Does the law stipulate the reporter's right to interview?

Correct use of reporters' right to interview

The right to interview is the right of journalists to collect news materials independently by all legal means without illegal interference. It is an act of collecting information, and the legal source of guaranteeing and regulating this act can be traced back to the principle of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is usually understood as freedom of opinion expression in a narrow sense; Broadly speaking, the right to know is interpreted as the "potential" right of freedom of speech. In our country, so far, the law has not explicitly stipulated the "right to interview", nor has it been legally stipulated as an authorization norm. However, freedom of interview can be derived from freedom of speech and freedom of publication in the Constitution, including the professional characteristics of journalists, such as freedom of criticism and freedom of communication, even though they have the right to seek and collect information for the public's right to know. Journalists' right to interview, report and supervise public opinion is not only the right of journalists and news organizations, but also the embodiment of the public's right to know and express, and the extension of the public's right to supervise national life and state staff.

However, the exercise of the right to interview is restricted by at least two aspects: First, the right to interview is restricted by national public rights laws, such as national security law, secrecy law and procedural law. For example, legal criminal and civil cases that are not tried in public cannot cover trial activities. Secondly, the right to interview should be restricted by the civil private rights law, and some rights enjoyed by civil subjects according to law can restrict and restrict the right to interview under certain circumstances, such as reputation, privacy and peaceful residence.

Therefore, when reporters exercise the right to interview, they should be aware that the interviewee has no legal obligation to accept the interview, especially in the absence of clear provisions in the law, the interviewee has the right to put forward various reasons to refuse the interview. Neither the reporter's interview activities nor the content of news reports have judicial and administrative coercive power, that is to say, in news communication activities, news organizations and journalists can't tell people what to do or not to do, and the relationship between the media and the reported objects is completely equal. Therefore, journalists enjoy not power but rights, not judicial and administrative power but political and democratic rights.

In public places, that is, places where the public is allowed to enter and leave freely, journalists, as a member of the public, can collect information independently in various ways. When it comes to information that needs to be obtained from others, the reporter needs to get the consent of the interviewee. After reaching an agreement, no one else can interfere. If they interfere or obstruct by force, it constitutes an infringement of the right to interview.

For subjects with specific information disclosure obligations, such as government departments, weather forecasting departments, environmental protection departments, etc. The law stipulates that citizens have the right to know this information. Accordingly, the reporter has the right to ask for information from him, and the relevant departments shall not refuse. Refusing to provide it is an obstacle to the right to interview. The relationship between the public and the interview activities will be elaborated in detail later.

The right to interview has been violated.

As our country is in the transition period of social development, the rapid economic development inevitably brings all kinds of bad problems. In order to satisfy the audience's right to know and the ultimate concern for social development, the media will inevitably intervene in various negative news events and conduct in-depth interviews and detailed reports. Because this kind of news interview violates the vested interests of the interviewees, they often resist by refusing to interview. In recent years, with the all-round involvement of news activities in social life, news interviews have been repeatedly rejected, and most of them are in the form of non-violence. However, as a sign of refusal, violence against journalists is also on the rise. Using Google search engine to enter "reporter was beaten", there will be 704 entries, all of which happened in the past two years. Yang Wei, a photojournalist of Jinghua Times, was retaliated by the owner of Fengtai Pomegranate Garden Community disclosed by this newspaper. The reporter of Sichuan Quality News was besieged and beaten by the shopkeeper and his associates when interviewed by the clothing store "Qian Yi Baishun" on Shuangqiao Road in Chengdu. Duan Hongqi, the former general manager of Ronghua Commercial Building in Lanzhou City, was dissatisfied with the critical reports, and even led the security guards to rush into the newspaper to beat reporters ... One shocking case exposed the hardships and bitterness of reporters' interview work.

