23 Jan 2013 | Uncategorized
A magazine editor in Thailand has been sentenced to 11 years in jail today (23 January) for insulting the monarchy. Somyot Prueksakasemsuk was found guilty of violating Thailand’s lese majeste laws, after he printed two articles in his magazine Voice of Taksin featuring comments deemed insulting to the royal family by prosecutors. Prueksakasemsuk’s arrest on 30 April 2011 came five days after he launched a petition campaigning to reform article 112 of Thailand’s penal code, making it an offence to defame the monarchy — a sentence which imposes prison sentences between three to 15 years. The author of both articles, Jakrapob Penkair, former spokesperson for Thaksin, is living in exile in Cambodia and has not been charged.
Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers – Censored by the BBC for using racially sensitive terms
Nine human rights lawyers have been jailed in Turkey. On 22 January, Istanbul court ordered the pre-trial detention of nine of 12 lawyers arrested on terrorism charges on 18 and 20 January. Güçlü Sevimli, Barkın Timtik, Şükriye Erden, Naciye Demir, Nazan Betül Vangölü Kozağaçlı, Taylan Tanay, Ebru Timtik, Günay Dağ, Selçuk Kozağaçlı have been jailed whilst a further three were freed. Prosecutors could decide to try the group as part of a wider investigation against people suspected of being involved with the armed and outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front. The group has carried out attacks on the military, politicians and the police in the past. The jailed lawyers had been particularly active in defending against police brutality in the past, as well as defending human rights activists in court. A secrecy order on the investigation means specific charges are unclear.
The Nigerian government has banned state officials from talking to the press. On 21 January, Lagos authorities issued a notice barring civil servants and political offices from granting interviews or speaking on the government’s behalf. The notice sent from Governor Babatunde Fashola was intended to curb the flow of information to the public, saying that policies that had not yet been formally approved were being discussed with the media. The notice ordered all government workers to request permission from the Ministry of Information and Strategy before giving interviews, so the information could be edited by the ministry prior to its release to the public. It also warned that in the event of officials offering public speeches, they must stick solely to their planned speech which would have to be approved by the ministry prior to the event.
Pakistan has imposed a ban on the sale of the video games Call of Duty and Medal of Honour. Saleem Memon, president of the All Pakistan CD, DVD, Audio Cassette Traders and Manufacturers Association, released a statement calling for the boycott of the games after they received dozens of complaints, saying that they violate the country’s unity and sanctity. Memon said “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” and “Medal of Honor: Warfighter” depict Pakistan’s intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISS), as pro-Al Qaeda and Pakistan as a broken state and a safe haven for terrorists. Shopkeepers have been warned of the “consequences” of being caught attempting to buy or sell either of the games.
Famed scenes of Fawlty Towers have been cut by the BBC, to protect racial sensitivities. The Germans, an episode of the popular 1970s TV series was repeated on 20 January on BBC2, with a scene from the bigoted Major Gowen edited. Racist language was removed from the clip, a move taken to keep in tune with a shift in public attitudes according to the BBC, but listener complaints were filed following the broadcast, with some remarking that it was an “airbrushing of history”. The episode satirises xenophobia in its different forms and features John Cleese’s famous “Hitler walk” — a scene considered to be one of the greatest moments on British television.
14 Nov 2012 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
This article was originally published in The New Statesman
Between the Leveson Inquiry and the crisis at the BBC, it seems journalism is all we ever read or hear about these days.
These crises are heightened because journalists are, essentially, gossips who like talking about journalists. In this, we’re no different from people in any other line of work: programmers talk about other people’s code, plumbers slag rivals’ work – it’s human.
Note I wrote “line of work” rather than profession. That’s because it is very, very important to remember that journalism is not and cannot ever be a profession.
This is at the very heart of the debate over what Lord Justice Leveson should conclude from his findings when he reports in the coming weeks. Can you legally force journalists to behave in a certain way without damaging free expression?
Some point to regulatory bodies such as the Law Society or the General Medical Council, and say that regulation does not affect those professions. But think. One can strike off a doctor or a lawyer – how does one strike off a journalist? Sure, you can sack her, but what if she starts a blog? Starts making phone calls? Starts covering stories?
How do you stop people doing journalism? The old distinction will become ever more blurred as we all now carry publishing apparatus in our pocket. Journalists in the traditional sense had desks, telephones, expense accounts and bad habits. But most importantly, access to a printing press and means of distribution. A decent smartphone carries all this in one (apart from the expenses and habits).
Journalism is one way in which people can exercise their right to free expression, and the danger with statutory regulation is that one can actually create separate levels of access to a right – giving the journalist less of a right to free expression than anyone else. That’s not how rights work.
Some will point out that there are many “statutes” that apply to journalists, and this is true, but these statutes – contempt, libel etc, do not apply just to journalists – they are universal.
Creating a new law governing the press compromises that universality.
