Week 12: The legal-ethical responsibilities and the perils of journalism

8/10/2019 Week 12: The legal-ethical responsibilities and the perils of journalism

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COMM-125 Introduction to Journalism

Section 1- Language of instruction English

Wednesdays 15:00-18:00

Venue: NEWTON Amphitheatre

Lecture no. 12

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Publick Occurrences Both

Forreign and Domestick

(Boston, Massachusetts,

September 25, 1690).

No second edition was

printed, as the paper was

shut down by the British

colonial authorities four

days after.


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Echo of Cyprus

Censored by the

British colonial

authorities, togetherwith other papers,

during their 82 years

of presence on theisland.


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Zaman'snewspaper editor-in-chief waved to staff

while being arrested by counter-terror police in

Istanbul, Turkey on December 14th2014.


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Governments from the first and to our

days, tried to regulate the press, to limit

its access to information, to censor it,to ban publications and to punish

editors for publishing news the

government preferred to keep from the

public.

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Out of this background came the First

Amendment to the US Constitution, the

foundation on which modern journalismin the country is built.

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It is for journalists a sacred artifact.

It supplies an answer when the

performance of the press is

questioned.

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It supplies a philosophy and a historical

justification for what in many ways is

only a sophisticated and highly

technical business.

And it makes the press unique. In fact,

publishing and broadcasting are theonly commercial enterprises protected

by the constitution.

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The First Amendment, among other

things, states the following:

Congress shall make no law...

abridging the freedom of speech or of

the press...

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Hence, in the realms of journalism, the

First Amendment is the most important

legal document on the books.

Its two parts about speech and the

press constitute the basic tenet of

journalism in a democracy - thatpeople can exchange information and

ideas.

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The First Amendment provides the

strongest protection that journalists

have against assaults by those whodisagree with what they are saying or

reporting.

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Many subsequent laws and court

decisions that have outlined the

specific freedoms that journalists haveare based on an interpretation of this

section of the constitution.

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Similarly, Article 19 of the Republic of

Cyprus' Constitution enshrines the

freedom of the press on the islandstipulating that:

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Every person has the right to freedom

of speech and expression in any form.

This right includes freedom to hold

opinions and receive and impart

information and ideas without

interference by any public authorityand regardless of frontiers.

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The subsequent 1989 Press Law

further safeguards the freedom of the

press in Cyprus.

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Under this law, all journalists, Cypriot

or foreign, have the right to free access

to state sources of information,freedom to seek and acquire

information from any competent

authority of the republic and the

freedom to make this public.

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The authority concerned must give the

requested information unless it

pertains to state or public security,constitutional or public order, public

morals or the protection of the honour

and rights of third parties.

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Having said that, I assume that none of

the framers of the two constitutions,

believed that speech and the pressshould be completely unfettered.

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Although there have been some

absolutists - people who argued that

no restrictions should be placed onthese freedoms - most people have

been convinced that reasonable

restraints in limited areas of the law are

good for society.

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These limitations contextualize both

the legal, as well as the ethical

considerations of journalism, definingresponsibilities for journalists within

this context.

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So, despite the very specific

guarantees against restraints on the

press, the First Amendment and Article19, have never guaranteed absolute

freedom for the press.

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The right to publish and disseminate

news and opinion has been hedged

with legal constraints, some to protectthe government in the conduct of the

people's business, some to protect the

freedoms of the people themselves.

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The legal restraints imposed on the

press are of two kinds.

First, some restrictions are imposed on

reporting - that is, on accessing and

gathering the information, before is

produced, published and disseminatedas news (e.g. in cases of national,

state, or public security)

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and second, certain laws and

decisions by the courts make the press

responsible for what it publishes, butonly after the fact of publication.

The constitutions are forbidding anyprior restraint on publication of news

and opinion.

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The Gatekeeper or Watchdog

The media have a very important role

in a democratic society.

In some respects, as they fulfill their

responsibility of informing the public

and providing a forum for discussion ofpublic affairs,

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they become one of the checks and

balances of a democratic system and,

hence they are very much like a fourthbranch of government, watching the

other three: the executive, the

parliamentary and the judicial.

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The role of the media as adversaries,

gatekeepers or watchdogs, as lookouts

keeping an eye (criticizing, asking

questions etc.) on the performance ofthe other three estates and the world

and reporting back to people, is not an

easy task and not everyone agrees on

how good the media do this job.

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Many people think the media are too

pushy, that they print too much bad

news, that they are too critical ofgovernment and intrude too much into

the private lives not only of public

officials but of private citizens.