Two more interesting phenomena are: the "grade" of journalists who have been beaten is getting higher and higher. From the initial violent attack on county-level local media reporters to the violation of the right to interview by CCTV and Xinhua News Agency reporters today, it not only shows that the supervision of news public opinion has been widely and deeply carried out, but also warns the world that the right to interview and personal rights of journalists need special attention from the whole society and relevant departments; Second, the lineup of local officials, public security, procuratorial and other law enforcement agencies appeared among those who violently refused to interview. The news media plays an important role in the supervision of public opinion, especially in the current situation of serious corruption, frequent accidents and chaotic market economic order, the media bears the overload supervision function. In this case, if local governments and law enforcement departments abuse administrative power to ban the media again, the consequences will be unimaginable. "

What is even more puzzling is that the punishment for violent resistance to the interviewer is mostly that the hitter or the hitter unit apologizes to the reporter, and at most it is subject to administrative punishment. The beaten reporter seems satisfied with the result. Moreover, after the interview is blocked or even violently resisted, journalists can only file a lawsuit in their personal capacity, and few national law enforcement agencies pursue the criminal responsibility of the perpetrators according to the Criminal Procedure Law. This way condones the phenomenon of violence in interviews to a certain extent, intensifies the insecurity of journalists in the supervision of news public opinion, thus preventing us from establishing a good social public opinion environment as soon as possible.

From a legal point of view, the personal rights of journalists are also protected by law. At present, China's personal rights laws are quite complete, and personal rights have been fully protected by the Constitution, civil law, administrative law and criminal law. It is not impossible to punish violations of the right to interview in the form of violations of personal rights. The key problem is that laws are not complied with, law enforcement is lax, and other comprehensive governance mechanisms have not been formed.

Marx said: according to its mission, newspapers and periodicals are the defenders of society, the ubiquitous eyes and ears, and the long-awaited mouthpiece of the people who enthusiastically safeguard freedom. The nature of news media as mass media and public opinion tools determines the particularity of journalists' right to interview. The reporter's right to interview should be a kind of power with special nature and content, which cannot be equal to the general civil rights. Therefore, we should pay more attention to legal protection. In the future news legislation, more severe sanctions can be imposed on the infringement of interviews, the protection of journalists' legitimate rights and interests can be strengthened, and criminals who beat and maim journalists can be punished according to law, so as to set an example for others.

The right of the public and journalists to interview.

Literally, the public refers to people from all walks of life who have certain influence in the public. Mainly including public figures (referring to the personnel engaged in public affairs in state organs); Stars (mainly entertainment and sports); Scholars in other fields and the public. Here, I will focus on the relationship between public figures and stars and journalists' interview activities.

Public figures: generally refers to those who engage in official business in state organs, especially those who engage in official business in state-owned companies, enterprises, institutions and people's organizations ... and other persons who engage in official business according to law.

There has been a news report in the media that a small enterprise was sold according to law and was taken back by the district government by administrative order for various reasons. In this specific case, no matter who is right or wrong; However, in many media reports such as CCTV and China Business Times, a competent leader of the district government refused to interview on the grounds that "I have the freedom to refuse to interview".

Strictly speaking, the interviewee has the right to refuse the interview under any circumstances. But it is an exception for the staff of state organs. All power in our country belongs to the people, but it is impossible for everyone to exercise it. A minority must be authorized to form a government representing the people to manage the country, and the people should supervise the government in various ways, including exercising the rights of freedom of speech, publication and the press. Freedom of speech, publication and the press is not a right, but a right, a political right and a democratic right of citizens. In order to ensure their status as masters of the country and prevent the managers of the country from becoming masters of society, the people must exercise their democratic rights in person. Therefore, they must fully and timely understand state affairs and related principles and policies. The channel is national civil servants, and government agencies bear the responsibility of transmitting information to the society. Therefore, it is legally guaranteed by the provisions that stipulate that the government is obliged to disclose specific information. In some places, in order to maximize the openness of government affairs and satisfy the public's right to know, some regulations have been made on information disclosure accordingly. As stipulated in Zhuhai, as long as national security, state secrets and military secrets are not involved, all units and departments, especially public servants, have the responsibility to be interviewed, cooperate closely, truthfully reflect the situation and problems, and shall not refuse, resist, evade or shirk under any pretext, and shall not carry out personal attacks or take revenge.

As public figures, government officials have certain powers, and their every move may have an impact on society. The so-called privacy behavior often involves huge public interests. In order to prevent the abuse of this power, it is necessary to limit his right to privacy. If the law protects the so-called privacy rights of political public figures, it is actually equivalent to voluntarily giving up the effective protection of public interests. Therefore, the privacy rights of government officials should also be lost accordingly, such as declaring personal property.

