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MEDIA LAW & ETHICS
First: Introduction
Milena Dimitrova,
AUBG, Spring 2004
01/19/2004

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TODAY – 01/19/2004
1. Presentations
2. Teaching methods
3. Score for grade
4. Building three teams
5. Reading – Manipulations in photojournalism
6. Some real cases related to Media Ethics
7. Lecture – Introduction in Media Law
8. Assignment for next Monday, 01/26/04

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Teaching methods
 Because it is a Media LAW & Ethics class I
want you to play here the typical roles in a
Court procedure:
 One third of you will be Prosecutors;
 Second third will be Barristers, Advocates;
 The rest will form an independent Jury, hence
– the Judges.
 In addition, if I may joke, here will be a
Supreme Court as well, taking notes from
your participation.

4. 4
Score for grade
 You might pay more attention on participation in
class because:
 30 percent of your grade score will come from
participation;
 30 percent - from your written assignments;
 30 percent - from the final test;
 10 percent will drop according my personal
impression about your thoroughness.
 That is why I’m kindly encouraging you to read, to
write, to prepare assignments and often to take floor
in Mondays.

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Reading for next Monday
 Manipulations in Photojournalism
by Richard J. Oriez
 Be ready to answer some questions:
 What is allowed and what is not allowed
using PhotoShop in a media news desk?
 Why the photographer with Los Angeles was
fired?
 What was wrong in these pictures from Iraq?
 Who tells you what is indictable?
 Etc.

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INTRODUCTION
in Media Law
 It is rather an analytical ground, where the matter
comes from hundreds of cases taken in usage
 Most important is to understand the guiding
principles forming the Media Law philosophy
 They are in force; hence, are valid either in
American, or in European law; that is why they are
accepted as universal rules
 These universal rules might not to be forgotten in
every kind of media practice
 The best journalists analyse every arising situation
according the Media Law principles and having in
mind ethical conceptions

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Freedom of expression theory - 1
 The First Amendment to the Constitution
provides: “Congress shall make no law…
abridging the freedom of speech or of the
press”
 Mill’s argument from truth – most durable of
the underlying rationales for the protection of
speech.
John Stuart Mills argued in his book <On
Liberty> that suppression of opinion was
wrong because it is only by the “collision of
adverse opinions’ that truth is discovered or
confirmed.

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Freedom of expression theory - 2
 In 1644, John Milton in his Areopagitica,
A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicenced
Printing insisted on the freedom of
expressions and in the “collision of
adverse opinions”

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Freedom of expression theory
- 3
 1919, Justice Holmes in the case
Abrams versus US, who asserted that
all truths were relative and that they
can only be judged “in the competition
of the market”. “The best test of truth is
the power of the thought to get itself
accepted in the competition of the
market”, concluded Holmes.

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Freedom of expression theory - 4
 This argument for the protection of
freedom of expression posits that
freedom of expression is not an end in
itself but a means of identifying and
accepting truth.
 The argument involves a scepticism
both of the state and of accepted
beliefs and “acknowledged truths”.

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Freedom of expression theory - 5
 This truth or “marketplace of ideas” rationale
for freedom of expression extends not only to
political speech, but also to the ideas of
philosophy, history, the social sciences, the
natural sciences, other branches of human
knowledge and commercial speech.
 However, it is of little or no application to
obscene speech or personal abuse which
often contains no factual assertions, wrote
Gavin Millar in 2001.

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Democratic Self-governance - 1
 Particularly in the United States, this
argument is associated with Alexander
Meiklejohn. His view was that the main
purpose of protecting freedom of
expression was to protect the rights of
citizens to understand matters of
political concern so as to enable them
to participate meaningfully in the
democratic process.

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Democratic Self-governance - 2
 The principle of the freedom of speech
springs from the necessities of the
program of self-government. It is not a
Law of Nature or Reason in the
abstract. It is a deduction from the
basic American agreement that public
issues shall be decided by universal
suffrage, stated Meiklejohn.

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Self fulfilment
 While Mill’s argument from truth and
Meiklejohn’s argument from self-governance
justify the protection of expression as a
means to an end, freedom of expression can
also be an end itself. Under this theory,
freedom of expression is protected not just to
create a better government and not merely to
discover the truth, but to “enlarge the
prospects for individual self-fulfilment” or to
allow “personal growth and self-realization”,
1974, Justice Thurgood in Procunier versus
Martinez.

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Protecting freedom of
expression
 The European Court has also made
references to the underlying this right:
 “Freedom of expression constitutes one
of essential foundations of a society,
one of the basic conditions for its
progress and for the development of
every man…”, Article 10, European
Human Rights Report

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Reflections, relations,
influences
 All three mentioned above rationales
and namely Mill’s argument from truth
are closely linked to the utilitarian
tradition in moral philosophy. They are
also influential in the jurisprudence of
the European Court and in the United
States and Canadian Supreme Courts.

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Two Privacy Theories
 Warren and Brandeis – the right to
privacy, the right to be left alone
(English law)
 Prosser – the four privacy torts
(American law)

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Privacy Theory – Warren and
Brandeis
 The intensity and complexity of life, attendant
upon advancing civilization, having rendered
necessary some retreat from the world, and
man, under the refining influence of culture,
has become more sensitive to publicity, so
that solitude and privacy have become more
essential to the individual; but modern
enterprise and invention have, through
invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to
mental pain and distress, far greater than
could be inflicted by merely bodily injury”,
Warren S.D. and Brandeis L.D., The right of
privacy, 1890

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Privacy theory - Prosser
Four privacy torts:
 Intrusion on seclusion, solitude or private
affairs
 Publication of embarrassing private (but true)
facts
 Publicity which portrays a person in false light
 Appropriation of a person’s name or likeness
(now often known as the right of publicity)

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Public persons
 Question: Why do you thing journalists
are supposed to cover everything about
politics and public authorities?
 Why that has a tremendous importance
especially in the new democracies?

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Different approaches to
Freedom of Information
 Historical perspective
 Universal approach as mother of all
liberties
 US and Canadian approaches – their
characteristics in
 Characteristics in European approach –
EU Media regulation, English experience
 New democracies peculiarities

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Assignment for Monday 01/26
 First team: Find through Internet all documents
warranting freedom of the press
 Second team: Prove who violates this freedom from
all over the world. Describe with real cases according
your experience who stepped over this human right?
 Third team: What happens more often? How the
freedom of the press ought to be protected? Who has
to protect it? How far can a reporter go by his/her
investigations and pursuing the true?
Write the answer about 300 words; be ready to discuss