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AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR INDEPENDENT
JOURNALISM
AUSTRALIAN JOURNALISM ASSOCIATION
The problems with monitoring journalism ethics in Australia (1997)
A proposal to change the MEAA's judiciary procedures. Australian journalism is trying to move towards greater accountability despite a failure by the only professional association for journalists the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Australian Journalists' Association section (MEAA AJA) to review and update its only Code of Ethics. Throughout the early 1990s journalism and journalists in Australia went through a crisis of confidence. The continued refrain heard at industry media conferences was about declining circulations, a loss of credibility with readers/audiences and a range of strategies to build circulation and credibility. During this time five journalists were fined, given suspended sentences or jailed for adhering to their ethical obligations and refusing to name their sources in a range of court cases and commissions of inquiry. The silence from the public was deafening....
Author: Cratis Hippocrates
Dealing with death: intrusion into grief and journalism education (1996)
On July 8, 1822, the poet Shelley was drowned when his yacht sank in a squall off the Italian coast. The great man's body was retrieved from the sea and placed in a temporary grave, from which it was unearthed for cremation a few days later. Lord Byron was present during the retrieval, as indeed was a gentleman friend of the two poets named Edward John Trelawny. Trelawny subsequently wrote the following account of the somewhat harrowing experience of watching - with Byron - as a group of Italian labourers dug up the body of their close friend.
Author: Ian Richards
Across the genres: How journalism is changing in the 1990s (1996)
We are living in the information age and writing is at the heart of the dissemination of information. No matter what the delivery mechanism is; the internet, multimedia, print journalism, broadcast journalism, literature and so on, writing is the fundamental element in the information revolution that we find ourselves within and converging production and delivery technologies are blurring the line between 'print' and 'broadcast' media. This has several consequences for the teaching of writing to journalism students.
Author: Lani Guerke & Martin Hirst
In defence of Stuart Littlemore: An angel of liberation (1997)
Media Watch helps journalists to enforce the code of ethics. On Tuesday morning, July 2 1996, Quest Newspapers offices across Brisbane were abuzz with gossip and speculation: was the company's latest promotion unethical? Would it be dropped? Who was the leak? The night before, their employer, Quest Newspapers (owned by News Corporation Ltd), had been pilloried on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch program for running its Business Achievers Awards promotion as front-page news. Media Watch presenter Stuart Littlemore denounced the campaign as a "form of journalistic prostitution" in which the company's commercial interests had triumphed over journalistic duty to readers.
Author: Kerri Elgar
Research: Journalists Sources and Parliament (1994)
The Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (Inquiry into the Rights and Obligations of the Media) has requested the Communications Law Centre to make a further submission on the term of reference "the need for journalists to protect the identity of their sources of information", with particular reference to the potential conflict between the protection of journalists' sources and the ability of Houses of Parliament and their committees ("Parliament") to conduct their proceedings effectively.
Research: Journalists Sources (October 1993)
This submission argues that legislative reform in the form of a shield law is required to provide protection from disclosure of journalists' sources, based on respect for confidences and the public interest served by newsgathering and maintaining the free flow of information. Such a shield law would contain a presumption in favour of maintaining the confidence and would only yield in those cases where the identity of the source is necessary to determine a specific question in the proceeding and that purpose is sufficiently important to override the journalist's obligation of confidentiality and the public interest served by the free flow of information. The submission also discusses some further issues such as whether a person in the position of editor can claim the protection, search and seizure and the desirability of separate contempt trials.
Author: Communications Law Centre, Melbourne.
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
THE WESTPAC LETTERS AFFAIR 1992
Seminar: 'the Westpac Letters Affair' organised by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ)
BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY
