Two Chinese journalists face corruption charges in Shanxi

from the Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, December 16, 2008--Police should observe Chinese law and proceed transparently in the investigation of two journalists arrested on bribery charges in northern Shanxi province, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Shanxi public security officials told local journalists on Monday that Guan Jian, a reporter for Beijing-based weekly Wangluo Bao (Network News) who had been missing for 15 days, is in custody in neighboring Hubei province on suspicion of accepting bribes, according to local news reports. According to Chinese law, authorities must inform family or colleagues of an arrest within 24 hours.

In a separate case, four plainclothes officers from Taiyuan arrested another journalist, Li Min, from state-run China Central Television--also on bribery charges--in her Beijing home on December 4, according to Beijing Qingnian Bao (Beijing Youth Daily).

"Investigations into bribery charges should be transparent and fully conducted according to Chinese law," said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "We are concerned that bribery allegations can be easily fabricated to wrongfully imprison journalists who dig too deeply in an investigation."

Guan Jian had been reporting on irregular land deals involving a local real estate company in Taiyuan, Shanxi's capital, for his newspaper, a Science Times Media Group publication affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Security surveillance footage in a hotel in the city shows five men bundling Guan into a waiting vehicle on December 1, local and international news reports said. He has not been in contact with family or colleagues since then. Guan's son, Guan Yufei, reported his father missing to local police on December 7, according to Beijing-based financial news magazine Caijing.

Public security officials in the city of Zhangjiakou in neighboring Hebei province told local journalists on Tuesday that Guan had been detained on suspicion of accepting bribes in Taiyuan on December 1, Caijing reported, but no explanation for the 15-day lapse before making his status public was published.

Authorities have accused CCTV journalist Li Min of accepting gifts from the brother of a businessman involved in a corruption story she was working on, according to local news reports. Some local commentators questioned the fact that the arrest was ordered by a Shanxi district prosecutor implicated in Li's report. But the country's highest agency responsible for prosecutions and investigations, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, approved the district prosecutor's jurisdiction over the case despite the possible conflict of interest, local news reports said.

Corrupt practices exist in Chinese journalism. Gifts or cash payments, made to those carrying press credentials in return for publishing or withholding a story, are common practice, leading to concerns among local media analysts about editorial integrity.

Recent debates about media ethics have cited several cases from Shanxi province. Local journalist Lan Chenzhang was beaten to death at the site of a Shanxi mine accident in January 2007. Police accused him of posing as a journalist to extort money from the mine owners. In October, Hong Kong University's China Media Project Web site reported Chinese newspapers had raised the issue again following another mining disaster in Shanxi's Linfen city. Some journalists--and people posing as journalists--reportedly lined up to receive "gag fees" in exchange for suppressing the story.

"There is no question that local authorities in China are in the habit of using charges of corruption to target reporters who are uncovering stories," David Bandurski, at the China Media Project, told CPJ by e-mail. "But there is also little question that corruption in China's media is a worsening problem. A general lack of transparency and fairness--in the press, in the courts, in law enforcement--makes it very difficult to know what to make of any one particular case," Bandurski said.

(Source: http://cpj.org/2008/12/two-chinese-journalists-face-corruption-charges-in.php )

Parliamentary Panel Demands Guidelines

'Parliamentary panel slams media, demands sting guidelines'
from Sify News via Sify.com
December 15, 2008

New Delhi: The parliamentary committee probing the allegations that three MPs were sought to be bought for votes ahead of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's July 22 trust vote slammed the media on Monday for discrediting the democratic institutions in their "race for achieving viewership".

“The committee wishes to express concern over the fact that the media has been indulging in a race to achieve viewership through sensationalism on a competitive basis," the committee said in its report.

"In this case, a TV channel has implied that all members are susceptible to corruption. Carrying out such operations in an unregulated manner, which cast aspersions on members of parliament, erodes the credibility of our democratic institutions,” it said.

The seven-member committee under the chairmanship of the Congress' V Krishna Chandra S Deo was formed after three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs - Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora - stunned the nation by brandishing wads of cash in the Lok Sabha shortly before the Manmohan Singh government was to face the trust vote on July 22 evening.

The committee in its report also demanded that guidelines should be laid and regularised for sting operations.

“The committee further feels that the government should, through proper authority, lay down specific guidelines and norms for sting operators to ensure that the basic journalistic ethics are scrupulously adheres to," the report said.

“The committee also recommended that the Union government may initiate steps for laying guidelines and norms for sting operations,” the report said.

During the probe, the committee collected evidence from Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN TV channel which had conducted a sting operation into the matter.

Images of MPs brandishing wads of currency notes that were beamed on television channels had stunned the whole nation.

Independent Media Council Launched in Uganda

'Uganda: Self-Regulation is Media's Best Option'
by Kintu Musoke
for The Weekly Observer (Kampala) via allAfrica.com
December 10, 2008

After eight years of consultations, the Independent Media Council was launched in Kampala last Friday.

Headed by retired journalist cum politician, Kintu Musoke, the Council aims to promote ethics in media and resolve disputes between media houses and the public. Below is Kintu Musoke's abridged speech at the occasion:

"It is with great pleasure to be present as we witness this historic moment in the media landscape in Uganda when the first ever self-regulatory council, the Independent Media Council of Uganda, is born. I call it historic because for the first time in the history of Uganda, journalists and the media fraternity have made a self-derived commitment to manage media responsibility as is required in fostering democracy and good governance.

The importance of a strong, independent and responsible media to the attainment of democracy and good governance in Uganda cannot be overemphasized. The media are a valuable source as well as platform for information flow. The media play a crucial role in promoting and facilitating greater participation of citizens in decision making; in protection and promotion of human rights through awareness creation as well as exposition of human rights violations; in promoting vigilance towards the rule of law and the openness of court, legislative and administrative proceedings.