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Others consider that the media are too

close to and noncritical of government

and public officials.

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Out of the tug-of-war between these

two adversaries, press and

government, as well as other parts of asociety, like organizations, businesses

and citizens, have come a variety of

rules, laws and court decisions.

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We are going to examine only those

areas that have the most to do with

journalism.

These are defamation, copyright, and

to some extent privacy.

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Prior restraint and responsibility for

things published

Contrary to what was happening in

Cyprus during the British rule of theisland, no "preventive censorship" or

"prior restraint" of the media exists

today.

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The First Amendment prohibits the

issuing of a court order not to publish

something.

However, from time to time someone

can persuade the court to issue suchan order.

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A well known case in the US was the

Pentagon Papers case, in which The

New York Times was ordered not tocontinue publication of stories on a

Defense Department classified study of

the Vietnam War.

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However, once the media have

published a news story, they are faced

with another legal problem:

They must take responsibility for what

they have published.

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If a news story libels or defames

someone or invades someone's

privacy, that person may sue themedium.

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The First Amendment protects the

media against prior restraint, but

- defamation or libel laws,

- copyright and trademark laws,

- laws and court decisions on the right

to privacy,

place serious constraints on what the

press publishes.

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Defamation (also calumny, vilification,

and traducement) is a concept deriving

from the English common law and

refers to the harming of reputation, i.e.the communication of a false statement

that harms the "good name" of

an individual person, business, product

, group, government, religion,or nation.

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Most jurisdictions allow legal action to

deter various kinds of defamation and

retaliate against groundless criticism.

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It is usually regarded as irrational,

unprovoked criticism, which has little or

no factual basis and can be comparedto hate speech(racist or xenophobic).

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Libel has to involve at least three parts:

-the one libeling,

-the one who says or prints the libel

and

-a third part, usually a person, who

reads or sees it.

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Libel suits can be mitigated, that is, to

lessen, or even cancel the offense,

before going to court, by issuing aretraction, taking back the statement.

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Then, to return for a moment to

fairness, newspapers have found that

many times potentially seriouscomplaints of libel can be headed off

by a little sympathy and a genuine

apology, either in verbal, or in written

form, like a corrective action.

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Libel suits have to prove five things for

the court:

-publication,

-identification,

-defamation,

-fault, and

-damages.

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Copyright and trademarks

Another area in which the freedom to

write or publish is not unlimited is thatof copyright and trademarks, which are

part of a larger area known as

intellectual property.

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People who create what we might term

generally as intellectual property -

books, musical works, art, sculpture,articles, poems, and so on - have some

protection in the way that those works

are used by others.

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If you write a poem, that work is yours

(at least for a limited amount of time),

and no one else can reprint that poemwithout your permission.

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Let's say you are the only writer

covering a sport game, and you write a

story about it.

Another publication can take the facts

that you have described (the details of

the game, the score etc.) and use them

in its description of the game.

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That publication, however, cannot use

your account of the game.

The expression of the facts can be

copyrighted, but the facts themselves

cannot.

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Ideas are the same way. Ideas cannot

be copyrighted, but the expression of

those ideas can.

For instance, you can paint a picture of

a tree, and that painting will becopyrighted.

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Others can paint a picture of the same

tree.

That's not against the law, as long as

they do not use your painting.

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Copyright protection is limited in two

important ways.

One is that it does not last forever and

this depends on each country's law.

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The other way in which copyright

protection is limited is through the

concept of fair use.

This concept has been developed to

encourage the dissemination of ideas

and information without either putting a

great burden on the user or infringing

on the rights of the creator of the work.

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Fair use means that in certain limited

circumstances, a copyrighted work, or

more likely, some portion of it, may beused without the permission of the

holder of the copyright.

In considering what is fair use, courts

have looked at four factors:

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the nature of the copyrighted material -

how much effort it took to produce it;

the nature of the use - for instance,

material used in an educational setting

for educational purposes is more likelyto be thought of as fair use;

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the extent of the use - how much of the

copyrighted material is used, whether

just a few words or a whole passage;

commercial infringement - most

importantly, how much does the usehurt the commercial value of the work?

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So unless material is being used in a

very limited way, you should always

get permission to use it, or "ethicallyattribute it", as we will see in the next

section.

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A final important point: Material on the

Internet has also copyright protection,

covered usually by a separatelegislation that in some countries, is

either still nonexistent, or under

construction.

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Cyprus is one example, falling into the

second category.

