Copyright-Without it we're nothing!

Everybody has the right not to have their work stolen, be it a Construction worker, an inventor or a journalist the copyright law stays the same.

In a nut-shell, copyright in common law is the act of stealing somebodies intellectual work without their permission. And if caught 'stealing' work you can face being sued by a claimant for loss of earnings or even potential loss of earnings.
'Reproduction of a substantial part of a copyright work may constitute infringment. Whether the part of a copyright work which is copied is a substantial part may depend as much on the quality of what is reproduced as on the quantity (Sweeney vs Macmillan Publishers Ltd [2001] A11 ER (D) 332 (Nov))'.
Copyright Law's enable journalist's to make money, and potentially make a career out of journalism. Therefore it is incredibly important that journalist's make their work safe from copyright infringements.
I remember one of those first things I learnt on this BA Journalism course is that 'Journalism is the practise of turning information into money'. However information alone of course isn't worth an awful lot until its turned into something material, for example the wood that a carpenter uses to make a wardrobe isn't worth as much as it is when it becomes a wardrobe. And in the same way information isn't worth much alone until it is turned into news by journalist's.

Any work that you do is your property until you sell it to someone else. However usually if you are employed by someone else the work you do is their property, and you in return get paid a wage by them. You effectively surrender the rights to your work when you accept any sort of wage for it, but morally you still have rights. For example you have the right for your work not to be tampered and interfered with, and all of your work should be accredited to you.
However for work to be protected by copyright it must have had some sort of hard work or effort put into it. Brief slogans and catchphrases aren't protected. So in relation to some of my own work for Winol; my package on the lecturer strikes would be protected by copyright as I put the effort into getting the interviews and doing the filming myself. However my catch-phrase 'he's hit the Winol woodwork' in my sports feature would not be protected as it is too trivial.

However in Journalism it is sometimes possible to use other peoples work without paying for it or having explicit permission. iThis is called 'fair dealing'. This enables you to use other peoples work for 'review and criticism', private research, and reporting current events and covers you in the case of incidental inclusion. But all of this must be properly accredited to its author.