Important to echo defended press ethics – Aftonbladet

After the terrible terrorist atrocity in Orlando has a confused debate about the Swedish press ethics broken out.

This time, even people who should know better attended.

the wrath of a kind that can not be good for the blood pressure was directed at social media yesterday to echo, the responsible editor Olle Zachrison decided not to live a press conference that the police in Orlando kept.

This is because he did not want the names of the supposed murderer would be published and because he did not know if anecdotal evidence or details about the victims would show up.

New Economy was thus for one of today’s most popular conspiracy theories, the old media black out.

for those who think it is for that way it did not matter that virtually all major media houses in Sweden early published the name and picture of 29-year-old Omar Mateen and that it therefore was not associated with greater difficulties to find out who he was.

the echo later in the evening, after the FBI confirmed the name, took a new decision nor was important for those who were determined that the truth concealed.

Censorship! shouted it on Facebook and Twitter. The echo dare not tell you that this appears to be an Islamist terrorist!

But the decision was not a bit of censorship to do. Censorship is when the state previewing such as film or literature. SR owned by a foundation whose mission is to be a buffer between government and public service companies. Moreover, there was no examination of the press conference in advance but in hindsight.

What in fact fact happened was that a publisher took an independent decision which was well established in the press ethics rules. Such happens all the time, even when the authorities call the media to to tell us anything.

I have been in Aftonbladet TV studio and commented on press conferences held by the Swedish prosecutors and the police, and we have sent with delay a technician in the control room to have time to press the PIP button every time the accused person’s name mentioned.

Zachrisons decision was, I think, gently at the top. It was the right person was named, there was little doubt at the time of the press conference. And the families of the murderer and the victims are likely to suffer harm publicity of what the Swedish radio says seems less likely.

But it is not, as many feverish lifted yesterday, if any new policy. Echo has always kept a low profile in certain contexts. I’m old enough to remember what it beeped on the radio during the broadcast of the trial on the murder of Olof Palme was once Christer Pettersson’s name was mentioned.

To a responsible publishers can stand with feet on the ground even at major news event is important. Remember when newspapers, radio and television published the name and picture of a young man on vague grounds, suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Sweden.

He was in fact an innocent asylum seekers who checked into the Ica Boliden on Facebook and who apparently has not hurt a fly. For many years, his name on Google to be associated with terrorism, which hardly helps his chances in life.

We see attacks on press ethics come more and more often. After the double murder at Ikea. After a defense employee Skara lied about having been stabbed by two men who appeared to be from the Middle East. After a woman in a small Swedish town reported a rape assault which apparently had not occurred.

The power of the drive against the media was on these occasions immense: You do not say who it is! Ni blinds! You’re trying to take us for a ride!

The new this time was not only the usual foil caps participated in the choir. Also, for example, Interior Minister Anders Ygemans press secretary Victor Harju, a person who should know better, honked and drove.

Press Ethics is changing and must be discussed. But in a time when just about anything posted on the internet, I think it is more important than ever that the Swedish journalism stands up for a set of rules that has been around for over 100 years and formulated to meet the political threat of restrictions on freedom of the press.

It would have been easier and more convenient for Zachrison to reach the same conclusion as most other publishers did. It honors him he stood up for what he believed to be right.