NZ: 'Media Freedom Worrier' Stirs Lively Responses to Press Threats Speech

http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/pacific-media-watch/nz-media-freedom-worrier-stirs-lively-responses-press-threats-speech-8281

Anna Magavu

AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Centre / Pacific Media Watch): Media commentators, media freedom advocates, journalists and academics welcomed New Zealand's inaugural UNESCO World Press Freedom Day speech with searching questions and lively debate.

Professor Mark Pearson, author of The Journalist's Guide to Media Law, had voiced concern at the high levels of digital surveillance facing journalists today and he urged journalists to adopt a new ethical model of reporting for social good.

Dr Pearson, professor of journalism and social media at Griffith University in Australia and the Australian correspondent for Reporters Without Borders, delivered the inaugural WPFD lecture on Friday, May 3, organised by AUTs Pacific Media Centre.

He said the lack of press freedom in the Asia-Pacific region was well documented with media in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Fiji needing government licences to operate, and journalists in Malaysia facing 53-year-old internal security laws under which they could be detained for long periods for prejudicing national security.

But Dr Pearson added his concerns were not limited to these cases, and that his major worry was the ever-increasing government regulation of media and social media everywhere, including the anti-terror laws introduced all over the world since 9/11, modelled on the US Patriot Act.

These laws typically give intelligence agencies unprecedented powers to monitor the communications of all citizens. There is also an inordinate level of surveillance, logging and tracking technologies in use in the private sector often held in computer clouds or multinational corporate servers in jurisdictions subject to search and seizure powers of foreign governments Dr Pearson said.

This had disturbing implications for journalists protection of their confidential sources, especially if these sources were government or corporate whistleblowers, he added.

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NZ: 'Media Freedom Worrier' Stirs Lively Response