Many point to the “Irish model” as an example of statutory underpinning. But this is not entirely correct. The Press Council of Ireland was already established before it was recognised in statute, and then only with membership as a mitigating factor in a libel defence. It was not established by statute. (Bear in mind, by the way, Leveson watchers, that it took five years of negotiation to set up the Irish Press Council. This may go on for some time.)
Meanwhile, Germany (in terms of market size, possibly a better example for the UK) does not even permit specific laws on the press.
A press regulator cannot carry legal compulsion. Politicians already try their hardest to influence newspapers, and allowing them to create statute that will rule over the press will almost inevitably prove too tempting for a parliamentarians fed up of their eternal role as lamposts to the press’s dogs (as HL Mencken had it). Statute specifically dealing with the press will hurt free speech, no matter how much its advocates say it won’t.
Padraig Reidy is news editor at Index on Censorship
14 Nov 2012 | News and features
Will a new Director General be enough to save the BBC asks Index’s Kirsty Hughes
(more…)
12 Nov 2012 | Uncategorized
You couldn’t make it up – and any 21st century Evelyn Waugh’s hoping to match his tales of journalistic folly must be wondering how art or the comic novelist can outdo reality. As George Entwistle becomes the second BBC Director General to resign in the last decade over the credibility of a key BBC news story, is the BBC really in crisis? Or can a rapid new appointment stop the rot?
In a nutshell, the BBC first spiked what by all accounts was a piece of very serious journalism on alleged child abuse by a leading national figure, Jimmy Savile — leaving rivals ITV to broadcast the story first — and then it let through a piece of shoddy journalism on child abuse wrongly implicating, albeit anonymously (’til Twitter got to work), another national figure. While some have suggested the second, lax editorial signoff two weeks ago may actually show that caution over the Savile story was appropriate, this looks like the wrong conclusion.
Only some insiders know the full story of both process and content. But we do know that in the Savile case substantial evidence had been gathered, and five women were interviewed on camera about their allegations. Whether there was pressure from above, fear of libel, a casual attitude to child abuse involving young teenage girls or all these and more, the decision not to broadcast looks wrong — and has led to a storm of criticism since the story broke at the start of October. The BBC’s subsequent crisis management was inept — Entwistle sounding inadequately informed and turning in a weak performance before MPs, while Newsnight editor Peter Rippon, who shelved the programme, had to amend his blog post on how the decision was taken to correct inaccuracies.
A month after the Saville fiasco broke, Newsnight then broadcast its programme interviewing Steve Messham who alleged child abuse at a North Wales home in the 1970s by a senior Conservative politician. On Monday evening, the BBC issued a summary of its internal report confirming that Newsnight neither showed Messham a photo of the politician — nor put the allegations to that politician. Lord McAlpine – mentioned in a series of tweets by a range of people after the Newsnight broadcast — has threatened legal action. Messham came out publicly after the programme and said McAlpine was not the person whose photo the police had shown him in the 1990s, and apologised. The BBC also apologised. Entwistle resigned, as did the director of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Iain Overton, the Bureau having been involved in making the programme. As the summary BBC report says some “basic journalistic checks were not completed.”
Some suggest a libel action from McAlpine against Newsnight may fail, as the peer was not named in the programme. But wherever the legal case goes, the journalism looks shoddy and the editorial judgement in broadcasting the programme a bad call.
Perhaps one of the few brighter points of this dismal tale is that the most senior people in the two organisations resigned so fast — a lesson that ought not to be lost on hesitant politicians, heads of banks and others in recent years who have failed to step up and take responsibility for failures on their watch, or only reluctantly, slowly and after continuous pressure. But the large pay-off announced for Entwistle has rather diminished some of the impact of the honourable rapid resignation.
In a trenchant statement, Newsnight’s leading presenter, Jeremy Paxman blamed the post-Hutton inquiry BBC culture of appointing “biddable” people and “bloating” management at the expense of programme budgets. This sounds like the NHS, that other British icon, where years of changing reforms have repeatedly seemed to prioritise managers over medical staff. But if biddable managers is the problem, that can explain the Savile case — not taking a risk — but not the McAlpine case — taking a risk in spite of inadequate journalistic output. And it is how the BBC learns the lessons of these two opposite failures that will determine the eventual outcome of this crisis.
In the short term, the BBC will surely ride the crisis out. Chris Patten, heading up the BBC Trust, is right to be moving quickly to appoint what will have to be a top quality, credible new Director General.
But the BBC cannot afford another scandal of this sort soon. And the danger must be that serious, high quality, challenging journalism will be held back. If a battered, bruised and risk-averse BBC chooses to avoid any repetition of the second Newsnight weak journalism scandal, or holds back on anything risky as a second line of defence, then the crisis will have done real damage. If the BBC loses its courage on decent investigative journalism, this might create a false sense of calm for a while, but at the cost of undermining its reputation in the longer term. Steering between the twin hazards of weak editorial control and risk averse editorial control will be the test for the BBC and its next Director General.
