Essential Law for Photographers

Up To Speed photographer Liz Wainwright

You take this course in your first term at Up To Speed. It is essential for you to know how the law affects your professional practice and to understand your rights and obligations.

Assessment

Exam: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Syllabus

The NCTJ syllabus covers eleven key areas and you will also study adjudications made by both the Press Complaints Commission and the regulator Ofcom as well as rulings from the Editors’ Code of Practice.

You will learn:

  1. How the legal and court processes in the UK work, legal terminology, and the hierarchy of the courts.
  2. Contempt of Court and related matters. How your reporting may affect the chances of a fair trial and some of the defences and justifications journalists can make for publication.
  3. How the law can protect the anonymity of people who are juveniles, complainants in sexual offence cases, subject to blackmail attempts or involved in issues of national security.
  4. About the ethical obligation to be accurate in your reporting.
  5. How you can be sued for defamation in cases of libel or slander and defences you can make to these charges.
  6. Copyright law and understand how it can protect your work, and also how to avoid breaching it.
  7. About laws relating to confidentiality and defences for a breach of confidence in your reporting.
  8. How to protect your confidential sources.
  9. The importance of privacy and the misuse of private information.
  10. Other ethical considerations covering areas such as covert filming, subterfuge and deception.
  11. The legal requirement for impartiality in broadcasting.