The two principles of ¡§secret investigation¡¨ and ¡§freedom of the press¡¨ are respectively the foundations of ¡§presumption of innocence,¡¨ a basic human right, and ¡§the right to know,¡¨ one of the basic citizen rights. The former principle guards against any sentence of suspects unreivewed by the juridical system and protects the reputation, privacy and other legal rights of all the related parties in the case. The latter are the fourth power apart from the executive, legislative and judicial branches. It allows for strict monitoring of the governmental performance and, therefore, prevents the government from abusing its powers. In practice, these two principles are rather complicatedly connected.
This study begins by exploring the definition of investigation and, discussing the role and function of the police in the investigation process, and then introducing the basic ideas of the secret investigation principle. As for the freedom of the press, the study starts by explaining its meaning and introduces related theories, legal definition, protection and limitation. The study then continues with a discussion of press autonomy and information source of the press. At the end, the study provides analysis of the interviews to find out conflict and/or cooperation between the police and the media.
The question raised in this study is ¡§How do the police respond to the requirements of the press freedom and protect the right to know without violating any legal regulation?¡¨ The methodology of this study is literature review of official documents and in-depth interview. The data collected from the literature review were compiled and rewritten into sixteen situation analysis tools, which were then reorganized into ten simulation cases. The cases were used as issue analysis tools in the in-depth interviews with the selected journalists and investigation squad chiefs.
In the interview, the squad chiefs were asked what considerations or reactions they would have in each simulation case. The journalists were also asked what strategies or perspectives they would adopt in reporting each case. Comparisons were made to find out the differences and similarities between the squad chiefs and journalists in considering the same case so as to achieve maximum agreement between both sides under the premise of not breach any of the existing legal requirements.
The study reached the following four conclusions: (1) the police should be educated about which action would violate the principle of secret investigation and what legal or administrative liability would ensue; (2) the police should understand the needs of the media and provide journalists with information within reasonable scope for media coverage; (3) the police should use assistance of devices and skills of related technologies; (4) finally, the government should cooperate with the media to make laws that can effectively regulate related issues.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-1227107-192934 |
Date | 27 December 2007 |
Creators | Sun, Li-Chieh |
Contributors | Yang, C. C., Hsiang Chen, Sue-Jen Lin |
Publisher | NSYSU |
Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
Language | Cholon |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-1227107-192934 |
Rights | restricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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