ChristopherJefferiesinvariousarticles.The Mirror got fined £50,000 and The Sun got fined £18,000.
The court then ruled that both had breached the contempt laws when discussing the arrest of
Christopher Jefferies with their articles.
The law of defamation was created to protect a person’s reputation and good name against that
may be false or derogatory. This means that when someone is saying or writing something that is
false orcan damage the person’sreputation. A famous libel and defamation case is when a tabloid
magazine released an article about David Beckham hiring a prostitute. David Beckham ended up
losing a court ruling alongside losing a £25 million lawsuit because he couldn’t prove that the
magazine had made false claims in a malicious way.
In the BBC guidelinesitstatesthat“onpollingdaythe BBC,in commonwith other broadcasters, will
cease to report campaigns from 06:00 until the polls close. Coverage will be restricted to
uncontroversial factual accounts, such as the appearance of politicians at polling stations or the
weather.Subjectswhichhave been at issue or part of the campaign, or other controversial matters
relating to the election, must not receive coverage on polling day, to ensure that nothing in the
BBC’s outputcan be construedas influencingthe ballot when the polls are open.” This is so people
can’t get influenced about whom they will be voting for.

2. Reece Mechan PR18
The official secretsactoffersthe protectionof statsecretsandofficial information,mainlyrelatedto
national security. It’s a criminal offense for the information, documents and other information
relating to the national security to be leaked or disclosed. An example of this would be when a
former Royal Navy Petty Officer Edward DeVenney was sentenced to eight years in prison for
breaches of the Official Secrets act.
The first news story I will be analysing is a
seriousandpublicintereststory.Thisarticle
is about a transgender girl, called Corey
Maison, which due to American laws can’t
use a female toilet. CoreyMaison came into
the public eye after a picture sparked a
heateddebate onFacebook. The photo was
posted onto Facebook by photographer
Meg Bitton who wanted to raise awareness
of transgenderissues. The gallery of images
of transgenderpeople waspostedinprotest
against the laws that have been made in
NorthCarolina.These lawsstate thatpeople
must use the bathroom that matches the
gender on their birth certificate.
Eventhoughthisnewsarticle discussesastorywhichis veryseriousIdon’tthinkit would be seen as
having the same immediacy as a celebrity scandal or as a more local crime story; i.e. a body being
foundor somebody going missing. I think this because the article is about the laws that have been
made in America and it doesn’t affect Britain whatsoever. With its lack of affect onto Britain this
story wouldn’t have been talked about on news programmes in depth like other stories. The good
thing about this story even getting a tiny bit of a segment in news programmes or an article in the
Daily Mirror or Daily Mail is that due to the lack of knowledge older generations may have of
Transgendercommunities thisarticle could give them the opportunity to learn and maybe become
more accepting.
The secondnewsarticle Ihave chosen to
analyse is a public interest article. The
story is about Sharon Osborne’s split
fromBlack SabbathlegendOzzyOsborne
after 33 years of marriage. According to
the article Sharon made reference
towardsBeyoncé’slatestalbum which is
about cheating and betrayal.
The story is of public interest to the UK
because Ozzy was in Black Sabbath and
Sharonwas on the judgingpanel of the X
Factor. Because the couple have been
together for so long there will be some

3. Reece Mechan PR18
follow up stories like when the divorce is finalised and who is keeping the house.