Category: Freedom of Expression

International instruments on the protection of journalists’ sources

| 3 Comments
| Freedom of Expression, journalism, Journalists' sources

Journalists' Source Privilege map via Privacy International World Press Freedom Day is an appropriate day on which to consider the protection of journalists’ sources on the international plane. It is a protection that is embodied in many international instruments. For example, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has always had media freedom at the heart of its operations. Hence, in the Concluding Document of its 1986 Vienna meeting (pdf), principle 40 of the principles relating to Co-operation in Humanitarian and Other Fields commits the member states to

… ensure that, in pursuing this activity, journalists, including those representing media from other participating States, are free to seek access to and maintain contacts with public and private sources of information and that their need for professional confidentiality is respected.

Similarly, principle 3(d) of the Council of Europe Resolution on Journalistic Freedoms and Human Rights (adopted at the 4th European Ministerial Conference on Mass Media Policy, Prague, 7-8 December 1994) calls for

the protection of the confidentiality of the sources used by journalists.

…

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… or of the blogosphere?

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| ECHR, Freedom of Expression, Journalists' sources

Hungarian Civil Liberties Union logo, via their siteThe First Amendment to the US Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …”. Does that and similar declarations of press freedom extend to the blogosphere? The question is made more difficult in the context of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is a general protection of freedom of expression which contains no direct reference to the media at all, though the European Court of Human Rights has long extolled the “watchdog” role of the press as of especial value in Article 10 jurisprudence. The question is made more difficult still in the context of the Treaties establishing the European Union, where speech issues arise not as elements of a straightforward freedom of expression guarantee but in the context of the fundamental economic rights upon which the EU is founded, but even there the European Court of Justice has long acknowledged the importance of freedom of expression especially as regards the media. Over on contentandcarrier, Hans Peter Lehofer has spotted some interesting asides in recent judgments of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, signalling how those courts may be about to build on these developments and expand press freedom to non-traditional media, such as the blogosphere.…

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Cowengate: no use crying over spilt milk

| 6 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, ECHR, Freedom of Expression, Irish Society, Sedition
'Silvio Berlusconi and Mara Carfagna, via New York Times
Silvio Berlusconi and Mara Carfagna, though not by Filippo Panseca

Yesterday’s Times Online has a short piece which begins [with added links]

A scarf is the only thing protecting the modesty of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, in a painting of him and his Minister for Equal Opportunities, Mara Carfagna, 32, a former topless model, as angels. The work by Filippo Panseca is in a show at Savona on the Italian Riviera. Mr Panseca, 69, said that he wanted to pay tribute to the Prime Minister, 72, in the exhibition, which also includes a painting in similar style of Mr Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario.

The same story is also covered in The Independent, The Telegraph, and The Daily Mail. The inevitable comparisons with Cowengate were drawn by the Evening Herald, which adds that Panseca said that if

Berlusconi bought the paintings he would donate the money to the earthquake victims of Abruzzo. Mr Berlusconi has yet to comment. But he seems unlikely to buy the pictures: last year, he censored a bare nipple in a copy of a renaissance painting hung in the government press room.

More seriously, though, it seems that 144 people complained to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission about RTÉ’s coverage, 9 about the original report, and 135 about the apology; and Suzy has posted a copy of RTÉs response to the BCC regarding those complaints.…

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Another hecklers’ veto; another failure of freedom of expression on campus

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| Freedom of Expression

Via 9th Level Ireland, I am alerted to the following story [with added links]:

Euthanasia lecture cancelled

A controversial public lecture on euthanasia has been cancelled minutes after it began when a group of over 20 protestors disrupted it. The guest speaker Prof Len Doyal, an open proponent of both voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia, had to be escorted from the lecture theatre at Cork University Hospital by security staff. The lecture entitled ‘Why Euthanasia should be legalised‘, formed part of the annual spring series organized by CUH’s Ethics Forum and started at 5pm. As the 350 attendees were being welcomed, a group of over 20 people stood up and began shouting. Witnesses say some began saying the rosary and one man accused Prof Doyal of being a murderer. A decision was taken soon afterwards to cancel the lecture on public safety grounds but it took some time to get the message through to the audience because of the continuing strong vocal opposition by protestors. …

This is terrible news. As I have argued here before, to ensure that hecklers do not have a veto, those who organise such controversial events must ensure that the controversial speakers actually have the opportunity to speak.…

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Cowengate follow-on: a question, and more pictures at the exhibitions

| 16 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, journalism, Law, Sedition
Emerson, Lake and Palmer performing their 1971 album version of Pictures at an Exhibition

The Cowengate controversy certainly caught the imagination this week; and, by way of update to my earlier posts on the topic, I’ve collected some more links about the affair below. Perusing the coverage in print, broadcast, and online, a question has repeatedly occurred to me: for all that there was online outrage, how much of it was reflected in the print or broadcast media? My impression is that whilst online commentary reflected and often relied upon the print or broadcast media, there was (by and large) very little traffic the other way. Is this a fair assessment? Answers, please, in the comments below.

[The remainder of the post is another compendium of links relating to the Cowengate controversy].…

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Why should “Anon.” get all the best lines? Reflections on anonymous political speech

| 1 Comment
| Freedom of Expression

image of anonymity via Concurring Opinions.Given that I have strongly defended anonymous speech on this blog (here and here), Sarah Hinchliff Pearons‘s blogpost Accountability and Anonymity: Rethinking the Value of Anonymous Speech caught my eye. Her basic point is

… not to argue that we should not try to prevent lawsuits designed to stifle free speech. … Instead, I am arguing that in designing solutions to this problem, we must be careful not to place a premium on anonymous speech. While there are certainly circumstances under which anonymity is necessary, those situations are and should be limited. There is a reason why journalists are strongly discouraged from quoting anonymous sources – it prevents accountability. As we transition into an environment where more people than ever have the ability to communicate their ideas and opinions, it is more important than ever that we encourage accountability in the marketplace of ideas. Incentivizing anonymity is certainly not the way to do that.

Similar points and cases are discussed here here, here and here.

On the other hand, but there are times when speech is more important than accountability. Indeed, it is the very fact of the lack of accountability provided by anonymity that can make it a necessary means of dissenting political expression.…

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Cowengate and Freedom of Expression

| 37 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Sedition
No image, to represent the attempt to censor the Cowen caricatures

Suzy must get the prize for popularising the best political coinage of the day, for – so far as I can see – it is she who has run with the name “Cowengate” for the sturm und drang surrounding satirical portraits of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Brian Cowen. In a piece of guerrilla artistry as ingenious as the coinage Suzy has popularised, caricatures of Mr Cowen were anonymously hung on the walls of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Once they were discovered, they were removed, but not before they had garnered sufficient publicity for RTÉ (Raidio Telefís Éireann, the national state broadcaster) to broadcast a story about them on the flagship 9:00pm television news programme.

It has been the occasion for lots of bad puns and some embarrassment on the part of the Taoiseach, the Gallery and the Academy, but in the ordinary course of things, the story should have blown over after about 48hours. However, things then took two turns for the worse. First, RTÉ apologised to Mr Cowen and his family or for any disrespect shown to the office of Taoiseach by their broadcast.…

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Cowengate: Pictures at an exhibition

| 29 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Law, Sedition
Ravel‘s orchestration of Mussorgksy‘s Pictures at an Exhibition, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the BBC Proms in August 2006

This post is an addendum to Cowengate and Freedom of Expression (above). In the original version of that post, I had a paragraph of links to other coverage. Like Topsy, that paragraph growed and growed, so I’ve taken the list of links out of that post and put them here.…

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