Journalists’ sources – Page 3

The First Amendment to the US Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …”. Does that and similar declarations of press freedom extend to the blogosphere? The question is made more difficult in the context of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is a general protection of freedom of expression which contains no direct reference to the media at all, though the European Court of Human Rights has long extolled the “watchdog” role of the press as of especial value in Article 10 jurisprudence. The question is made more difficult still in the context of the Treaties establishing the European Union, where speech issues arise not as elements of a straightforward freedom of expression guarantee but in the context of the fundamental economic rights upon which the EU is founded, but even there the European Court of Justice has long acknowledged the importance of freedom of expression especially as regards the media. Over on contentandcarrier, Hans Peter Lehofer has spotted some interesting asides in recent judgments of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, signalling how those courts may be about to build on these developments and expand press freedom to non-traditional media, such as the blogosphere.…

Cowengate and Freedom of Expression

26 March, 200914 September, 2020

| 37 Comments

| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Sedition

No image, to represent the attempt to censor the Cowen caricatures

Suzy must get the prize for popularising the best political coinage of the day, for – so far as I can see – it is she who has run with the name “Cowengate” for the sturm und drang surrounding satirical portraits of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Brian Cowen. In a piece of guerrilla artistry as ingenious as the coinage Suzy has popularised, caricatures of Mr Cowen were anonymously hung on the walls of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Once they were discovered, they were removed, but not before they had garnered sufficient publicity for RTÉ (Raidio Telefís Éireann, the national state broadcaster) to broadcast a story about them on the flagship 9:00pm television news programme.

It has been the occasion for lots of bad puns and some embarrassment on the part of the Taoiseach, the Gallery and the Academy, but in the ordinary course of things, the story should have blown over after about 48hours. However, things then took two turns for the worse. First, RTÉ apologised to Mr Cowen and his family or for any disrespect shown to the office of Taoiseach by their broadcast.…

Cowengate: Pictures at an exhibition

26 March, 20092 April, 2009

| 29 Comments

| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Law, Sedition

: Ravel‘s orchestration of Mussorgksy‘s Pictures at an Exhibition, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the BBC Proms in August 2006

This post is an addendum to Cowengate and Freedom of Expression (above). In the original version of that post, I had a paragraph of links to other coverage. Like Topsy, that paragraph growed and growed, so I’ve taken the list of links out of that post and put them here.…

Covert surveillance, privilege, and iniquity

12 March, 200911 March, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Journalists' sources, Privacy

: Caption: Hey boss. I’m not sure our covert surveillance is real covert any more

In general, the public interest in the proper administration of justice requires that people called as witnesses before courts must answer all questions put to them, on pain of being held in contempt of court. However, the common law has recognised some exceptions, such as the privilege of the police to be able to refuse to identify their sources, or that of lawyers or doctors to refuse to answer questions about conversations with clients. In such cases, there is a countervailing public interest in favour of encouraging full disclosure between the parties to the relationship. The categories of relationship which attract such privilege are controversial; it has been claimed to cover the relationship between journalists and their sources, or that between priests and their penitents – some jurisdictions recognise these extensions, some don’t (in Ireland – exceptionally in both cases – the former is an open question, and the latter is recognised).

In the way of these things, I have come across two interesting contributions to the deabte about the nature of such evidential privileges. In the first, In re McE [2009] UKHL 15 (11 March 2009) (also here) the House of Lords (Lord Hope, Baroness Hale, Lord Carswell and Lord Neuberger for the majority; Lord Phillips dissenting) held that that the the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) allows for covert surveillance of communications between lawyers and their clients, even where these are covered by legal professional privilege.…

Journalists, sources, bloggers, privilege

13 January, 200926 March, 2009

| 5 Comments

| Freedom of Expression, Journalists' sources

I believe in equality for everyone,
except reporters and photographers.

Mahatma Ghandi
[source]

With pending decisions relating to the protection of journalists’ sources in the Supreme Courts in Ireland and Canada, to say nothing of a new movie inspired by the travails of Judith Miller (pictured above left), a student note in the current Columbia Law Review (December 2008, Vol 108, No 8,) is very timely (notwithstanding Ghandi’s quip, above). Here’s the abstract:

David Abramowicz “Calculating the Public Interest in Protecting Journalists’ Confidential Sources”

Most federal circuits recognize a qualified journalist’s privilege not to identify a confidential source. In shielding journalists from some subpoenas, those courts recognize, at least implicitly, a public interest in newsgathering sufficient to overcome its interest in obtaining evidence. But courts pay little attention to the nature or scope of the newsgathering interest. They treat it as fixed, an approach that overlooks the reality that certain uses of confidential sources benefit the public more than others. Some judges and commentators have called for a flexible approach toward measuring the newsgathering interest, but their proposals, which rely on an analysis of the value of a confidential source’s information, would yield unpredictable results. These proposals have not gained traction.

…

Journalists’ Sources – Lessons from Canada?

28 September, 200828 March, 2009

| 6 Comments

| Freedom of Expression, journalism, Journalists' sources, Supreme Court of Canada

Not only will the Irish Supreme Court have the opportunity on the appeal in Mahon v Keena [2007] IEHC 348 (23 October 2007) (discussed here and here by Daithí) to discuss the constitutional protections, if any, for journalists’ sources, but I learn from The Court that the Supreme Court of Canada will also have a similar opportunity this term on the appeal in R v The National Post 2008 ONCA 139 (CanLII):

When does freedom of the press cede to investigating crime?: R. v. National Post

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether confidential sources for newspaper reporters are entitled to a claim of privilege similar to that of confidential police informants. The case of National Post v. R. … will settle a long-standing grey area in Canadian media law, but to get there, the SCC will be asked to mediate between the conflicting public interests of investigating crime on the one hand, and the freedom of the press on the other. …

The Canadian case turns on whether a journalist can assert privilege over a bank document received from a confidential source which disclosed highly incriminating evidence of a conflict of interest by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in a property scandal which the bank and M Chrétien claimed was fabricated.…

cearta.ie

Category: Journalists’ sources

… or of the blogosphere?

Cowengate and Freedom of Expression

Cowengate: Pictures at an exhibition

Covert surveillance, privilege, and iniquity

Journalists, sources, bloggers, privilege

Journalists’ Sources – Lessons from Canada?

When does freedom of the press cede to investigating crime?: R. v. National Post