CMPF Summer School 2013 for Journalists and Media Practitioners http://cmpf.eui.eu/training/summer-school-2013.aspx

1. Rights and Responsibilities of
Journalists
Damian Tambini LSE

2. About Damian Tambini
• Policy and governance – academic and think
tanks and the LSE Media Policy Project and blog
• Open Society Foundation ‘Mapping Digital
Media’ project
• POLIS Journalism and Society
• LSE masters programme Media Governance
• Research based on case studies at the
intersection of Law, Policy, Media Ethics and
professional self regulation

3. truth
regulators
institutions
The market owners
editors
readers
source
subject
News Values
Ethical codes
Responsible for what and
whom?

4. Overview of this lecture
• Some theory: what are journalists for?
• Research case studies:
• Financial/ business journalism in London,
New York, HK and Shanghai
• Reflections on Wikileaks
• Discussion of current policy debates about
law and regulation of journalism

5. Siebert et al (1957)
“Four Theories of the Press”
• Authoritarian
• Libertarian
• Soviet Communist
• Social Responsibility

6. Social Responsibility
• Without a free marketplace the press must
be responsible
• Everyone should have access to press
(letters, opinion)
• Controlled by community opinion, ethics
• Can’t violate people’s rights
• Press should be free, comprehensive and
objective

7. Public Trust Theory
• Public interest theory is prevailing western
concept of the press
• Role of watchdog, beyond market relationships

8. Developing Public Trust Theory
• Rights granted to journalists in law: journalists
privilege
• Also other forms of privilege – e.g. access, tax
regime, protection of sources, defamation
liability protection
• Journalists offer professional duties in return
• Legal debate about ‘institutional first
amendment’, and role of regulation (Pickard).
• There is genuine conditionality between rights
and responsibilities at micro and macro level
• Journalism as a self-regulating profession:
‘professional values’ (Donsbach).
‘Professionalisation’ (Hallin and Mancini).

9. Rights and Duties
Privileges
• Freedom of the Press
• Freedom of speech
(e.g. protection of
sources)
• Access to information,
people, spaces
• Access to gateways
and distribution
• Journalism ‘privilege’
Responsibilities
• Observe ethical
codes
• Respect rights of
others
• Serve a watchdog
role?
• Provide information
for the public
• Journalism ethics

10. contemporary questions
•If journalism is defined in terms of its social
function and social responsibility, and law,
policy and journalism ethics institutionalise
this, how are these institutions responding to
technological and market challenges?
•The case of financial and business
journalism

11. “Why did nobody tell us?”
The Queen asks about the financial crisis;
November 5th 2008.

12. Didn’t they?
Robert Peston BBC Gillian Tett Financial Times

13. Jim Cramer CNBC
CNBC Mad Money March 11, 2008
Viewer: "Should I be worried about Bear
Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my
money out of there?"
Cramer: "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is
not in trouble. If anything, they're more
likely to be taken over. Don't move your
money from Bear”
On March 14, 2008, Bear Stearns stock
fell 92% on news of a Fed bailout and
$2/share takeover by JPMorgan

14. Business Journalist
• R The journalist, they may have a very close
relationship with the director of a certain
company. During the interview, the director may
tell him (that) we are going to list a stock or
something next week. So during these few days,
you can buy our stock. So next week, you can
gain a lot of profits. So it is very easy (…)
• INT The Newspaper does not have rules to
prevent this
• R No we don’t have any rules.

15. Why does any of this matter?
• Some pressing questions:
Should privileges be extended to citizen
journalists? Or is there something about
‘professional journalists’ that makes them
deserving of socially granted privileges?
Mode of delivery is now less effective in defining
journalism as a profession: do certain genres of
journalism (reflecting private interests) not in fact
deserve the privileges they are granted under
free press guarantees and the ‘public trust’?

16. Reflexivity and media effects on
market behaviour: implications for ethics
Financial journalists can have an immediate impact on the
market:
-reflected in ethics and regulation on ramping and other
forms of market abuse
-measured in an evolving economic literature focusing on
effect of volume/ type of media coverage on price,
trading volumes,
-the actual effects are not so clear: partly because as soon
as it was, the market would respond to this information
-macro effects – on sentiment and overall stability have
been commented upon much less. Until recently.

