Journalists, publishers, academics, diplomats and NGO representatives from throughout the Asia-Pacific region will gather for the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference hosted by The University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, next month.

A notable part of the conference on July 4-6 will be the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the journal Pacific Journalism Review — founded by the energetic pioneer of journalism studies in the Pacific, Professor David Robie, who was recently honoured in the NZ King’s Birthday Honours list as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

I have been on the editorial board of PJR for two of its three decades.

• READ MORE: PJR to celebrate 30 years of journalism publishing at Pacific Media 2024
• Other Pacific Media Conference reports
• Dr Lee Duffield on 20 years of PJR
• Other Mark Pearson media law blog items

As well as delivering a keynote address titled “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism can Survive Against the Odds”, Dr Robie will join me and the current editor of PJR, Dr Philip Cass, on a panel examining the challenges faced by journalism journals in the Global South/Asia Pacific.

We will be moderated by Professor Vijay Naidu, former professor and director of development studies and now an adjunct in the School of Law and Social Sciences at the university. He is also speaking at the PJR birthday event.

In addition, I will be delivering a conference paper titled “Intersections between media law and ethics — a new pedagogy and curriculum”.

Media law and ethics have often been taught as separate courses in the journalism and communication curriculum or have been structured as two distinct halves of a hybrid course.

Integrated ethics and law approach
My paper explains an integrated approach expounded in my new textbook, The Communicator’s Guide to Media Law and Ethics, where each key media law topic is introduced via a thorough exploration of its moral, ethical, religious, philosophical and human rights underpinnings.

The argument is exemplified via an approach to the ethical and legal topic of confidentiality, central to the relationship between journalists and their sources.

After defining the term and distinguishing it from the related topic of privacy, the paper explains the approach in the textbook and curriculum which traces the religious and philosophical origins of confidentiality sourced to Hippocrates (460-370BC), via confidentiality in the priesthood (from Saint Aphrahat to the modern Catholic Code of Canon Law), and through the writings of Kant, Bentham, Stuart Mill, Sidgwick and Rawls until we reach the modern philosopher Sissela Bok’s examination of investigative journalism and claims of a public’s “right to know”.

This leads naturally into an examination of the handling of confidentiality in both public relations and journalism ethical codes internationally and their distinctive approaches, opening the way to the examination of law, cases and examples internationally in confidentiality and disclosure and, ultimately, to a closer examination in the author’s own jurisdiction of Australia.

Specific laws covered include breach of confidence, disobedience contempt, shield laws, whistleblower laws and freedom of information laws — with the latter having a strong foundation in international human rights instruments.

The approach gives ethical studies a practical legal dimension, while enriching students’ legal knowledge with a backbone of its philosophical, religious and human rights origins.

Details about the conference can be found on its USP website.

Professor Mark Pearson (Griffith University) is a journalist, author, academic researcher and teacher with more than 45 years’ experience in journalism and journalism education. He is a former editor of Australian Journalism Review, a columnist for 15 years on research journal findings for the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association Bulletin, and author of 13 books, including The Communicator’s Guide to Media Law and Ethics — A Handbook for Australian Professionals (Routledge, 2024). He blogs at JournLaw.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned a proposed cyber-security law in Myanmar that would organise online censorship and force social media platforms to share private information about their users when requested by the authorities.

This would violate the confidentiality of journalists’ data and sources, and the public’s right to reliable information, says the Paris-based media freedom watchdog RSF.

The investigations violate the principles of protection for the confidentiality of sources and whistleblowers, the media watchdog said in a statement.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have been investigating TV channels, newspapers and news websites since May 19 in connection with the revelations about cost overruns at NBN, which is behind schedule with the job of providing all Australian homes with high-speed fibre internet connections.

According to the news website Crikey, the federal police warrant makes reference to The Weekend Australian, the Australian Financial Review, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), The Sydney Morning Herald and the tech news website Delimiter.

ABC News said a warrant issued to the police “names Labour Senator Stephen Conroy, staffers, technology bloggers, and four major media organisations including the ABC,” suggesting that the “police are casting a wide net in their investigation.”

Delimiter said the police may have obtained journalists’ metadata.

“This investigation has dealt a serious blow to media freedom and freedom of information in Australia,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

‘Severity towards whistleblowers’
“Unfortunately, this confirms Australia’s decline in the latest World Press Freedom Index resulting from growing severity towards whistleblowers and journalists’ sources and the media’s resulting self-censorship. The authorities must terminate these police excesses, which clearly violate principle of proportionality in the limitations placed on media freedom.”

RSF expresses its support for the Media Alliance, an organisation that represents the Australian media, and its chief executive officer, Paul Murphy, who described the investigation as “a disturbing new twist in pursuit of whistleblowers and legitimate public interest journalism.”

“The raids are a heavy-handed and over-the-top response to media stories which have embarrassed the government,” Murphy said. “Once again, the government wants to shoot the messenger rather than address the issues raised by journalists in their reporting.”

Murphy has also called on the police to say whether journalists’ metadata have been accessed without their knowledge.

Australia is ranked 25th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index but its performance score has suffered a decline in the past year due mainly to the threats to whistleblowers and sources and the resulting self-censorship within the media.

• NBN leaks: Labor to take privilege issue to Senate
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