Most people believe that whatever is

on a website is in the public domain,

but that is not the case.

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The US for instance are very sensitive

on this issue and strongly support both

the Anti-Counterfeiting TradeAgreement (ACTA) and the Trans-

Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP),

which are considered forms of modern

censorship of the web.

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Trademarks on the other hand, offer

special protection for the commercial

use of words, phrases, mottos,banners, symbols, logos, emblems etc.

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and journalists need to be careful

about how they use them, even though

generally they do not run into much ofa problem in using trademarks in what

they write or print.

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Privacy

Privacy is another area of the law that

journalists need to be aware of,although it does not affect journalists

as much as people think.

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Essentially the news media are

allowed to publish almost anything

about a person as long as it is true.

They do not need a person's

permission to publish anything abouthim/her.

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How they get such information is often

the important legal question.

Journalists may not trespass onpeople's property, they may not steal

information, and they may be in some

trouble if they take information,

particularly of medical nature, that the

law protects.

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Otherwise, however, journalists are

free to print and broadcast what they

know.

They are free to describe and

photograph what they can see, even ifwhat they see is on private property.

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For example, if someone is in a house

but the window and curtains are open,

a photographer standing in the streetcan take a picture of the person.

No invasion of privacy has taken place.

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Within the realm of journalism, privacy

is more of a social and civil restraint,

with an ethical dimension as we willsee in the next section, than a legal

one.

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Journalists may not choose to publish

private facts about a person because

they do not feel that it would beappropriate or necessary.

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Still, journalists should take some care

in this area because in some situationsthe publication of private facts can be

the basis for legal action.

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The good ethical journalist

Be good. Do right. What parents have

not admonished their children withthese simple commands?

Most of us have learned about moralityand moral behavior at a very early

stage.

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It was one of the big jobs of our

parents or whoever was raising us and

our educators to teach us what isacceptable behavior in a civil society.

We learned, we thought, the differencebetween right and wrong. But did we?

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As we grew up, we began to realize

that maybe we did not know the

difference between right and wrong aswell as we thought.

Life was complicated because peoplewe knew to be good sometimes did

things with which we disagreed.

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We learned that we could not be

completely honest at all times.

We were told for instance to eat our

aunt's cookies and tell her they were

great, even though they tasted likecardboard, because if we did not, she

would get her feelings hurt.

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We were told that when our friends did

something wrong, we should not tell on

them because nobody liked a "tattler".

The moral, mainly religious, absolutes

that we began learning as smallchildren were chipped away by life's

real situations.

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At some point, we earned that "being

good" was not as easy as it soundsand "doing right" was no simple thing

after all.

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Life's many ethical dilemmas, large

and small, are reflected in the practice

of journalism.

Journalists do not have an easy time in

deciding what the right thing to do is.

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Thus, they have developed certain

prescriptive principles to which they try

to adhere, in order to make their

choices fairly clear, as to what theprofession and professionalism

expect, and not a portion of your

audience, your organization and

employer or yourself, in cases moralloyalties come into conflict.

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These principles are called

professional codes, or codes of ethics.

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Let's brainstorm and discuss: honesty,

respect, sensitivity, fairness (all sides),

neutrality (neutral language), good

taste (avoid sensationalism, feelings,biases or prejudices), responsibility,

truth and objectivity (objective reality),

accuracy (credibility)

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News and opinion (editorializing)

Plagiarism

Attribution (fair use)

Conflicts of interests and self interests

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Privacy: intrusive behavior like for

example shoving a microphone into the

face of someone whose house has justburned down, or a close relative died,

demanding: How do you feel?

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Falsification (fake, or constructed/made

up news - gaffe is different)

Fabrication (statements not based on

facts, i.e. lies)

Alteration (photo-editing/montage)

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Falsification (fake, or constructed/made

up news - gaffe is different)

Fabrication (statements not based on

facts, i.e. lies)

Alteration (photo-editing/montage)

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The perils of journalism

Besides being a responsible

profession, journalism is also a

dangerous one.

Journalists have been threatened or

terrified, beaten up or jailed,

captivated, kept hostages, or

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So have this parameter in mind, if you

are going to exercise this scientific,

artful, liturgical profession in the future.

And make sure you read the

International Federation of Journalists

(IFJ)'s comprehensive safety guide,

which is available in a number oflanguages.

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After all, surviving in this job, reward

wise, time wise, relation wise andmore, you must have a strong

stomach!

Documents

Week 12: The legal-ethical responsibilities and the perils of journalism