Whilst Researching for a presentation i’m due to give on Human Rights, i came across this:
Witness appears to be an organization that campaigns for Human Rights through the medium of using New Media Technology, therefore raises a question: If the ordniary public is encouraged so much to pick up a camera, in the way of ‘citizen journalism’ then where does the idea of a journalist end? And if this cannot be defined, then how can a watchdog such as the PCC ‘control’ people who are not even journalists. In this way, is the organization a bit of a catch 22? How can you have Human Rights and privacy if the average Joe Public is filming your every move?
Advertisement
Tags: human rights, journalism, witness
April 19, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Excellent use of the blog to highlight this website, which I had not previously seen.
The PCC was never up to very much, and is not very fair anyway (there’s no cross examination and rules of evidence).
Everyone – journalist or not – is bound by the law. Privacy is protected by the law (section eight HRA) and this appears to be a very strong protection.
So it is true that a person could be filmed at almost any time, doing anything. Whether or not that film can be used or published (without consent) is a very different matter.
Longer term some academics are saying that the concept of privacy will be unsustainable (maybe like copyright) and that in the end the laws will be too difficult to enforce. We shall see. Meanwhile the whole privacy area is an excellent topic for research purposes.
The best book on the concept of privacy and priovate vs public life I think is Richard Sennett’s book ‘The Fall of Public Man’. This is a very good book (sociology/ behavioural psychology) and every journalist should read it. It is one of those books (for me at least)that when you read it you look at things in a different and more interesting way.