The supervision of news and public opinion plays a very important role in the normal operation of society, including supervision and criticism of public figures and public affairs. Article 4 1 of the Constitution of China clearly stipulates that citizens have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary. This provision is recognized as the legal basis of news supervision by public opinion and has been strongly advocated in recent years. However, with the continuous strengthening of the supervision of news media, more and more cases of government officials suing news organizations for infringement have been filed. Many people who are criticized often sue journalists for violating their reputation rights as a means to resist the supervision of public opinion.

After dealing with various cases similar to those of official journalists, people gradually realize that the principle of maintaining a reasonable balance between freedom of speech, especially the right of criticism and the right of reputation, will inevitably evolve into the principle that the protection of the right of reputation of public figures should be properly weakened and the criticism of news media and the public should be properly tolerated.

Star: This refers to the stars in film, television and music. They have a special interaction with the media. A star needs the attention of the media and the interest of the public, because he needs the popularity and familiarity in front of the public, while the media needs all kinds of information of the star to maintain the ratings or subscriptions, and some people need the latest personal dynamics of the star to decorate the plain life. There is an effective mechanism to regulate the relationship between stars and some members of the public, as well as their relationship with the media. However, this does not mean that, as some people think, stars choose the attention and supervision of public opinion, and at the same time, they have to give up some privacy rights. The public has the right to know your words and deeds through the media. On the contrary, no matter how dazzling a star occupies, as long as he doesn't touch the position of state affairs and his actions don't infringe on the public interests, his personal privacy should be protected like other citizens.

In the United States, Americans who have a strong sense of rights and are keen on the privacy of stars have never claimed to have the right to know the personal privacy of sports stars and entertainment stars.

Finally, I will make a simple analysis on whether scholars should access the media. Most people in the society, including some scholars, have a prejudice that scholars are "old pedants". They drill in the pile of old paper with "thick glass sheets" and can't get out of the house day after day unless they leave the second door. Therefore, when it comes to the relationship between scholars and interviews, it is rejected without thinking. Some scholars even say that "it is a very bad atmosphere for scholars to be on TV and must not be encouraged."

The times are developing, and all walks of life are gradually becoming transparent and open. Scholars engaged in theoretical research have to change their practices and begin to pay attention to the market under the tide of market economy, so as to achieve the best combination of theory and practice. Moreover, due to the improvement of the overall quality of the public, their areas of concern are also expanding day by day. Therefore, the media should play an effective intermediary role between different academic fields and between science and the public. However, in the process of communication, some media take it out of context, which distorts scholars' academic intentions and makes many scholars feel afraid or even more disgusted with the media's intervention. Therefore, the media must transform academic language into social language that everyone can understand with a rigorous and scientific attitude. At the same time, scholars should actively cooperate with the media, let the media do comprehensive and in-depth interviews, and take pains to clearly explain the value, significance and possible social consequences of their research to the public. Refusing to interview at will is a very irresponsible attitude towards society, the country and the public.

News interview is a journalist's profession. As a profession, I have the responsibility and obligation to do well. In the face of refusing to interview, blindly complaining about the imperfection of the social, political and legal system and the low overall quality of the public are all very unfavorable practices for themselves and social development. In view of the various forms of refusing to interview, in order to successfully complete the task, journalists must try their best to persuade the other party to communicate with themselves through normal channels. This requires reporters to know the law and abide by the law, have good journalistic professional ethics, and constantly improve their interview methods and skills. In addition, they have a profound cultural accumulation, are duty-bound to the society and the public, and have a deep humanistic concern.

The development of our country needs a good environment for public opinion supervision, and we are also trying to create such an environment. As an important mechanism of society, the development of journalism is not unilateral, but the integration of government, media and the public. The government should provide an environment for the development of journalism and formulate rules; The media must gradually transform from a professional organization to an industry, and at the same time improve its own rights protection and self-discipline mechanism; The public's understanding of the media should be gradually in place. News is not a judgment or an administrative order, but a factual report. The public and its related interests are the main body of consumption and reporting.