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2 February 2017
           
This week a Bill entered the UK Parliament that would ban the phrase “honour killing”, replacing it simply with “murder”. Nusrat Ghani MP, who is behind the proposed new law said that it disguises the horror of the violence and means that “political correctness” becomes an obstacle to police investigations. 

Pakistani journalist Tasneem Ahmar makes a similar case in the EJN's Ethics in the News report:

Despite efforts to sensitise the media in Pakistan to gender issues, especially violence against women, few news outlets in their efforts to win ratings appear to apply balance. Almost all television channels sensationalised the murder in July 2016 of Qandeel Baloch, a model turned celebrity, by showing explicit photo shoots and interviews. The horror of a young life taken in its prime became a farce, and far from inviting sympathy many in the media depicted the murder as a matter of “honour”.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

You can browse the highlights of last week's event in Brussels when the EJN presented the preliminary findings of a new study on migration in our new blog.

Read Asylum Corner's take on the event here: Reporting on migration: magnifying glass or distorting lens?
For the desk top study, draft conclusion and recommendations visit website of the International Centre for Media and Policy Development (ICMPD).

The 25 January event in Brussels also launched the Migration Media Award, which "will recognise and reward the excellence, relevance and newsworthiness of up to 36 journalism pieces dealing with migration in the Euro-Mediterranean region in all its aspects. The award consists of winning an EU-funded contract (from 500 Euros up to a maximum of 7000 euros) to produce a new original,  more detailed, more researched content covering a topic in relation to migration in the Euro-Mediterranean area. This will result in up to 36 further journalistic pieces of work."

For all the details visit: 
http://www.migration-media-award.eu/

You can now find a summary of last week's conference on ‘Hate speech against migrants and refugees in the media’ on our website. Magda Abu Fadil's blog on the #SpreadNoHate event is also worth reading on the Huffington Post. 

Thanks to our friends at Media Centar Sarajevo who have written about our Ethics in The News report in Bosnian: Budućnost novinarstva u eri post-istine. If you look at the end of the this article you can find information about the report in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

And finally for this section of the newsletter, the Program on Independent Journalism of the Open Society Foundations have created a very helpful calendar of the main international journalism conferences and workshops, which you can download. 

Looking forward to seeing some of you at a few of them over the year! 

Tom Law - EJN Campaigns and Communications Director

PODCAST OF THE WEEK
Roy Greenslade speaks the editor of Press Gazette, Dominic Ponsford, about 10 years of writing a daily media blog for the Guardian and reflects on the future of journalism.
TOP STORIES

Emily Bell's new piece is, as always, essential reading:
JOURNALISM’S BUSINESS CRISIS
 is well known, but in the wake of the US presidential election it is increasingly obvious that the true existential crisis for journalism is its lack of influence. Fake news, a decline in trust, and plunging revenues are all proxies for a loss of influence and impact over public opinion and policy. But influence, like energy, is only ever transferred, never destroyed. And the reluctant recipients of the displaced influence once enjoyed by the press are technology companies, which now command not just the dollars but the attention of the global audiences they serve.
 

Read the full article on CJR.

The University of Texas at Austin has launched a great new media literacy tool: Ethics Unwrapped” is a free educational program created at UT Austin to help people navigate ethical challenges and be more successful. Professors define ideas and students share examples in videos and animations about behavioral ethics, business ethics and basic ethics concepts. These research-based videos are used by more than 500 colleges and universities around the world and tens of thousands of ethics learners. Their latest video “Ethics & the Media: Propaganda” is a call to action for the public to educate themselves rather than rely on media to be aware.

