One of the cases where confidentiality is essential is when dealing with "state secrecy". Practically any information about the government is considered confidential. The Official Secrets Act 1911 defines exactly what is confidential. Section One states that is illegal to release any states secrets which could be potentially damaging to society, such as the location of British troops. Section Two states that ANY information regarding the state is confidential, even seemingly trivial pieces of information, for example menus. If a journalist is found guilty of revealing any of these confidential pieces of information then they will be breaking criminal law.
As well as criminal law, there is also civil law. Civil law confidentiality refers to commercial secrets. For example, if an employee of Coca Cola revealed the secret ingredient to a journalist then the employee would be breaking commercial confidentiality. If the journalist then released the information to anyone then they would be guilty of third party breach.
It could be argued that the journalist is not really at fault, but the journalist must protect the source if questioned who gave them the information, in accordance with the journalist code. In a case where the journalist refuses to reveal the identity of the source then Coca Cola could take the issue to a judge and the journalist could be issued a court order commanding them to reveal the source. If the journalist then continues to protect the source, then they will be in contempt of court and could be heavily fined or even jailed.
One case where the journalist did not protect the source is the case of Sarah Tisdall in 1983. Miss Tisdall, a Ministry of Defence employee, gave information about when nuclear weapons would be arriving in the UK; and the the Guardian printed the information. While the documents themselves were found to be a threat, it was believed that if there was a worker who release them then it means they might release more dangerous information, and so a court order was issued for the journalist to reveal the source. The journalist refused to reveal the source.
However, the Ministry of Defence demanded that the papers be returned. The editor of the Guardian, Peter Preston, returned the documents. From the font on the document the MoD was able to trace Sarah Tisdall as the source. She was sentenced to six months in jail, and served four. If Peter Preston had destroyed the documents instead of handing them back the he would have protected the source, and it may have been possible that Sarah Tisdall would never have been found out.
There have also been cases where the source has been protected, even when the consequences have been potentially disastrous for the journalist. One such case is the Bill Goodwin case.
Goodwin was a journalist for The Engineer, and received information that a company called Tetra was selling faulty products. Goodwin published the information and Tetra went bust. Goodwin received a court order to reveal the source; he protected the source, refusing to give any information. The case was taken to court and Goodwin was again ordered to reveal the source, claiming that it was in the interest of justice.
Goodwin refused and appealed, but again was given the same outcome. He took the case to the house of Lords, who again demanded that he reveal the source, and he faced a potential 30 years in jail. Eventually Goodwin was able to take his case to the European court of civil rights, who agreed that he did not need to reveal the source. To this day the source has not been revealed and this case proves the extraordinary lengths that Goodwin went to in order to protect his source.
There are cases where journalists accidentally break confidentiality laws. The most common way in which these laws are broken are by journalists using general views (GVs).
For example, a camera man may be filming a government building without thinking that this is breaking a confidentiality law, when in actual fact they would be.
There are 4 main qualities which make something confidential:
- If it has the quality of confidentiality
- If it has been told in a situation which implies confidentiality.
- If no permission has been given to make the information public.
- If it is going to cause detriment.
A case in the news at the moment which is a good example for confidentiality is the case of Lilly Allen having a miscarriage 6 months into her pregnancy. This story has been widely covered in the papers, on television, online and on the radio.
In a normal circumstance, this information would be incredibly confidential. It has the quality of confidence because it is a serious medical issue. It would also have been discussed in a situation implying confidentiality, as it would have presumably been discussed between Miss Allen and a doctor. It could also cause detrament because it could affect the life of Miss Allen because it is a very private and emotional matter.
The reason that it has been able to be reported is because Lilly Allen must have given permission. We know this because the information was told to the media by her publicist, and so she must have allowed it to be released. The fact that she gave permission means that she will not now be able to back track and sue for a breach of confidentiality - once she gave her permission, her story belonged to the media. The only way that she would be able to sue is if she never gave her publicist permission to release the story, although this is incredibly unlikely!
Technically, this story had 3 of the 4 qualities which would have made it confidential, however because one of the qualities of confidentiality had been removed it means that the other qualities are irrelevant, and the information is no longer confidential.
Journalists need to be 100% sure that the stories they report are not confidential otherwise they are likely to be sued, and will more than likely lose the case, pobably resulting in them losing their job.
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