Hold the front page! Students write for leading online voice for law and justice
9 January 2023
A group of roving reporters from the School of Law and Politics are contributing to the leading online voice for law and justice news.
Since October 2022, The Justice Gap, an online magazine about law and justice has had Cardiff law students Sydney Bevan, Henson Kwok, Thomas Martin, Kate Millinship, Dyana Parmar, Chelsea Phillips, Lauren Terrell and Beatrice Yahia writing for it on a range of important topical issues.
The Volunteer Reporter Scheme has given students with an interest in journalism, social justice and human rights, the opportunity to write on matters that are important to them. The students have received training and, under supervision, contribute to the site as reporters, writing news reports as well as features and investigations.
The scheme also involves students from Glasgow University, Manchester University and University College London with one university taking control for a week at a time, working across the collaboration platform Slack which allows them to work remotely.
Cardiff students have been encouraged to find their own stories to write which are then run by law lecturer, Abdallah Barakat and Head of Pro Bono and Clinical Legal Education, Professor Julie Price. To date, the students have written about a range of topics including institutional bullying within the London Fire Brigade, a government scheme to stop unwanted communication from imprisoned abusers and stalking protection.
Abdallah Barakat, who is supervising the students, said of the scheme, “We were thrilled to be approached by The Justice Gap founder and editor, Jon Robins via Professor Price and Dr Dennis Eady, Project lead for the Cardiff University Innocence Project. We are giving our students the chance to write about topics that they really care about and we knew they would relish the opportunity to write and contribute to such an important, online forum. Whilst researching important law related topics the students are all developing writing, editing and team working skills which will all be essential to them post university.”
It is hoped that the Volunteer Reporter Scheme will run until at least June 2023.