2nd August 2016
By wp-admin-ss88

Ethical Journalism Network Newsletter – 2 August 2016

NEWS

JOHN PILGER AND TAKING QUOTES OUT OF CONTEXT

As a young person with almost a desperate thirst for an alternative to the status quo, John Pilger was an inspiration. I had many of his books; I read his articles and watched his documentaries almost religiously. Here was an example of a journalist who stood up to injustice and the powerful, and courageously so. These days, it’s fair to say that I’m more of a fan of the earlier John Pilger than his current incarnation. But Pilger has quoted me in an article in such a fundamentally dishonest way — and people reading his article keep bringing it up with me — that it deserves a response.

Read the full article here. (Medium/Owen Jones)

TURKISH JOURNALIST TELLS OF LACK OF MEDIA ETHICS AFTER FAILED COUP

The National Union of Journalists’ branch meeting in Brighton on Wednesday was packed to hear the talk by Turkish press freedom advocate Umit Ozturk. In his timely address following the failed coup in Turkey, he spoke about the threats to journalism and human rights under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime. One of the people who attended, John Keenan, sent in the following report on part of Ozturk’s speech:

“The problem in Turkey at the moment, in terms of press publications and the media, is that there are no media ethics.

“People sometimes cheer when you are lynched, and when they fall into the same position and you support them, they forget that you supported them.

“This culture of revenge and of taking sides in order to protect themselves is at the core of this cancer in the media industry.”

Read the full article here. (Guardian)

Attempted coup and state of emergency strike at heart of press freedom (Disk Basinis)

60 Journalists detained in Turkey since the coup attempt, 15 July (EFJ)

MIGRANTS TELL OF HORRORS OF VOYAGE IN ITALY MEDIA CAMPAIGN

Italy launched an internet, TV and radio campaign on Thursday to discourage Africans from setting out on the often deadly voyage to Europe, including real migrants telling their often harrowing stories.

Read the full article. (Reuters)

Campaign launched to discourage refugees from heading to Europe. (Guardian)

The refugee crisis will not be hacked. (Internews)

HAWAII’S CIVIL BEAT GETS READERS REP

There is a new readers representative position to go with a new-ish journalism outlet in Hawaii, iMediaEthics has learned. Brett Oppegaard, an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, is the first readers representative for the Honolulu Civil Beat, he told iMediaEthics.

Read the full article here. (iMediaEthics)

WHEN MEDIA PUBLISH WIKILEAKS DOCUMENTS: LEGAL, BUT IS IT ETHICAL?

Hackers are criminals. The data files they pry loose are nothing more than stolen goods. Illicitly obtained email chains are equivalent to personal journals burglarized from locked desk drawers, yet because they’re in electronic form and easily reproduced, the journalistic community regards them as fair game. Outlets that would never countenance their own reporters breaking the law or even concealing their identities to obtain information seem to think nothing of feasting on the poisonous fruits delivered by hackers.

Read the full article here. (Chicago Tribune)

COLLABORATION OF ACADEMIA & MEDIA HELPS IMPROVE ETHICAL STANDARDS

Strong academia and media industry collaboration is the only way to improve the ethical standards, said participants at a seminar held at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Peshawar on Thursday. Industry experts, senior journalists, media professionals, academicians and a large number of students, scholars and faculty from the journalism and media sciences departments attended the seminar.

Read the full article here. (Business Recorder via VCMZ)

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS – HOW PHOTOS SHAPE ATTITUDES TO REFUGEES

Over the last two decades we have seen the unprecedented politicisation of immigration. Many Australians remember the wave of immigration after World War II when our rapidly developing industrialised economy addressed its labour shortage. Yet, like many Western countries, since the end of the Cold War we have worked to prevent refugees from seeking asylum by making our borders impenetrable.

Today, we distinguish between migrants, who arrive via our Migration Program (currently up to 190,000 places per year), and refugees, admitted through our Humanitarian Program, (providing 13,750 places in 2016-2017). Migrants make a conscious choice to seek a better life elsewhere. Refugees are forced to leave their country because of persecution.

Photography has mapped a distinctively Australian version of this global story. Once migrants were represented as complex, vulnerable, diverse people, as in David Moore’s iconic 1966 photograph, Migrants arriving in Sydney. This image allows us to empathise with the fear, anxiety and hope felt by newcomers, poised between old and new, tradition and change.

Read the full article here. (The Conversation)

PALESTINIAN JOURNALISTS SIGN HISTORIC COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT – THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN THE ARAB WORLD.

The groundbreaking agreement – which will deliver significantly improved terms and conditions and greater editorial independence for 800 Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza strip, was signed at a ceremony in Ramallah. The International Federation of Journalists warmly welcomed the agreement, calling it “a historic achievement and a model for the region”.

Read the full article here. (IFJ)

How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press

In its annual report released this spring, Freedom House, an American democracy advocacy organization, downgraded Israel’s freedom of the press ranking from “free” to “partly free.” To anyone following Israeli news media over the past year and a half, this was hardly surprising. Freedom House focused primarily on the “unchecked expansion” of paid content in editorial pages, as well as on the outsize influence of Israel Hayom (“Israel Today”), a free daily newspaper owned by the American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and widely believed to promote the views of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Read the full article here. (New York Times)

HOW TO DEAL WITH A JOURNALIST’S KIDNAP

For news organisations, a kidnapping is likely to be one of the hardest things to deal with since they hold so few of the cards. This is particularly the case if a news organisation is unprepared for the possibility of a kidnap because this will slow its response to the kidnapping in the initial crucial hours.

Read the full article here. (International News Safety Institute)

KILLING THE MESSENGER – An analysis of news media casualties carried out for the International News Safety Institute by Cardiff School of Journalism – January – June 2016

ACTIVITIES

NEW ETHICAL JOURNALISM NEWSLETTER LAUNCHING THIS MONTH

Dear subscriber,

At the end of August, the EJN will be launching a new website and a revamped newsletter.

In order to improve the quality of our services I would like to hear your ideas about how we can improve the newsletter.

If you have any feedback please email me at [email protected].

Many thanks,

Tom Law

EJN Director of Communications and Campaigns