Tag Archives: Posetti

May 9, 2017 · 1:01 pm

Final global report on source protection by @julieposetti released by UNESCO

The final report of the three year global project by Fairfax Media and University of Wollongong colleague Julie Posetti (@julieposetti) comparing international approaches to protecting sources has been released by UNESCO.

As I foreshadowed earlier, the impressive study tracks, assesses and compares protective legal frameworks like shield laws over the 2007-2015 period, and recommends new measures for protection of journalists and their sources.

The report acknowledges the enormous benefits to journalism harnessed from the Internet and Web 2.0 communications, but homes in on the challenges of the privacy and safety of journalistic sources. Mass surveillance, data retention and expanded national security laws all stand to erode the integrity of the journalist-whistleblower relationship.

The publication is available here.

The Posetti study draws on surveys and long form interviews involving nearly 200 international experts from the fields of law, journalism, digital communications and civil society organisations.

Academics from Australia (Posetti and UoW colleague Marcus O’Donnell), Brazil and China contributed, along with 11 research assistants from a range of countries.

I was honored to serve on the eight-member international advisory panel.

The report’s key recommendations for nations were:

Legislate for source protection;
Review national laws on surveillance, anti-terrorism, data retention, and access to telecommunications records;
Co-operate with journalists’ and media freedom organisations to produce guidelines for prosecutors and police officers, and training materials for judges on the right of journalists not to disclose their sources;
Develop guidelines for public authorities and private service providers concerning the protection of the confidentiality of journalists’ sources in the context of the interception; or disclosure of computer data and traffic data of computer networks; and
Apply source protection regimes and defined exceptions in a gender-sensitive way.

Its main recommendations for journalists were:

Engage with digital issues impacting on source confidentiality protection, and actively campaign for laws and rules that provide adequate protection;
Explain to the public what is at stake in the protection of source confidentiality, especially in the digital age;
Ensure that sources are aware of the digital era threats to confidentiality;
Consider altering practices – including ‘going back to analogue methods’ when required (recognising this may not always be possible due to international or gender dynamics) – in order to offer a degree of protection to their confidential sources;
Help audiences become more secure in their own communications, for example explaining how encryption works, and why it is important not to have communications security compromised;
Consider providing technical advice and training to sources to ensure secure communications, with the assistance of NGOs and representative organisations;
In the case of media leaders, ensure that they also respect their journalists’ ethical commitment (and in some cases legal obligation) to source confidentiality; and
In the case of media owners, ensure that their journalists, and freelancers who contribute investigative reports, have access to the appropriate tools and training needed to ensure that they are able to offer the most secure channels of digital communication possible to their sources.

Related:

Julie Posetti’s commentaries on the report in The Conversation and The Age.
My piece from 2015 in The Conversation : How surveillance is wrecking journalist-source confidentiality

© Mark Pearson 2017

Disclaimer: While I write about media law and ethics, nothing here should be construed as legal advice. I am an academic, not a lawyer. My only advice is that you consult a lawyer before taking any legal risks.

Journalist Peter Greste explains why it is important to cover Islam ethically

By MARK PEARSON Follow @Journlaw

Australian journalist Peter Greste – released last year after 400 days in an Egyptian jail – has outlined why it is so important for journalists to be fair and accurate in their coverage of Islam and Muslim communities.

I interviewed Greste for our Reporting Islam project on the eve of him receiving an Honorary Doctorate from Griffith University for his service to journalism and delivering the annual Griffith Lecture at the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane last December.

Greste started reporting on the Islamic world in 1995 as Kabul correspondent for the BBC.

“I think it is absolutely vital that journalists anywhere understand as much as they can about Muslims and the Islamic world largely because when we talk about that world we speak about it as if it is in the singular when in fact it isn’t,” Greste said.

“It’s an incredibly complex, multifaceted group of individuals, of sects, of smaller schools of thought.

“The greatest danger is that we conflate everything into one.

“We’ve got to be very careful to understand the subtleties and nuances of the Islamic world and make sure we avoid that same mistake.”

The interview will appear as part of a set of research-based resources colleague Associate Professor Jacqui Ewart and I are developing with our team as part of our Commonwealth-funded Reporting Islam project.

The project is national in its ambit, funded under a competitive grants scheme, facilitated by the Attorney General’s Department and managed by the Queensland Police Service who have contracted us to undertake the work as independent researchers.
Stage 1 of the project was conducted over the 2014-2015 financial year involving a review of the literature on news media coverage of Islam and Muslim people, case studies of media reportage across media types at national and community levels, interviews with experts in the field, distillation of international studies to develop a schema for assessing reportage against world best practice in the area, and a compilation of a report on these findings with recommendations for the development of a suite of resources and training programs.

