Legal Issues

(An Excerpt from "The Handbook of Independent Journalism," www.usinfo.state.gov)

The cornerstone of international standards on the news media is Article 19 of the United Nations Charter, which states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Countries that are members of the United Nations are committed to upholding the charter, including Article 19, but that hasn't stopped some countries from suppressing their own news media and blocking access to international news. In some cases, journalists have been killed, imprisoned, or exiled for trying to do their jobs.

Danilo Arbilla of the Inter American Press Association and Uruguay's Búsqueda says the best press law is no law at all. In the ideal world, he says, legislation governing press freedom would take up no more than a couple of pages, "containing clear and frankly worded clauses prohibiting any attempt to regulate ... freedom of expression." Needless to say, the world is not an ideal place. Press laws vary around the world to such an extent that it is not possible to summarize them all. Some democratic countries have laws to ensure journalists' access to public information, while others limit what information can be published or aired. In some countries, it is illegal to name the victim of a sexual crime, or to identify juveniles accused of criminal activity. Even within countries, there may be differing local laws covering issues such as whether a journalist can be forced to name a confidential source or provide reporting notes to a court of law, and under what circumstances. Suffice it to say that journalists need to be aware of the laws in the countries in which they work, as well as ongoing efforts to have restrictive laws lifted.

One of the most common kinds of legal issues journalists face is libel or defamation. In the United States, defamation is a statement of fact that is substantially false about someone who can be identified and that tends to injure that person's reputation. Defamation is called "libel" when the statement is published and "slander" when it is broadcast, but the basic parameters are the same. Generally speaking, if a statement is true, it cannot be defamatory. Journalists therefore must confirm independently what their sources say, if those comments could defame another person.

As new technology changes the way journalists do their work, media laws are being reexamined. At the forefront are questions such as: Should online reporters be granted the same rights and protections as journalists working for established news organizations? Should those same privileges extend to Internet bloggers? These questions are likely to remain unresolved for some time.

Reporters obviously are subject to other laws that apply to individuals in a given country, such as laws governing privacy. A journalist who wants access to information cannot enter private property, take documents without permission, or wiretap a telephone and expect to face no legal consequences. A news organization might decide that some stories are so important they are worth the risk of legal sanctions, but that is a different matter to be decided jointly and carefully by editors, reporters, and management.