17. Business Week 1997:
‘Best’ and ‘Worst’ Boards
Source:
Johnson,
Ellstrand and
Dalton 2005

18. Press Complaints Commission
CODE
• i) Even where the law does not prohibit it, journalists
must not use for their own profit financial information
they receive in advance of its general publication, nor
should they pass such information to others.
• ii) They must not write about shares or securities in
whose performance they know that they or their close
families have a significant financial interest without
disclosing the interest to the editor or financial editor.
• iii) They must not buy or sell, either directly or through
nominees or agents, shares or securities about which
they have written recently or about which they intend to
write in the near future.

19. Responsibilities
Legal framework covers Market Abuses/ Conflicts
of interest. (EC Market Abuse Directive 2002)
• Share Ramping
• Non-Disclosure of interest
Codes of Conduct
• Press Complaints Commission Code

20. A Social Compact
• Protection of sources
• ‘Journalist Privilege’
• Access
• Other (e.g. FSA rules)
• A role in corporate
governance
• Respect for law and
• Codes of conduct
Privileges reflect role of financial and business journalists,
responsibilities focus on market reflexivity (impact) and micro
conflicts of interest/ disclosure

21. Rights: Protection of sources
• UK Contempt of Court Act 1981
• Disclosure can be forced: in the interests
of national security, in the interests of
justice or for the prevention of crime
• Interbrew Case (Guardian/ FT/ Reuters)
• WSJ/ Overstock.com (SEC Policy
Document SEC 34-53638)
• Also: Qualified privilege, access, …

22. Findings: Regulatory Framework
• Broad similarity of approaches to market abuse
in HK, UK, US.
• Privileges for journalists: a ‘free press carve-out’
from regulations governing investment
recommendation
• Subtleties concerning roles of journalists,
editors, analysts, printing of rumours.
• Source protection
• Self regulation of press ethics weaker in HK/SH
• Weaker disclosure requirements in SH

23. HK Rules: Insider Trading
• “(e) when a person who has information which he knows
is relevant information in relation to the corporation and
which he received, directly or indirectly, from a person
whom he knows is connected with the corporation and
whom he knows or has reasonable cause to believe held
the information as a result of being connected with the
corporation-
• (i) deals in the listed securities of the corporation or their
derivatives, or in the listed securities of a related
corporation of the corporation or their derivatives; or
(ii) counsels or procures another person to deal in such
listed securities or derivatives;

24. Or …
• (f) when a person having received, directly or indirectly,
from a person whom he knows or has reasonable cause
to believe is contemplating or is no longer contemplating
making a take-over offer for the corporation, information
to that effect which he knows is relevant information in
relation to the corporation-
• (i) deals in the listed securities of the corporation or their
derivatives, or in the listed securities of a related
corporation of the corporation or their derivatives; or
(ii) counsels or procures another person to deal in such
listed securities or derivatives.”
(Securities and Futures Ordinance 2003; sections 270 E-
F).

25. The Carve Out: rules on investment
recommendations do not apply:
• to persons who “give such advice or issue such
analyses or reports through – (a) a newspaper,
magazine, book or other publication which is
made available to the public; or (b) television
broadcast or radio broadcast for reception by the
public, whether on subscription or otherwise.” [i]
•
[i] Hong Kong Securities and Futures Ordinance
section 277 ix (a-b).

26. Hong Kong Press Council
• 5. Journalists should avoid conflict of interest. Under no
circumstance should they be influenced by political, economic and
other interests related to themselves, their families or their
employers.
• 5.1. Journalists should not seek monetary or other advantages from
information that they have obtained in the course of discharging their
duties; nor should journalists pass the information to others so that
the journalists might obtain an indirect advantage.
• 5.2. Journalists should not distort facts to appease advertisers or for
any other consideration.
• 5.3. Journalists should not write or comment on business or other
organizational matters in which they have a stake. Journalists
should declare their interest should they be assigned to report or
comment on matters in which they have an interest.
• 5.4. Journalists should not be influenced by external pressure or
economic considerations in their reports and commentaries.

