Fondazzjoni Tumas Fenech ghall-Edukazzjoni fil-Gurnalizmu will be celebrating its sixth anniversary. For this occasion, the foundation has invited has the head of the philosophy department at the University of Malta, Professor Joe Friggieri, and the corporate affairs director of the Telegraph Group, Guy Black to deliver two papers.
Professor Friggieri be delivering a paper on Journalistic Ethics: Are they Special Ethics?, while Mr Black will be addressing the audience about The public’s alienation from politics. Who is to blame – and what can be done about it?
The anniversary ceremony will be held on Monday, 6 February, and will be presided by President Emeritus HE Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, who is also the Chairman of Fondazzjoni Tumas Fenech ghall-Edukazzjoni fil-Gurnalizmu.
A former director of the UK’s Press Complaints Commission (PCC) where, between 1996 and 2003, Mr Black’s paper tackles the growing disinterest in politics, and increasing alienation from the political process across Europe – including markedly in the United Kingdom. What is at the root of this growing apathy and disenchantment? Does the problem lie with the media and the way it reports politics? Does the problem lie with the politicians and their use of “spin” and other techniques of media manipulation? Or is it an issue relating to regulation and the manner in which the political classes seek to control the press?
Mr Black started his career in 1989 as special adviser to the Secretary of State for Energy, John, later Lord, Wakeham. In 1992, he moved into lobbying and public relations, first for Westminster Strategy and then for Lowe Bell Communications.
This experience proved very useful because during the eight years he spent at the PCC, he occupied an intensely high profile role, where he had to preserve the precarious balance between freedom of the press and the rights of the individual. He is credited with doing an excellent job and some attribute the current press freedoms in the UK are mainly due to Black’s work.
From January 2004 to August 2005, he was Press Secretary to Rt Hon Michael Howard, Leader of the Conservative Party, and Director of Communications at the Conservative Party Central Office. He is also a director of the Newspaper Publishers Association, and of the Advertising Standards Board of Finance.
When asked about his relatively new role at the Telegraph Group, Black said: “There are marvellous opportunities for promoting both the group and the titles. The Daily Telegraph has brilliant journalists and it’s important that as many people as possible get to read them. At the same time, the newspaper industry in the UK is a fiercely competitive environment and one has to put a lot of effort into marketing the brand.”
In his presentation, Professor Friggieri will tackle the ever-present theme of ethics in journalism from a general and, in particular, a local perspective. The journalist, irrespective of whether he or she is working in print, radio, TV or on-line journalism, is continuously challenged to take important decisions. Many of these decisions concern ethical issues.
Professor Friggieri will be discussing this perpetual dilemma both from the journalist’s point of view, and from the perspective that a journalist has both an important function within a democratic state and essential duties to perform within civil society. At the same time, every profession has its own professional ethics. Does journalism have the same principles or is it a particular profession with a special ethic?