This week’s class is about defamation, which is a term not strange to me. As a media student whose future career work closely and directly with the public, I understand each of my actions and each of the sentences that I announce will affect slightly (if not significantly) to a certain group of people or at least a certain person. Therefore, I need to learn about the power of communication, including one of its worst ability which is ruining the image and self-esteem of a person by insulting and defaming him/her. So what is defamation anyway?
Defamation—also calumny, vilification, and traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation as well as other various kinds of defamation that retaliate against groundless criticism.
Journalists are judged for:
- The fairness of our reportage
- The balance of our reportage
- The accuracy of our reportage
- The honesty of our reportage (deception?)
- The public status of the subject of our reportage
- The harm to others of our reportage
Journalists have to work ethically and follow very strict code of conducts and media law. Below is the code of conducts for community radio broadcasting:
1. interpretation:
In this Code, the Standards must be interpreted and applied in accordance with the
Principles applying in each Section
2. Accuracy:
To ensure that the gathering and presentation
of news and information is accurate according to the recognised standards of objective
journalism. Credibility depends heavily on factual accuracy.
3. Corrections and clarifications
Principles: A commitment to accuracy includes a willingness to correct errors and clarify
ambiguous or otherwise misleading information. Swift correction can reduce harmful
reliance on inaccurate information, especially given content can be quickly, widely and
permanently disseminated. Corrections and clarifications can contribute to achieving
fairness and impartiality
4. Impartiality and diversity of perspectives
Principles: The ABC has a statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation
of news and information is impartial according to the recognised standards of objective
journalism.
5. Fair and honest dealing
Principles: Fair and honest dealing is essential to maintaining trust with audiences and
with those who participate in or are otherwise directly affected by ABC content. In rare
circumstances, deception or a breach of an undertaking may be justified. Because of
the potential damage to trust, deception or breach of an undertaking must be explained
openly afterwards unless there are compelling reasons not to do so.
6. Privacy
Principles: Privacy is necessary to human dignity and every person reasonably expects
that their privacy will be respected. But privacy is not absolute. The ABC seeks to
balance the public interest in respect for privacy with the public interest in disclosure
of information and freedom of expression.
7. Harm and offence
Principles: The ABC broadcasts comprehensive and innovative content that aims to
inform, entertain and educate diverse audiences. Innovation involves a willingness to
take risks, invent and experiment with new ideas. This can result in challenging content
which may offend some of the audience some of the time. But it also contributes to
diversity of content in the media and to fulfilling the ABC’s function to encourage and
promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts. The ABC acknowledges that
a public broadcaster should never gratuitously harm or offend and accordingly any content
which is likely to harm or offend must have a clear editorial purpose.
The frustrating truth of journalism is that there is no such thing as absolute free speech. Since journalism has the power to harm the reputation of a person, published information has to be analyzed in terms of its accuracy and violation of the codes of conduct.
I’ve just found this article about one of the most recent defamation in journalism: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-05/daily-telegraph-rachelle-louise-simon-gittany-defamation-case/6446398
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper defamed the girlfriend of convicted killer Simon Gittany with some of the worst “gutter journalism” imaginable, a court has heard.
Rachelle Louise, who supported Gittany last year during his high-profile trial for the murder of his fiancee, is suing the newspaper for defamation.
Ms Louise’s barrister Clive Evatt told the District Court that the Daily Telegraph’s stories about her carried the meaning she was a stripper, a prostitute and a woman of loose morals.
They made “false allegation after false allegation”, including claims she stripped in Las Vegas, kissed Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson and accepted diamonds from strangers, Mr Evatt said.
One of the stories was “the worst example of gutter journalism imaginable”.
Every job has its dangerous perception and I reckon journalism should be considered as one of the most dangerous job in the world. A journalist’s career could be ruin by only a non-prudent and incautious news article. Journalists and everyone follow media and communication career should be careful with collecting information to ensure that their sources are accurate and they are reporting news ethically to avoid defamation.