Teaching controversial issues in Ethics education

Another great example of how media can play a positive role in media literacy, this time from Malta Today: An important skill that one should possess in the 21st century is that of media literacy; of being able to analyse and assess the complex messages that we receive from multiple streams of media.
This week saw interesting developments from some of the social media heavy weights:
- Twitter VP promises ‘long overdue’ harassment fixes this week (The Verge)
- Debunking fake news for Facebook off to slow start (Philly Voice)
Partnerships with Facebook, Snapchat raise concerns over media business models (IJNET)
Fake News is about to get even scarier than you ever could have imagined. (Vanity Fair)
Here Are All The Hoaxes And Other Misinformation That Spread After The Quebec Shooting
(Buzz Feed)
Stop saying “fake news”. It’s not helping.
(Medium)
Covering Trump the Reuters Way - Head of news agency urges reporters not to be intimidated. (Reuters)
AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA: ANALYSIS: Mapping, understanding & preventing xenophobic violence in SA (Africa Check) / On this subject it is worth revisiting Anton Harber's chapter of our Moving Stories report on how South African media cover migration: Compelling tales of afrophobia and media selective blindness
SOUTH AFRICA: In South Africa social media timelines are full of graphic images, such as car crashes. This article and audio clip debates the ethics and legality and is a good example of the role journalism can play in media literacy. (East Coast Radio)
AMERICAS
MEXCIO: Mexico’s misinformation wars: How organized troll networks attack and harass journalists and activists in Mexico. (Amnesty)
US: Breitbart and the Daily Caller among sites rejecting labeling of executive order as Muslim ban and linking move to actions by Barack Obama (Guardian)
US: How one reporter’s rejection of objectivity got him fired (Washington Post)
US: Journalists Shouldn’t Hold Trump To ‘Special Standards,’ Bloomberg's Editor-In-Chief says in a interview with Alain Elkann. (World Post)
ASIA-PACIFIC
INDIA: Press Council's former chairman Markandey Katju says media are neglecting burning issues in order to conceal the follies of the political leadership (The Hindu) 
PAKISTAN: Writers and journalists based in Europe called upon the government of Pakistan to take necessary steps in order to ensure the right of people to freedom of speech and expression and freedom of press in the country. (The News)
EUROPE
FRANCE: 'Fact-checking is not for one team': How France's Liberation is tackling false information (Digiday)
UK: Social media guidance for journalists: Any paid-for content must be clearly labelled (Press Gazette)
MIDDLE EAST
EGYPT: Journalists' Syndicate head: Egyptian press facing crisis with the state (Al-Monitor)
JORDAN: Threats to Independent Groups, Media Freedom (HRW)
FELLOWSHIPS
Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award, 
DEADLINE: February 21, 2017

Details: http://journalism.nyu.edu/poweraward
Online Application: http://journalism.nyu.edu/powerawardapp

A grant of $12,500 will be awarded to support the work of a promising early-career nonfiction writer on a story that uncovers truths about the human condition. Offered for the first time in 2015, the Award has been endowed by individuals and organizations touched by the life and work of Matthew Power, a wide-roving and award-winning journalist who sought to live and share the experience of the individuals and places on which he was reporting. Winners will have access to NYU’s libraries and the Institute’s facilities, including work space (as available).


The Reporting Award, 
DEADLINE: February 21, 2017

Details: http://journalism.nyu.edu/thereportingaward
Online Application: http://journalism.nyu.edu/thereportingawardapp

The Reporting Award supports a work of journalism in any medium on significant underreported subjects in the public interest. The Institute will select up to two winners of the Reporting Award. Each winner may receive a different amount of money, at the discretion of the Committee. The maximum award is $12,500. Winners will have access to NYU’s libraries and the Institute’s facilities, including work space (as available).
On 10 January 2017 the EJN published Ethics in the News, which looks at how media covered the UK vote to leave the European Union, the Trump election and the influence of fake news. We hear about the assault on free expression in Turkey, and the information war between India and Pakistan. The report examines the rise of hate speech, particularly in Asia, including a glossary for hate in Hong Kong. In Africa, we learn about the EJN’s ‘Turning the Page of Hate campaign. Media are warned that there is no honour in the so-called “honour killings” in Pakistan. We also hear about the success of the Panama Papers and get advice on how to deal with sources from the journalist that helped Edward Snowden reveal the secrets of United States’ global surveillance and snooping. It also features a thoughtful examination of how we use images to tell stories about migration.
 

New Translations of the EJN 5-Point Test for Hate Speech

The Council of Europe, European Federation of Journalists, UNESCO, and other partners have helped us translate the EJN 5-point test for hate speech into 7 new languages including Albanian, Dutch, Indonesian, Macedonian, Serbian, Turkish and Ukrainian. The test is already available in Arabic, English and French.

Visit the Accountable Journalism database of codes of media ethics
EJN IN THE NEWS

Other coverage of the Ethics in the News:

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