Ethics and Freedom

Journalists and private detectives who buy and sell personal information should be sent to prison for up to two years, the information commissioner Richard Thomas said today. Mr Thomas was presenting a report to parliament reflecting his concern that confidential information can too easily be obtained from public and private organisations, particularly by newspaper reporters. The report - called...

The Media Institution of Southern Africa (Misa-SA) on Wednesday challenged institutions and individuals who have been criticising the media recently to substantiate their allegations. "Misa-SA challenges these critics to take their complaints - and they will have to be specific - to the ombuds institutions set up to regulate media editorial conduct, the Press Ombudsman and the Broadcasting...

LONDON, May 2 (KUNA) -- An independent report into the impartiality of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Tuesday found no evidence of deliberate bias. The review, covering the BBC's domestic public service output only, said "Our assessment is that, apart from individual lapses, there was little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias". "On the contrary, there was evidence of...

PRAGUE, April 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division for Human Rights Watch, says a significant number of the human-rights violations her organization has recorded are made against journalists. "We get many examples of journalists being harassed in Central Asia in a variety of ways, either through criminal or civil penalties, libel penalties...

A mass-circulation Chinese-language daily newspaper vowed on Tuesday to file an appeal with the Taipei District Court against a ruling that fined one its reporters for refusing to disclose the source of his information while testifying in a "stock vultures" case. The paper accused the court of violating the principles of freedom of the press. United Daily News reporter Kao Nien-yi was fined NT$30...

Canada's new Conservative government banned the media from showing live images of the flag-draped coffins of four Canadian soldiers when their bodies were returned from Afghanistan. The families of at least two soldiers said they were disturbed by the media blackout and the lack of lowered flags. The government has stopped lowering flags to half-staff outside Parliament each time a Canadian...

April 26, 2006) -- Ted Vaden, public editor of The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., recently noted the complaints of local residents who were surprised to find that comments they had posted in a Yahoo neighborhood chat room had been quoted by a reporter in the paper. The Fox Run, N.C., residents had used their own names in complaining about a nearby nightclub that they claimed was a disturbance...

Index on Censorship's annual Freedom of Expression Awards have honoured journalists, writers, lawyers, campaigners, filmmakers and whistleblowers who have made a significant contribution to free expression over the past year. This is the fifth year of our annual awards, given to people who have made outstanding contributions, often heroic ones, to the defence of free expression, through their...

The year-long detention without trial of a Hong Kong reporter accused by China of spying for Taiwan is “not human”, activists pushing for his release said on Friday, but there was no clear end in sight. Ching Cheong, who worked for the Singapore Straits Times newspaper, was taken into custody in southern China a year ago on Saturday and formally arrested in August. His was one of a series of...

The reopening of judicial proceedings against detained “New York Times” researcher Zhao Yan, whose release had been awaited since 17 March 2006, is an “aberration,” Reporters Without Borders has said, calling for him to be freed at once. Zhao’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said officials told him on 17 April that the proceedings had been reopened on 20 March 2006 on the basis of the same charges that were...