Legal Summation

Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury, my client, the defendant, has been unnecessarily called upon to attend this court case. The allegations brought against my client have come to you unjustified and lacking in evidence. The documentary he created, “Is Technology the Crime”, has Channel “7″ accusing my client of portraying them to present the 2008 election to be sided and biased with the ALP (Australian Liberal Party). The plaintiff, Mr. Anderson, is arguing the fact that in this documentary both sides of the story were not presented, and segments of the opposing party were left out. Accusing my client of showing, without evidence, that Channel 7 broadcasts have a tendency in the past to side with a particular party. This also aroused the suspicion of bribery which the plaintiff sees as being fictionalised by the documentary producer for the benefit of the documentaries tone itself.

Members of the Jury, now to give you the summation of this hearing and to present to you one last time the facts of this case. As you have seen previously, the prosecutors have nothing to stand on in this court case which is worthy of coming to trial. It has become clear that the “7″ News corporation has decided to use studio members as key witnesses. This immediately gives the impression that the testimonies are unreliable and from their own side. Being one of the leading companies in the industry, why are they fighting such a case with so little evidence? The the plaintiff has accused the defendant of putting in facts which Mr. Anderson states to be partly the truth. He said in his own words, “The real facts have been outrageously left out”. Well Mr. Anderson, the length of the documentary was only a little over an hour and it was in our best interest to scale you report down to five minutes. You can’t say that putting more of Labor and less of Liberal is unfair.

Members of the Jury, is it not reasonable to assume that Mr. Anderson is seeing what he wants to see and what he doesn’t want to see. You may recall previously, information was presented to you about the results of this particular election. It appears that Mr. Anderson also stated that their broadcast which began its account of the upcoming election three days prior to the voting had no effect on the results whatsoever. Some may argue it wouldn’t make a difference to the people who had their minds already set. But members of the Jury, please also consider that over 25% of the entire population watch the news on a daily night to night basis. That’s over six million Australian viewers who watch the news on Channel “7″ nationwide. So think again, a quarter of the nation watches a news broadcast which sides with the ALP, and Mr. Anderson claims not one of them changed their minds after watching the broadcast.

Thus your accusation against my client have no ground to stand on and no effect. Did it affect the populations vote? Don’t ponder about your decision; make the decision that supports the arguments presented to you today. No exaggeration was made on the amount of time shared between parties and indeed over six million viewers watch “7″ news on a daily basis. So I now leave it up to you to decide if Mr. Anderson’s case of leaving out certain elements and conflicting results has any hint of rightness in this courtroom. Because it will make a difference.

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