Wednesday, 12 February 2014

Keeping identities away from the Media

Recently a number of high profile people from television have been arrested and accused of sex with, in some cases, underage people.  One of these from a famous British soap has been found not guilty.  This trial took weeks to carry out and involved a very long wait for the person when  the person was first arrested.  In all cases these people had been charged and their names were out in the media.  However, their names have been out in the media for months before they were charged.  My annoyance is with the ability of the media to name anyone who is arrested before being charged.  The argument by those people who want to ensure rape victims are given justice is that the naming of suspects brings other people out into the open so they can add their accusations to the initial one.  What about the accused person? I thought a person was innocent until proved guilty but in the eyes of the media everyone is game to be given a trial by media. The case of a murder in Bristol resulted in a man being arrested and who's character was totally destroyed in the media.  It was discovered this man had nothing to do with the murder and was never charged. The press even had to pay him compensation for the invasion of his privacy.   Rape victims need protection but so do the wrongly accused or any suspect until they are charged.  It is perfectly fair to keep a suspects name and identity out of the media (that includes social media) until they are charged.  At this point anybody else can come forward and add their accusation to the case.  It is just as important innocent individuals are protected from the media as well as the victims.  The Leveson report is still to be implemented by the government.  I hope for justice sake they implement this element.  Please note I have deliberately left out names of the people mentioned in these cases even though they have been charged and their cases are going through the courts.  Social media should be treated in the same way as other forms of the media and people held to account when they make accusations against people. This links to an argument the media uses that what is the point of news agencies not reporting things when information is already on Twitter or other social media sites.  I do not trust social media and rely on non biased newspapers and other official media.  We should  question all issues of news reporting including the issues I write about. We need to be able to trust our news media. They need to report accurately and fairly and not write with profits in mind.  This does not happen

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