We are now in Stage 2 of the project (2015-2016) which requires the development and trial of a suite of research-based training and education resources for Australian media practitioners and students to encourage more mindful reporting of Muslims and the Islamic faith.

Credits:

Camera: Ashil Ranpara, Griffith University School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science

Production: Henry Cook, Griffith Learning Futures

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Related: See my piece from June 22 2015 in The Conversation : How surveillance is wrecking journalist-source confidentiality; and on journlaw.com from November 13, 2014 titled: International studies point to best practice for reporting Islam and stories involving Muslims.

© Mark Pearson 2016

Freed journalist Peter Greste gets honorary doctorate then calls for free speech in the age of terror

By MARK PEARSON Follow @Journlaw

The Australian journalist jailed for 400 days in Egypt called for greater freedom for the media during the war on terror after being awarded an honorary doctorate by Griffith University tonight (December 4).

Journalist Peter Greste receives his honorary doctorate at Griffith University

Greste received an Honorary Doctorate from Griffith University for his service to journalism before delivering the annual Griffith Lecture at the Queensland Conservatorium in South Bank Brisbane.

His arrest with Al Jazeera colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, by Egyptian authorities on false terrorism charges, triggered international demands for their release from 2013 to 2015.

“If I’d known it was this easy to get a doctorate I would have been arrested years ago,” he joked. “It’s a great honour to receive this award. I take it as a mark of recognition, not just for what we went through but also for what it represents…for those 400 days of prison.’

“We fought hard for our own freedom, but I think it’s important that people also see the bigger picture of due process and freedom of speech.

“I’m being recognised more for the things we came to represent, than anything that I’ve done.”

He argued large parts of the media had given up on their public responsibility to keep the public informed with fair and accurate reporting. The war on terror was a battle of ideas and journalists were active participants.

The media should be properly be part of a functioning democracy in its role as the fourth estate, checking the functioning on the other arms of government.

“In the war of terror we seem to be losing sight of that key idea,” he said. “Governments the world over are using that ‘t’ word to clamp down on those freedoms.”

He gave recent examples from other countries of journalists being arrested on trumped-up terror charges just as he and his two colleagues had been in Egypt.

Australians should not feel smug because of legislation introduced in recent years targeting those disclosing special intelligence operations, the Foreign Fighters Bill and metadata retention laws.

These restricted the reporting on important events, the main story of the era about international terrorism, and seriously damaged the confidentiality of journalists’ sources.

“It makes confidential whistleblowing almost impossible without risking a prison term,” he said.

“Each has an effect on journalists being able to do the job the public demands of us.”

However, he criticised news media organisations and journalists for not being proactive enough in fighting the introduction of such laws.

“We the media have become increasingly slack in challenging and questioning governments,” he said.

He said journalists should not accept the rhetoric of governments engaged in the war on terror. Rather, questioning that misuse of language would be “one of the most patriotic things to do”.

“Panicked and hyped up language” played into the hands of Islamic State, he said.

“We the media have a responsibility to uphold our end of the bargain as well.”

He said the #FreeAJStaff hashtag calling for the release of him and his colleagues attracted billions of supporters and indicated a high level of public belief that journalism was fundamental to democracy.

During his 400-day detention in an Egyptian prison he studied international relations with Griffith University.

Greste turned 50 this week. He grew up in Brisbane and has reported on political events all over the world. As a correspondent, between 1991 and 1995, he reported from many locations including London, Bosnia and South Africa where he worked with Reuters, CNN, WTN and the BBC.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he returned to Afghanistan to cover the war there. In 2011, he received a prestigious Peabody Award for his BBC documentary Somalia: Land of Anarchy. In December 2013, his employer Al Jazeera sent him from his base in Nairobi to Cairo to cover the bureau for three weeks. It was then he was arrested.

In June 2014, after more than six months in Cairo’s infamous Tora Prison, a court found Greste and his colleagues guilty and sentenced them to seven years imprisonment.

Peter Greste with his Griffith lecturers Dr Dan Halvorson and Professor Andrew O’Neill. Photo: Michael Cranfield

He said presenting the Griffith Lecture on December 4 was a way of validating what he and his colleagues went through retrospectively. “It’s a way of applying meaning to what we went through. Those 400 days weren’t wasted.

