Up To Speed Journalism

If you are taking the News Reporter, Sports Reporter or Broadcast Journalist courses, then you need to take an additional Law Course in Court Reporting. At Up To Speed you take this course in your second term and for a third of that term you will be sent to court on a daily basis to cover a range of trials and hearings. At the end of each day you will write up stories based on what you have heard, and also an assessment of the legal acts and procedures pertaining to each case. These notes will be kept in your File of Court Copy and Assessment, which will be handed to your tutor for feedback on a weekly basis. You will have weekly lessons with our Court Reporting tutor covering the Court Reporting syllabus. The key text for this unit is McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists.

Syllabus: There are nine key areas in the core syllabus and you will also address additional areas of the law. In the core syllabus you will build upon and enhance your knowledge of:

1. The Law, court processes and the hierarchy of the courts.
2. Automatic restrictions on media reports of preliminary hearings in indictable-only and either-way cases at magistrates’ courts and on media reports of cases at youth courts, which retain the potential for jury trial.
3. Contempt of court.
4. Juveniles, children, young persons in court cases and inquests.
5. Restrictions on identifying complainants in sexual offence cases and related ethical considerations relating to child witnesses.
6. Open justice.
7. Challenges to court orders restricting reporting and excluding the press.
8. The role of coroners in death inquest and treasure trove cases.
9. General principles of defamation in the context of reporting court and inquest cases, or commenting on them.