Journalists and their news organizations in the United States have long resisted attempts to define their profession, largely out of fear that defining journalism could eventually be linked to government censorship. Yet the lack of definition seems to contribute to public misunderstanding and lack of trust.
In a recent peer-reviewed academic journal article, a BYU journalism graduate and I argue that international human rights law provides a useful definition of journalism that could ultimately prove beneficial for journalists and their audiences. (Citation: Edward L. Carter & Rosalie Westenskow (2020) Freedom of Journalism in International Human Rights Law, Communication Law and Policy, 25:2, 113-143, DOI: 10.1080/10811680.2020.1735188).
Rosalie Westenskow covered politics in Washington, D.C., for a national news service before going to law school. She is now working as a lawyer for non-profit organizations in Oregon. She and I spent most of a year researching the definition of journalism that has emerged from Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The definition comes out in the work of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, including in General Comment 34 on Article 19 and in the contentious adjudications conducted by the Committee to resolve free-press disputes around the globe.
I am posting here a copy of the final authors’ version of the article, which was published in a special international and comparative law issue of Communication Law & Policy, the journal of the AEJMC Law and Policy Division. Then, below, I summarize the research. The special issue came out in May 2020.
Freedom of Journalism 1-10-20-updated
We start by discussing the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2, 2018. Khashoggi’s death was investigated by Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings. Callamard produced an extensive report detailing the various human-rights-law violations involved in the case.
Khashoggi’s death was a clear violation of the freedom of journalism articulated in Article 19 and detailed further in General Comment 34. We analyzed the Callamard report and other adjudications in the UN Human Rights Committee to argue that international human rights law defines journalism as follows:
- Journalism is narrower but more strongly protected than freedom of expression generally.
- Journalism is focused on independent gathering and distribution of news in the public interest.
- Journalism prioritizes its government watchdog role with core values of justice and civic virtue.
- Journalism enables human rights, including the right to freedom of journalism itself.
We prefer the term “freedom of journalism” because it suggests an individual right rather than a collective one, as may be understood from the phrase “freedom of the press.” In our article, we explain that some scholars–especially in Europe–are beginning to argue for the journalism rights of individual journalists to be seen as distinct from the collective rights of their owners, the institutional news organizations, broadcasters and publishers.
Ultimately we argue that achieving a common-sense, functional definition of journalism could help the public understand and support what journalists do. This, in turn, would strengthen society.