The media also act as watchdogs against corruption and ensure that greater importance is attached to development issues in the allocation of resources, especially contributing to combating the exclusion and marginalization of the poor, while at the same time strengthening the institutions responsible for promoting the overall development of society.

It is in recognition of this crucial role that Uganda has constitutional guarantees for the protection of the media. Article 29 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda guarantees "freedom of speech and expression which shall include freedom of the press and other media", while article 41 guarantees the right of access to information.

However, experience has shown that when the media have taken on this crucial role without being mindful of professionalism and responsibility, the results have been counterproductive, causing untold suffering and sometimes irreparable damage to individuals and society. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is a shameful example of what can be partly attributed to recklessness in the media.

Therefore, the need to prevent and check media excesses calls for regulation of the media. The government would ordinarily want to regulate the media through all available means, including legislation and policy. Sometimes, even the temptation to use extra-judicial means becomes overbearing. However, as has been recognized and acknowledged by human rights standards and jurisdictions on freedom of expression, effective self-regulation is the best system for promoting high standards in the media. It strengthens democracy and promotes professionalism. It provides an avenue for the public to check on the excesses of the media and to hold accountable those who hold others accountable. This has been tested and tried in countries like Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa, Ghana and many others.

On that basis, therefore, the Independent Media Council of Uganda is a welcome mechanism that should strive to effectively ensure that media practitioners are and remain highly responsible and professional.

It was critically important that media practitioners developed and endorsed their own Code of Ethics which they committed to be bound by. The process of coming up with the Code of Ethics was highly participatory, consultative and countrywide. A code that is generally owned by the media practitioners stands a better chance of being upheld and respected by them. The code is the contract between the media practitioners and the public on which the former can and should be held accountable if they breach it. Therefore, I urge media practitioners not to let themselves down, but to respect and uphold the Code of Ethics at all times.

[...]

One of the biggest challenges facing this country is the inadequate awareness of the general population of their rights and duties, and the remedies available in the event of violation of these rights. As the Independent Media Council of Uganda, we recognize our duty to sensitize and educate the public on the existence of this council in order to empower them to utilize it. The public must be empowered to point out the ethical shortcomings of media practitioners and expect that they would be appropriately addressed. I therefore urge all our readers, listeners and viewers to make use of this self regulation mechanism.

[...]

In conclusion I would like to thank every individual, organisation and institution that has supported the process of establishing a self-regulation mechanism in Uganda, which process has neither been easy nor quick. Allow me to make special mention of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Danida, Norad, Dfid, Panos Eastern Africa, EAMi-Uganda Chapter, Press Clubs, The Weekly Observer, The New Vision."

(Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200812110647.html)

Media Ethics Conference Held in Pakistan

‘Media should promote tolerance’
Staff Report
for Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Media should promote tolerance, democratic culture, and respect for human rights and should win the hearts and minds of the people to isolate terrorists and extremists, participants of a Media Roundtable Conference held on November 29-30 said in a resolution on Sunday.

They appreciated the initiative taken by South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) and Pakistan Media Commission (PMC) to have arranged the dialogue within the media and with the participation from the civil society.

“Both electronic and print media must strengthen the institution of editorial, quality control and social responsibility while strictly adhering to voluntarily following a code of ethics recognised by leading media bodies and appointment of knowledgeable and independent ombudsman in each media outlet,” the resolution said.

The participants called for the respect for privacy and strict avoidance of defamation, contempt, scandalisation and blackmailing. “A journalist must not personally attack another journalist and respect friendly polemics and debate,” they said in the resolution.

The resolution said there was “no room for terrorists attacking our citizens, mosques, imambargahs, hospitals, schools and citizens on whatever pretext”.

Promoting debate: The participants of the conference hailed the electronic media for having expanded its space, reach and content, promoting pluralism and debate on various policy issues and expanding the scope of freedom of expression and citizen's right to know. They also appreciated the alertness of media to rapidly changing geo-political situation. They paid homage to the courage and steadfastness being shown by journalists in the conflict-ridden regions and also some of those who have taken great risks in exposing crimes against women and wrongs in certain prohibited areas to reporting. The participants lauded the government's adoption of the proposed Draft Information Law and withdrawal of amendments to the PEMRA laws. But they were concerned that other media ordinances issued by the Musharraf administration are not being amended as proposed by SAFMA and other media bodies.

They also expressed concern over mixing of news coverage with opinion, excessive reliance on rhetoric rather than facts, the erosion and neglect of editorial and quality control in most current affairs programmes and the news coverage, and ejection or marginalisation of editors and editorial control and independence. The resolution said the participants were also concerned about the mismatch of so-called expert opinion with the excessive induction of clerics and absence of professional excellence, absence of sufficient investment in research, analysis, skills and specialisation and overwhelming focus on politics and frivolous debates instead of programmes of public interest and consciousness raising.

Media in India and Pakistan were crossing their limits while promoting tension and misunderstanding between the two neighbours, they said. The participants of the roundtable conference condemned the harassment of media organisations by extremists and non-state actors.

They also condemned incitement to violence in some programmes and by some media persons against religious sects and minorities and their media colleagues, and a lack of respect for the privacy of individuals and the defamatory slangs and accusations being hurled at leaders and citizens. The resolution said the participants were concerned about the concentration and emergence of monopolies in the media ownership and PEMRA policy of bidding that prohibits freedom of expression and diversity, and about the lack of social concern by the corporate sector and advertising agencies. They also expressed concern over excessive advertisements during prime time programmes beyond the internationally prescribed limits on ads.

(Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\12\01\story_1-12-2008_pg7_32)