Critical Reflection - Meeting with a Medium

Initially I wanted to write a piece about psychics and mediums following the allegations that the famous psychic, Psychic Sally (Sally Morgan), was being fed her lines at a performance in Dublin in September. The issue came to light when audience members of the show rang an Irish radio station, RTE, during Joe Duffy's Liveline Show the following day to make the allegations. (Radio show below)


However if I had written this piece from that angle then it would have be libellous. This is because I would have been suggesting that Sally Morgan was a fraud without any evidence other than the comments of people who were at the show. Also, I had not contacted Ms Morgan myself to ask her about the allegations. This effectively meant that if I had written the piece about her then it would have been extremely defamatory.


In McNae's Essential Law for Journalists it clearly states that 'libel can be a criminal offence as well as a civil wrong'. There are three defences that a journalist has against a libel suit:

1. Justification - is it true and more importantly can you prove it?
2. Fair Comment - is it simply the someones opinion and not presented as fact?
3. Privilege - statutory and qualified

I would not have been able to use justification as a defence because there would have been no way for me to prove that the people making the allegations actually did hear what they claimed. I would not really have been able to present the piece as purely comment because I was not present at the show in Dublin, nor have I ever seen Sally Morgan perform.I would also not have been able to use statutory privilege because it would not have been fair/accurate, nor could I use qualified privilege because the allegations had not been made in a court of law.

I still wanted to write a piece about mediumship, but needed a new angle because it would not have been possible to mention Sally Morgan. Instead, I decided to go to a medium and have a reading done and then write up my experience for my column Diary of a Winchester Lady.

My first draft of the piece was a lot longer than I had imagined it would be because I had included a lot of explanatory details about the medium and her home as well as the details of the reading itself. I sent the draft to Katie Rowles, the features editor, who suggested that I did not need so much detail about the medium and her home because this is not something that the reader would be interested in - they would want to know whether the reading was accurate or not. She also felt that the ending to the piece was not very strong.

The ending on the first draft had been:

"I never thought that having a ‘reading’ with a medium would be something that I would ever do, but after my experience of meeting with Charlotte I would honestly say that it is something which can help anyone who has lost a loved one. The experience was deeply moving and will remain with me forever."

I agree with Katie that this was not a particularly strong/punchy ending to the piece. I have to admit that I did struggle trying to think of an alternative ending but eventually made it a comment of mediumship in general terms.

All my feature pieces need to have a photograph to go with them. I had intended to take a photograph of Charlotte to go with the piece, although she was camera shy and did not want her picture to be shown. This meant that I had to think of another image that would be directly relevant to the piece. I decided to take pictures of her fireplace because she had a lot of angel ornaments and candles around it which I thought looked somewhat spiritual. Below are a couple of the images I took to go with this piece.

Before this piece I don't think I have ever written a piece that has been so emotional for me. I think that this was the reason that I found it so difficult to cut down on the detail as well as trying to make a very personal topic accessible and interesting to the public. In future when I am writing pieces which I find emotional I will take the lessons I have learnt from this piece so that I know how to go about it.

I will also be much more aware of topics which could be defamatory to anyone. Although we were taught the theory and seriousness of defamation and libel cases in the first year of this course, this was the first time that I experienced first hand a topic which could get me into trouble. I am just grateful that this problem was discussed before I made the mistake of writing about it.

Ultimately I am happy with the finished piece and have learnt valuable lessons for my future pieces.