![]() Their May 2019 release from prison was a bright light in a place where press freedoms are often otherwise dim.Ĭloser to home, Reporters Without Borders monitors international press freedom through its World Press Freedom Index. The pair were detained after covering the 2017 massacre of Rohingya villagers by the Burmese military. Such was the case in Burma for Reuters’ journalists Wa Lone and Kyam Soe Oo. At the same time, it notes that “efforts to control speech and information are also accelerating, by both governments and private actors in the form of censorship, restrictions on access, and violent acts directed against those whose views or queries are seen as somehow dangerous or wrong.” This profoundly affects journalists, who must often put themselves in conflict with governments in order to obtain – and disseminate – information. Human Rights Watch, an independent organization focusing on the protection of individual rights, acknowledges that access to information is on the rise, thanks to the growth of the Internet. This dissolution is due to the introduction of heightened government oversight, greater corporate mergers and globalization, such that “the overriding threat to press freedom for corporate journalists is near-absolute absence of professional independence.” Denis Rancourt, a researcher with the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA), said via email that the press freedoms that once existed in post-World War II Canada and the U.S. These anti-journalism efforts are driven largely by governments. … journalistic freedoms are threatened and reporters can face imprisonment just for covering protests. Though the Charter promises “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication,” much has changed in the 40-plus years since Kesterton’s book. While free speech may be legally restricted as a means of ending discrimination and promoting gender equality and social harmony, the definition of the punishable crime of hate speech remains vague. ![]() The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides a guarantee of freedom of expression and press freedom, with some provisos and grey areas. It all speaks to a tighter rein on personal and press freedoms. ![]() This means an officer can make an arrest for anything considered to be “wrongful behaviour,” from protesting outside a consulate to using a cellphone under what could subjectively be deemed “suspicious” circumstances. Supreme Court decision supporting the right of police officers to not be sued for arresting anyone on the basis of “probable cause”. As well, the rights of American individuals were threatened with a May 2019 U.S. ![]() government engaging the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for the 2010 dissemination of secret documents (seen as subversive by some and as free speech by others). Issues range from the balancing act of regulated-versus-open use (especially in cases where there are questions of accuracy) to the U.S. press freedoms are covered under that country’s first amendment, giving the impression of a “freer” press.īut the advent of social media platforms and the rapid dissemination of information – both real and fake – has generated a hot debate. Kesterton, in his 1976 book The Law and the Press in Canada, said that in Canada and Great Britain, “the considerations of a fair trial prevail over considerations of a free press … the press is restrained in most cases where unfairness in a trial seems likely to result.” By contrast, U.S. The heavy-handedness of defamatory libel and its use in curbing freedom of expression is an ongoing problem, said Professors David Pritchard (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and Lisa Taylor (Ryerson University) … For a long time, the issue of press freedom focused largely on the journalistic coverage of criminal trials. However, the reality is often far different: surveillance, gag orders, expensive and oppressive lawsuits, and activists and journalists being arrested, imprisoned – and in extreme cases, even dying – for their convictions. These phrases may conjure up Hollywood-style images of noble activists and principled reporters butting heads with those in power – and winning.
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