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Media's coverage of terrorist trials failed public, says Telegraph journalist

Posted: 24/10/08 By: Michael Haddon

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The media has been 'too well-behaved' in its reporting of terror trials, the Telegraph's legal affairs editor told an industry debate last night.

Addressing the audience at a POLIS event, 'Respect for Contempt: keeping speech free and trials fair', Joshua Rozenberg said the media's failure to adequately cover recent terrorist court cases had forced the government to release more information, in order to keep the public informed.

"The press has been very sensitive to the Contempt of Court Act and the result was that the public were not aware of the threat. The press were very, very careful not to speculate on what had been going on which had led to these charges," said Rozenberg.

This reticence resulted in increased media access to material shown to juries - an attempt, said Rozenberg, to enhance broadcast and print coverage so the public 'can actually understand what is going on'.

"The more pictures that are available the more coverage there will be and its in the public interest for these terror trials to be publicised," he added.

Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News, questioned whether this move could lead to more defendants claiming that their trials had been prejudiced.

Davies also expressed concern about journalists and the practice of media recycling 'false information' from the police.

"What's happening is that reporters are simply being fed colourful stories by the police press offices and they are happy to rely on them. True or not they just bang them out," he said, citing the case of the Forest Gate shooting as an example.

However, Rozenberg argued that journalists had a duty to cover such stories:

"It's not that they are happy to rely on them, what are the press to do in those circumstances? We must be sceptical certainly, but we have got to report that, if only later on we find it isn't borne out by the facts."

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