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Issue No. 142 | 28 June 2002 |
Safety First
Interview: Safe as Houses Safety: Ten Steps to Safety History: Staying Alive Unions: Choose Life International: Seoul Destroyers Corporate: Crash Landing Activists: The Refusenik Review: Dumb Nation Poetry: Helping Out The Rich
Redundancy Bonus for Members Only Lib MP Named in Cole Commission Sentencing Guidelines for Safety Breaches Revealed: Costello�s Hit List Safety Lock-Out Enters Second Week Unions Seek Talks With New Airport Owners Strip Bosses Face Dressing Down Beattie Called Into Bargaining Impasse Nurses Deliver Largest Ever Petition US Braces for its Own Waterfront War
The Soapbox Bosswatch The Locker Room Postcard Week in Review
Voodoo Unionism Good News from the Pilbara Go Mark, Go Double-Standards
Labor Council of NSW |
News Journos Attacked by NRMA
The three journalists, the SMH's Anne Lampe and Kate Askew and AAP's Belinda Tasker are refusing to reveal their sources after the NRMA won orders in the Supreme Court compelling them to name sources who provided information about matters discussed at NRMA board meetings. The information was subsequently published on the grounds of public interest. Federal Secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Christopher Warren, says the ability of journalists to receive confidential information is fundamental to a free press. "Unless people are confident that they can talk to journalists without being identified, the only information the media will receive is a bland diet of press releases and staged events. It will also have a devastating effect on future efforts to expose wrongdoing. "That's bad for democracy and bad for freedom of speech," Warren says. Under the Journalists' Code of Ethics, journalists are required to respect confidences "in all circumstances". If the journalists refuse to reveal their sources under examination, they can be held to be in contempt of court. Once found to be in contempt they can be jailed until they purge their contempt. "Unfortunately, there has been a tendency for the judicial system to increase pressure on journalists to reveal confidential sources over the past 13 years," Warren says. "Australian courts have to recognise - as courts in Europe and the US have come to recognise - that the principles of freedom of speech involved in confidentiality of sources are essential to the operations of a democratic society. "In the meantime, the NRMA should withdraw their actions immediately. Journalism's integrity should not be the victim of an organisation's internal conflicts."
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