9 - Reporting Restrictions

I've been involved in a debate about protecting the identity of victims of crime and their accused. And why reporters do it.

The simple answer is because the law demands it. A child under the age of 18, or the victim of rape, for example, are instantly made anonymous. It is a rare case when a reporter gets those court reporting restrictions overturned. If reporting the name of the accused/or their relatives would also identify the victim too (known as "Jigsaw Identification") then the convicted also gets the luxury of their name never being known.

It may seem frustrating to the public who have a "right to know."

And it is frustrating for me too. Because believe me, there isn't a journalist out there who won't want to publish those names. Often you can sit in court and even feel emotionally part of some kind of cover up, simply because you know the name of the guilty, but aren't reporting it.

But each time that happens I tell myself that the law is made up by far more sensible people than me. And their aim is to protect the vulnerable, even at the expense of not exposing the guilty. And they are dispassionate about those laws, where as I am caught up in the heat of something outrageous which is inflaming my opinion, rightly or wrongly.

I feel like I want to expose it all to the court of public opinion.

I believe that justice should not just be done, but seen to be done.

But in legal cases, I quell any instinct to publish and be damned if the law, and only the law, deems it harmful to others who are innocent.