EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCES

Member of the German Press Council and Advisor Lecturer of the Deutsche Welle Akademie, Manfred Protze, shared his vast experience with the members of the MCM. 

Mr Protze provided very effective advice to the MCM aboutvarious media regulatory matters affecting the Mongolian media sector today, including one of the most common problems which is journalists using someone else’s work without mentioning the author or the source.

On this point, he said that “In case the MCM makes a decision that prohibits the use of someone’s intellectual property without their consent, there is no real ‘tool’ to take action to enforce this decision. Legal matters are only settled by legal measures. However, ethics is not law. The media community has introduced to the concept of ‘information laundering’, on the contrary, a result of ‘copy and paste’ does not qualify as a journalism product. In such cases, the MCM could make a public statement that refers to the issue, such as ‘The action of copying the product of a peer journalist is deemed to be inappropriate and unethical behaviour.’”, he also reminded that the MCM, is not a law enforcing authority: “its main duty is coordinate the relations between the public and the media organizations, and to serve the best interests of the public by promoting professional standards and ethical principles in journalism”.

During the training, the participants were given the opportunity to review past complaints that had previously gone through the MCM’s hearing and resolution process, which was important to improve the measures and operations to better handle complaints in the future.