“I learned a lot about myself in prison but that time has also given me the credibility to talk about those issues around press freedom. I feel a responsibility to talk about these issues, partly because so many of my friends, so many journalists, fought so hard for me, that’s why people backed us.”

While his colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were pardoned by the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in September, Mr Greste still carries a criminal conviction and an outstanding prison sentence which his legal team is fighting.

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Related: See my piece from June 22 2015 in The Conversation : How surveillance is wrecking journalist-source confidentiality

© Mark Pearson 2015

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Filed under national security, terrorism

November 30, 2015 · 8:59 am

Dangerous journalism – new threats to journalism in the Middle East: @MartinChulov #jeraa2015

By MARK PEARSON Follow @Journlaw

Almost every nation in the Middle East has the surveillance capability rivaling that of the Five Eyes group of countries, Guardian Middle East correspondent Martin Chulov (@MartinChulov) told the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia 40^th anniversary conference in Bathurst today (November 30).

The Guardian's Martin Chulov addressing #jeraa15

The Guardian‘s Martin Chulov addressing #jeraa2015

“The digital dragnet is very much a tool of persecution,” he said.

He explained how the Internet and social media in the region had shifted from communication forms of change and liberation to tools of suppression.

“Regimes simply ended up doing social media better than the young activists in the region,” he said.

This presented enormous risks to journalists and their sources.

He said journalists now faced risks they had not previously when they were viewed as non-combatants.

“We can no longer afford to be naïve,” he said.

“I’ve often found myself being in a situation where you don’t have the access of your organisation and are relying on your wits.

“We have to be very careful in calculating when to push forward and when to go back.”

Chulov said propaganda issued by Middle Eastern states was also a major risk to truth-telling about the region.

“There are far too many journalists in the region – even veteran correspondents – whose work is no more than dogma,” he said.

“I’ve lost count of the number of young reporters who have told me how disillusioned they have become with journalists who were once their heroes.

“Conflict reporting is not simply about muddying the waters. We should never be afraid of fact, no matter where it may lead us.”

Source protection had become a major issue. He said one of his sources was a senior figure in Islamic State.

“There has been no digital communication at all. We have to beware of street cameras and any digital communication at all.

“Every time I do go to see him I have to wonder whether it is going to be the last time for him and potentially the last time for me.

“Of course shrouding ourselves in secrecy does nothing to dispel the notion we are not spies in the first place.

“I’m on the bad boy list but I haven’t been hit so far. But I do try to ensure not everything I try to transmit is not secure.” This avoids a detectable regime.

Journalists also faced attacks on their reputations.

“If truth be told, it sometimes works,” he said.

“All of us who have covered the region for a living have regularly woken up to Twitter feeds full of bile.”

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Related: See my piece from June 22 2015 in The Conversation : How surveillance is wrecking journalist-source confidentiality

UNESCO study by @julieposetti uses research to shed light on source protection in the surveillance era

By MARK PEARSON Follow @Journlaw

UNESCO’s flagship publication World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development was launched in Paris, London and New York this week, as part of events marking the International Day to End Impunity For Crimes Against Journalists.

It features an important chapter highlighting 13 key recommendations from a global study on the protection of journalism sources in the digital age – ably chaired and written by University of Wollongong journalism educator Julie Posetti during her World Editors Forum/WAN-IFRA Research Fellowship in 2014-2015.

As the World Trends publication explains, the ‘Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age’ study draws on research covering 121 UNESCO Member States, updating an earlier study of these countries by the NGO Privacy International in 2007.

The chapter shows how legal frameworks that support protection of journalistic sources, at international, regional and national levels, have come under substantial strain since then.

“They are increasingly at risk of erosion, restriction and compromise,” the report notes.

“This is a trend that signifies a direct challenge to the established universal human rights of freedom of expression and privacy, and one that constitutes a particular threat to the sustainability of investigative journalism.

“A recommendation for consideration from this research is the proposal of an 11-point research tool for assessing the effectiveness of legal source protection frameworks in the digital age.”

Recommendations and findings from Protecting Sources of Journalism in the Digital Age https://t.co/sD8xjGQM5H @NewspaperWorld @julieposetti

— media.eu (@MediaEu) November 2, 2015

The Posetti study draws on surveys and long form interviews involving nearly 200 international experts from the fields of law, journalism, digital communications and civil society organisations.

Academics from Australia (Posetti and UoW colleague Marcus O’Donnell), Brazil and China contributed to the study, along with 11 research assistants from a range of countries.