27. Findings 2 Journalistic Practices
• Open culture of trading
• Non-enforcement of disclosure
• Conflicts of interest

28. • INT what about trading in securities? Do you trade?
• R 4. Yes. Everyone does
• INT which kind of shares?
• R 4. Various kinds? Insurance. Some stocks. I can’t remember the English name. …
and some others.
• INT and what happens if you have to write about these companies you have shares
in?
• R 4. If I have shares .. actually I would just write on what is relevant for investors to
be aware of.. even .. in some kind of IPO you might see some kind of financial data
maybe.. not as good as the management are saying like you might have some kind of
margin level that is already declining but they might say there is a good future. I
would write about that.
• INT. I don’t understand . If you have to write about a company you own shares in,
would that effect the way you write about them, and your journalism.
• (prompt in Chinese. Bias?)
• R 4. I don’t think I would have a bias even if I hold those shares. Because actually,
what you are going to write is based on news and also on what your supervisor asks
you to do. Even if my supervisor has got that stock as well, and we see that there is a
drastic change for a stock. We need to write it. Because other newspapers will cover
that story too. If we missed it we will look bad tomorrow.
• INT But I guess you are lucky because you can trade before you publish the story.
• R 4. I would say … we don’t have so much insider information as people guess… so
even if we think that news is not that good for a stock. Other people will ask that news
as well. (Interviewee 4).

29. Summary on Business
Journalism
• Part of the ‘social responsibility’ compact
• Privileges enjoyed include carve outs from
market abuse regulations and general journalist
privilege
• Question of effectiveness of self-regulation?
• Huge global disparities (e.g. China).
• Also: current challenges of all journalism: speed,
complexity, sustainability, PR pressure
(churnalism) undermine responsible journalism

30. Wikileaks: A Structural Shift?
•Escapes Jurisdiction ? Globalisation
•Protection of sources – by software code
(encryption) not ethical code. Technology
•Understanding Wikileaks as a model, not
an institution

31. truth
regulators
institutions
The market owners
editors
readers
source
subject
News Values
Ethical codes
Responsible for what and
whom?
To what extent are
privileges enjoyed?

32. The Phases
1. Automatic publication/ wiki structure with
user-editing 2006-2007
2. Strategic/ idiosyncratic editorial selection
2007-2010
3. Editorial selection and redaction based on
public interest, with limited ethical application
and media partnership 2010-
3.a. Global Media Partnership
4. Irresponsible Dumping? August 2011-
5. Post the cables. Post Assange?

33. Some difficult cases for Wikileaks
on the Diplomatic cables
• Revealing sources of US intelligence may
put them at risk
• Revealing key strategic information about
‘national security’ might put lives at risk

36. Johannesburg Principles on
national security and freedom of
expression
• “any restriction on expression …that a government seeks to justify on
grounds of national security must have the genuine purpose and
demonstrable effect of protecting a legitimate national security
interest.”
• “In particular, a restriction sought to be justified on the ground of
national security is not legitimate if its genuine purpose or
demonstrable effect is to protect interests unrelated to national
security, including for example, to protect a government from
embarrassment or exposure of wrongdoing, or to conceal information
about the functioning of its public institutions or to entrench a
particular ideology or suppress industrial unrest”
• The Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to
Information. The ARTICLE 19 International Standards Series. London 1996

37. • “Appealing to national traditions of fair play
in the conduct of news reporting
misunderstands what Wikileaks is about: the
release of information without regard for
national interest. In media history up to now,
the press is free to report on what the
powerful wish to keep secret because the
laws of a given nation protect it. But
Wikileaks is able to report on what the
powerful wish to keep secret because the
logic of the Internet permits it.” (Shirky,
2010).

38. Rights and Responsibilities
• TO understand current challenges for
journalism we need to understand that:
• Journalism is not just a set of market
relationships but is an institutionalised set
of rules, codes and ethical practices
• These are undermined by current
changes, and institutions like Wikileaks
are looking for new ethics

39. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mediapolicyproject/