Ethics and Freedom

LONDON: The European Commission is trying to rally support for a sweeping overhaul of media regulations after policy makers softened proposals to govern the emerging digital media with the same rules that traditional broadcasters are required to live by. The media commissioner, Viviane Reding, wants to update the Television Without Frontiers directive, a law written in 1989, to take account of...

It is perhaps symptomatic of the times we live in that a 20-second noisy sound bite will echo far more than a 1,200-word reasoned argument. Which is why a Ram Jethmalani exploding on CNN-IBN while defending his right to represent the prime accused in the Jessica Lall case appears to have set off such an avalanche of comment in the blogosphere. Unfortunately, much of the debate has caught the wrong...

MALAYSIA'S internal security ministry has temporarily shut down a weekend newspaper after it caused an outroar with an eye-popping survey of attitudes to sex. The Internal Security Ministry suspended the Weekend Mail's publishing licence, a ministry source said today, after the survey brought howls of protest from Government ministers. The newspaper, part of a stable of pro-government publications...

Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll today called on other news organizations, especially those that use AP services, to increase their attention on imprisoned AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by U.S. military officials in Iraq for more than six months without being charged. Saying Hussein “works on behalf of every news organization that receives news from the...

NEW YORK: Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll today called on other news organizations, especially those that use AP services, to increase their attention on imprisoned AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by U.S. military officials in Iraq for more than six months without being charged. Saying Hussein “works on behalf of every news organization that receives news from...

Chennai: The publication in The Hindu of a Reuters photograph of Qutubbin Naseeruddin Ansari, a victim of communal violence in Gujarat, with captions, showed no "mal-intent on the part of the newspaper and even the various headings given over a period of time did not substantially differ from the sum and substance of the caption given by Reuters" but "the newspaper should have avoided mentioning...

Lucknow, Oct 20 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh's ruling Samajwadi Party, assembly speaker Mata Prasad Pandey as well as the opposition appear to have closed ranks to haul up CNN-IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai for a sting operation that his television channel carried out exposing blatant corrupt practices of a state minister as well as some legislators. Just as Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey, of the...

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is brushing off a request for more information and a decision on an Associated Press photographer held for six months in Iraq without formal charges. In a letter to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, does not provide details about why Iraqi photographer Bilal Hussein remains at a U.S. run prison camp. The letter repeats the military...

"Come on, don't be shy," mumbles an ageing C-list Bollywood actor to a girl on a grainy video shown on an Indian news channel last year. "I want to make love to you." This, most say, marked the nadir of sting journalism in India - an out of work actor had been seemingly entrapped by a journalist posing as a sweet talking young aspiring actress. The channel was unfazed - viewership leapt three-fold...

The venerable judiciary has done it again. They have deemed that most sting operations are money-making rackets — which they may well be. They have also said that sting operations, if in public interest, are good. Here, then, is my concern. Should I, as a citizen of this country, be concerned if those elected to office in assemblies and Parliament are crooks; if they are law-breakers; if they are...