I was honoured to serve on the eight-member international advisory panel. Other advisory panellists were: Julie Reid, Media Studies Senior Lecturer, Department of Communication Science, UNISA (University of South Africa); Lillian Nalwoga, President, Internet Society’s Uganda Chapter; Policy Officer, Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA); Dan Gillmor, Director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Prisca Orsonneau, Lawyer at the Paris Bar, specializing in Media Law and Human Rights; Chair, Reporters Without Borders Legal Committee; Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Executive Director, Southeast Asian Press Alliance; Mario Calabresi, Editor-in-Chief, La Stampa; and Mishi Choudhary, Legal Director, Software Freedom Law Centre and SFLC.in.

Julie Posetti advises the full study will be published by UNESCO early next year but meanwhile she has blogged about the chapter in the World Trends Report here: http://blog.wan-ifra.org/node/16301. However, she has supplied these 13 recommendations and findings:

1. 84 UNESCO Member States out of 121 studied (69 per cent) for this report demonstrated noteworthy developments, mainly with negative impact, concerning journalistic source protection between 2007 and mid-2015
2. The issue of source protection has come to intersect with the issues of mass surveillance, targeted surveillance, data retention, the spill-over effects of anti- terrorism/national security legislation, and the role of third party internet companies known as ‘intermediaries’
3. Legal and regulatory protections for journalists’ sources are increasingly at risk of erosion, restriction and compromise
4. Without substantial strengthening of legal protections and limitations on surveillance and data retention, investigative journalism that relies on confidential sources will be difficult to sustain in the digital era, and reporting in many other cases will encounter inhibitions on the part of potential sources
5. Transparency and accountability regarding both mass and targeted surveillance, and data retention, are critically important if confidential sources are to be able to continue to confidently make contact with journalists
6. Individual states face a need to introduce or update source protection laws
7. It is recommended to define ‘acts of journalism’, as distinct from the role of ‘journalist’, in determining who can benefit from source protection laws
8. To optimise benefits, source protection laws should be strengthened in tandem with legal protections extended to whistle-blowers, who constitute a significant set of confidential journalistic sources
9. Source protection laws need to cover journalistic processes and communications with confidential sources – including telephone calls, social media, and emails – along with published journalism that depends on confidential sources
10. Journalists are increasingly adapting their practice in an effort to partially shield their sources from exposure, but threats to anonymity and encryption undermine these adaptations
11. The financial cost of the digital era source protection threat is very significant (in terms of digital security tools, training, and legal advice), as is its impact on the production and scope of investigative journalism based on confidential sources
12. There is a need to educate journalists and civil society actors in digital safety
13. Journalists, and others who rely on confidential sources to report in the public interest, may need to train their sources in secure methods of contact and information-sharing

Importantly, World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development contains three other chapters on important media issues:

Countering Online Hate Speech provides a global overview of the dynamics of hate speech online and some of the measures that have been adopted to counteract and mitigate it, highlighting trends in good practices that have emerged at the local and global levels. There is a comprehensive analysis of the international, regional and national normative frameworks developed to address hate speech online, and their repercussions for freedom of expression, and there is emphasis on social and non-regulatory mechanisms that may be considered to help to counter the production, dissemination and impact of hateful messages online.

Fostering Freedom Online: The Role of Internet Intermediaries sheds light on internet intermediaries – the services that mediate online communication and enable various forms of online expression. It shows how they both foster and restrict freedom of expression across a range of jurisdictions, circumstances, technologies and business models. The report states: “According to the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, while states have the primary duty to protect human rights, businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, and both should play a role in providing remedy to those whose rights have been violated. This chapter applies the ‘protect, respect, and remedy’ framework to the policies and practices of companies representing three intermediary types (internet service providers, search engines, and social networking platforms) across 10 countries. The three case studies highlight challenges and opportunities for different types of intermediaries within the trend of their increasing importance.”

Safety of Journalists examines recent trends in the safety of journalists, presenting UNESCO statistics for 2013 and 2014, and tracking other developments up to August 2015. The report explains: “It follows the framework of the previous UNESCO report World Trends report, including physical safety, impunity, imprisonment of journalists, and a gender dimension of the issues. Additionally, the chapter examines the unprecedented trend of the strengthening of normative international standards, as well as new developments in practical mechanisms, improvement in UN inter-agency cooperation, greater collaboration with the judiciary system and security forces, and research interest in the subject.”

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Related: See my piece from June 22 2015 in The Conversation : How surveillance is wrecking journalist-source confidentiality

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