Page 294 - Law and the Media

Professional Regulatory Bodies
13. Children in sex cases
1. The press should not, even where the law does not prohibit it, identify children under the
age of 16 who are involved in cases concerning sexual offences, whether as victims, or
as witnesses or defendants.
2. In any press report of a case involving a sexual offence against a child:
2.2 the adult may be identified
2.3 the term ‘incest’ where applicable should not be used
2.4 the offence should be described as ‘serious offences against young children’ or
similar appropriate wording
2.5 the child should not be identified
2.6 care should be taken that nothing in the report implies the relationship between the
accused and the child.

14. Victims of crime
The press should not identify victims of sexual assault or publish material likely to contribute
to such identification unless, by law, they are free to do so.

15. Discrimination
1. The press should avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to a person’s race, colour,
religion, sex or sexual orientation, or to any physical or mental illness or handicap.
2. It should avoid publishing details of a person’s race, colour, religion, sex or sexual
orientation, unless these are directly relevant to the story.

16. Financial journalism
1. Even where the law does not prohibit it, journalists should not use for their own profit
financial information they receive in advance of its general publication, nor should they
pass such information to others.
2. They should not write about shares or securities in whose performance they know that
they or their close families have a significant financial interest, without disclosing the
interest to the editor or financial editor.
3. They should not buy or sell, either directly or through nominees or agents, shares or
securities about which they have written recently or about which they intend to write in
the near future.

17. Confidential sources
Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources of information.

18. The public interest
Clauses 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 create exceptions that may be covered by invoking the public interest.
For the purposes of this code, that is most easily defined as:

1. Detecting or exposing crime or a serious misdemeanour.
2. Protecting public health and safety.
3. Preventing the public from being misled by some statement or action of an individual or
organization.
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