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05 Mar 2017
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<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="line-height:1.6em">(Jordan Media Institute) -- An analytical study has affirmed the need for Jordanian websites to adopt ethical and legal rules when publishing crime news and to develop an editorial policy for covering crimes. This policy should strike a balance between the right to know and social responsibility when considering public interest. The study, which is titled "Legal and Ethical Responsibility of Electronic Press for Publishing Crime News," conducted by Zainab Al Faqir and debated at the Jordan Media Institute (JMI) for the purpose of receiving the MA degree, said that it is important for websites to use of accurate terms when describing suspects, depending on the stages of the criminal case, such as accused, suspect, and defendant, in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Law.</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="line-height:1.6em">The study, which was supervised by Dr. Sakhr Khasawneh, professor of media legislation at the JMI, stressed the importance of not mentioning the method of suicide and also not mentioning the modus operandi used by drug traffickers. It underlined the need for giving the staff of websites intensive courses to raise their awareness about ethical and legal principles and professional standards in general and the ethics of publishing crime news in particular.</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="line-height:1.6em">The study stated that it was conducted with the aim of learning about the degree of commitment of the Jordanian electronic press to ethical and legal rules when publishing crime news within the context of the social responsibility of the press. This was done through analyzing the content of three news websites in 2015. The study concluded that there is no electronic press that is specialized in publishing crime news in Jordan. The publication of crime news on the news websites that were analyzed accounted for 6.8% of the total news. It turned out that there was no visible effort by these electronic sites in handling crime news. This was evident in the fact that they did not abide by the main objective of publishing crime news, which is awareness-raising and education and follow-up on the cases they published. The sites were satisfied with reporting on crimes. Also, they did not diversify the use of journalistic techniques and did not depend on different sources when publishing crime news. Sensationalism and suspense were the key values in relation to crime news.</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="line-height:1.6em">It also transpired that the main ethical and legal violations committed by the news websites that were analyzed were imbalance in presenting views, judging defendants in advance before trial, and expanding on the instrument of crime and criminal method. The study further found out that the websites did not provide exclusive coverage of crime news. They largely copied the news verbatim from other sources and from each other. </span></div>
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