Ethical Publising

All information shared publicly is controlled by regulation system. There is certain action that people need to avoid such as insult words, fake statement, and misleading statement. It is true that everyone has freewill to write and spoke out of ideas but there is still boundary of rules that cannot be breached.

Trespasses boundary of rules = Problem!

As it happened in Indonesia, an artist named Luna Maya has pour out her feelings in Twitter and used sarcastic words that streak out the journalists’ reputation. Therefore, she has been charged with defamatory statement to media public under law of ITE (Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronik) pasal 27 ayat 3 that written about defamation through electronic media which is her official Twitter account.

Another case is Manohara Odelia Pinot. She was an 18 years-old model and married to prince of Kelantan, Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Sultan Ismail Petra. Her case was brought to the court of Malaysia and Indonesia. The case is Tengku Muhammad Fakhry sued his wife, Manohara, because of defamatory statement that widely printed and broadly known in electronic media in Malaysia and Indonesia. Manohara claimed that her husband did physically and sexually abusing her, mistreating, abducting, and unlawfully confining her. At the end, she was awarded RM2mil each in aggravated, exemplary, compensatory damages and RM105mil defamation suit by Malaysia High Court (Mageswari, M 2010).

Both cases above categorized as defamatory publication because it contained a publication of words or images to a person that damages the reputation of others (Australian Law Reform commission, 2006).

What is the solution?

There is no publication rules that not allows you to exposed your feelings in public media, however, words chosen must be correct otherwise it would be a ‘boomerang’ for you as experienced by two artists above.

As journalist, what code of ethics we should follow?

Apart from personal issues, a journalist has certain rules to follow since they are providing recent information to the audiences publicly. A journalist must have integrity because integrity determines their credibility in sharing information. Readers believe in you to give them a truth, actual and reliable information. Furthermore, in order to avoid unethical issue in publishing, a journalist should seek the truth of the information before they release it to the public, minimizing harm by respecting the sources, act independently by no giving side interest, and be accountable to their readers, listeners, and viewers (SPJ National Convention, 1996).

References:

Australian Law Reform Commission, 2006, 'Defamation Laws & the Internet', Electronic Frontiers Australia, viewed 11 June 2010, <http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html#defpubl>.

Mageswari, M 2010, 'Tengku Fakhry wins RM6mil in damages against wife Manohara (Updated)', The Star Online, viewed 12 June 2010, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/3/11/nation/20100311095019&sec=nation>.

Schotz, A 1996, 'SPJ Code of Ethics', Society of Professional Journalist, viewed 11 June 2010, <http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp>.