ACC717: Law, Media & Communication - Media Regulations In Australia - Case Study Assessment Answers

Introduction:

It is very important for the media practitioners to gain an understanding of the key concepts, general legal literacy and frameworks which are highly relevant to the duties of the public content creators. The ethical regulations can help the media practitioners to self-protect them and it is also about acquiring confidence to create high quality and well informed content for the public. In case of creation of contents, the journalists or any other media practitioners who write articles for metropolitan dailies or who present articles in the television channels or other media are bound by some legal principles. Everyone working in the publishing industry has to follow some rules and regulations in their works similar to people of any other profession. But, there are some differences present in the media and journalistic works from other works. The professionals in the media field needs to follow specific areas of laws every day. The two most important of them are laws of contempt and defamation in court which is related to the issue of confidentiality and the second one is copyright and privacy that can have impact on the media practitioners in their everyday work. In order to work in the media industry, the media practitioners do not have to have thorough knowledge of legal rules and regulations like lawyers but they need to know about the risky words and phrases which they can avoid in their publications (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2008). They should also be able to determine the time when they need to take legal help for publishing any type of controversial statement and they should also understand the fact that whether any particular publication can take them to the court or not and the ways to avoid them.

Sources of laws:

There are two main principles present of the law and they are common law and statute law. The common law is the laws made by the judge based on the specific cases over time and the statute law is enacted by the federal parliaments or state (Australian Press Council, 2008). The two laws are known as the doctrine of precedent. The common law system is basically derived from the English legal system and it usually followed in the countries which are having an ancient colonial connection such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2008). In all countries in which the legal systems are based on the common laws, the outcomes of the cases are entirely uncertain based on the relevance of the judgments of previous cases or the interpretation or legislations of the cases. The legislations can be changed anytime by the parliament in the common law system.

Laws of defamation:

In any country, the media usually have the potential to defame the people every day. The defamation can be of different forms. It can be due to the suggestions of incompetence that might be offended for any professional practitioner in any field (Morrison, Kieran, Svennevig, and Ventress, 2007). It can also be due to the suggestions of duplicity that might also offend any person who always values the communities in which he/she belongs to. The examples of it might be real estate agent or youth workers. There are some kinds of negative references also present such as physical traits like obesity which can also offend the sportspersons (Butler and Rodrick, 2007). The suggestions regarding financial mismanagement might be offensive for an accountant in a business. The actions against defamation are generally a civil action as defined in the Act of Parliament. Since, January in the year 2006, the uniform defamation took its effect in Australia and each of the states and territories of Australia introduced a Defamation Act and it also enabled a nationality consistent approach for the defamatory publications (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2008). The main change which has been done in the new act is introducing the standardized defence across Australia. In South Australia and Western Australia, truth has been a complete defence and apologies and innocent dissemination has been the statutory defences under the act. The monetary damage, if needed to be given has been capped at $250,000 and it has also been mentioned as per the law is that the corporations cannot sue for defamation, apart from the non-profit organizations having less than 10 employees (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2008).

In case of the media practitioners, where the chances of defamation is very high, the journalists usually check the articles again and again to find if any defamatory statement is present it or not. In case of the civil defamation case, intentions of the writer are generally irrelevant and it cannot be argued by the person that the defamation took place by mistake against someone (MEAA, 2007). The regulations related to defamation are also applied in case of any means of the distribution. It can be while publishing the content in any national newspaper, in case of national audience or while sending a fax or sending any email. Apart from that, in case of defamation, anyone related to the content is liable for it, for example, the publisher, journalists, the editor (Lessig, 2005). In the cases of defamation, the distributors, newspaper printers, retailers, internet providers, everyone can be sued.

Identity:

Another problem for the publishers is matters regarding mistaken identity. In these cases, the plaintiff might not be the person, to whom the media practitioner intends to defame but in order to precede an action, the readers of the article or any publication can assume that the plaintiff is the person to whom the journalist tries to defame in the article (Dwyer, 2007). This is called as the mistaken identity and in the cases of mistaken identity, the cases can be with group references, substitute groups, typing errors etc.

Defamation on internet is also quite common affair in Australia. In the events of the Dow Jones Case, Dow Jones & Company Inc v Gutnick (2002) 210 CLR 575 where defamatory materials were published in USA and it was downloaded in Victoria in Australia where the plaintiff i.e. Joseph Gutnick’s identify was well known. In that case, the defendant, Dow Jones wanted that the case should be preceded in USA based on the fact that the contents of the newspaper were uploaded in New Jersey (Lessig, 2005). While the trial started, the High Court of Australia established the fact that the trial can be preceded in Victoria, although the fact that the defamation materials were produced and published from USA (Forder, and Svantesson, 2008). In the judgment, the High Court mentioned that the defamation has occurred in Australia as well as other countries where the published materials are available to read. As the content can be downloaded in Australia and can be read then it can be stated that the defamation has also occurred in Australia and the damage to the reputation of Mr Gutnick occurred. So, the action was preceded in Victoria.

Contempt of court:

The contempt of court refers to any action which might have the potential to damage the fair trial of any case. The contempt laws always try to ensure that the public of Australia always get fair justice. There are four principles present in the contempt laws (Lessig, 2005). They are the right to a fair trial, open justice, presumption of innocence and public confidence in the legal system. The two main ways in which the media can land in the contempt of court is by publishing the content which can have impact on the trial or by disobeying the order of the court (Lessig, 2005). The right of the fair trial which is uninterrupted by media is taken seriously in the western countries. In these cases, the time taken for the justice can be delayed which is also referred as sub-justice. In case of the delay, the journalists can ask for the charges during the pending period. The second stage of the period of sub justice is the trial itself and in this stage, the journalists can report anything which is stated in the open court. The third stage of sub justice period is known as the appeal process. In this stage, the journalists can report anything in the open court but they cannot make statements in such a way which can affect the appeals (Lessig, 2005). There are many cases present of the breach of the contempt laws. In the December 2006, a man was charged for murder of five prostitutes which is known as the ‘Suffolk strangler’ case but the public discussion of the case was ceased. But, ‘The Sun’ newspaper published an article with the photograph of the accused mock-strangling the former wife. Police and Attorney General took steps against the media for threatening the fair trial of the man.

Confidential information and confidential sources:

As per the contempt by publication another area of attempt is present which is also related to the media which is referred as disobedience contempt related to the confidential sources. The confidential sources are equipped with information which is not available for the public. These include secrets of trades, domestic confidences, program ideas, government secrets etc. When the sources leak information, the journalists need to keep the secret as per their ethical standards. As per the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance or MEAA act Code of Ethics, the journalists should respect all confidential sources and they should keep the trust of the people who depend on the information provided by the journalists (Lessig, 2005). From the year 1980, twelve journalists had to face contempt of court charges for refusing to reveal their sources. Two journalists from The Herald Sun magazine, Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey pleaded for guilty at the pre trial hearing in the year 2006 for producing the names of a source which had provided them information with documents which revealed that government refused to allow a bid for increase in the war pensions by $500 million. Considering leaking of the confidential information as an offence, a senior public servant was charged.

Freedom of information: