The two day forum will cover legal areas relevant to day-to-day practice of journalism and laws in a media convergent environment focusing on mobile TV & internet TV that are increasingly becoming popular with the emergence of the new forms of journalism that is changing the media laws.

Promoting Legal Awareness Among Media Practitioners
by
Dr Venkat Iyer,Consultant

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the interest that broadcasters and other journalists have been showing in media law. Part of the reason for this is, obviously, the upsurge in the incidence of media-related litigation around the world, including in the Asia-Pacific region. There have been a number of high-profile law suits and prosecutions filed against media defendants on such grounds as defamation, contempt of court, breach of parliamentary privilege, sedition, lese majesty, and breach of public morals.

These legal actions can have serious consequences for the individual journalists and media organisations concerned. Many a newspaper has, for example, been bankrupted into closure by swingeing defamation damages. Concerted legal attacks by motivated plaintiffs, whether repressive governments or powerful business groups, have also led to a “chilling” effect on the freedom of the media across whole societies. This has far-reaching implications, especially when considered against the depressing reality that fewer than half the countries in the world enjoy truly free media.

Not surprisingly, therefore, there has been much attention paid of late to the relationship between the law and the media, and to the need for media practitioners to familiarise themselves with the legal environment in which they operate. AIBD, like a number of other professional organisations worldwide, has been engaged in promoting the spread of legal knowledge and awareness, and as part of this effort it organised a two-day workshop on Media Law for Broadcasters and Journalists in Kuala Lumpur between 25-26 May 2008.

The workshop, held as a precursor to the 2008 Asian Media Summit, attracted a huge amount of interest and significant participation from media practitioners, academics, regulators, and legal advisers across Asia and beyond. Exceeding all the expectations of the organisers, it saw more than 35 delegates in attendance.

Three specific issues were taken up for consideration during the two days of deliberations, viz. defamation, contempt of court, and hate speech. Each of these issues was discussed intensively, and a number of case studies dealt with. The case studies – which required the participants to break out into small groups – involved diverse scenarios of a kind that media practitioners would often encounter in the course of their professional lives, and these challenged the participants to apply the principles and the precedents that they had learnt about in the lectures/discussions that preceded the small group work.

The substantive sessions were followed by two panel discussions in which a small number of selected experts were invited to offer their views on certain topical issues that were directly relatable to the themes of the workshop. The first of these panels consisted of William Ampem-Darko, Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting
Corporation, Gopal Sreenevasan, a practising lawyer from Malaysia, Dr Jacob van Kokswijk, a legal researcher from the University of Strathclyde, and Steve Buckley, President of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters. This session allowed the workshop participants to learn about cross-country experiences in the fields of defamation, contempt of court, and hate speech, and to explore possible solutions to many of the recurring problems encountered in more than one jurisdiction.

The second panel discussion involved two experienced media figures, David Barlow and Robert Beveridge, who spoke on the broad theme of ‘Journalism Ethics in the Era of Media Convergence’. Mr Barlow has been associated with the British Broadcasting Corporation in many different capacities (including as Secretary to the Corporation), while Dr Beveridge is an academic attached to Napier University in Scotland and a Director of the UK’s well-known media campaign group, the Voice of the Listener and Viewer. Together, they addressed a number of issues dealing with the ethical challenges facing journalists in the post-converge world, including those posed by sting operations involving sophisticated technology, chequebook journalism, and the implications of putting content on the web which may fall foul of the laws/customs of other countries whilst being acceptable in the host country.

A particularly noteworthy feature of the workshop was that it was highly interactive, with participants being at all times ready and willing to pose questions, debate issues, and share experiences which to me, as the consultant to, and leader of, the event, was most encouraging. The post-workshop feedback received from participants was also very positive, with many of them expressing the hope that similar events covering other aspects of media law would be organised in the near future. This bodes well for AIBD’s continuing involvement in this highly interesting and important field.

Last updated 21.11.08 15:28 by Manil