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It is 40 years since Howard Brentons play The Romans in Britain, directed by Michael Bogdanov, opened at Londons National Theatre. Set in ancient Rome, it deals with themes of imperialism and abuse of power, and became infamous for a brief episode in its first act when actors Peter Sproule and Greg Hicks portrayed an act of male rape.

The play made legal and political history when morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse tried to prosecute Bogdanov using the Sexual Offences Act 1956, alleging that he had procured an act of gross indecency between two men by directing the two actors.

The controversy reflected the cultural wars of the time. Thirteen years before the play had opened, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men. Yet as Geoffrey Robertson QC, who was a junior barrister for the defence, says, the attitude of the law was that it was not to be encouraged or legitimised.

Theatre censorship became less common after the Theatres Act abolished the lord chamberlains historic role of censor in 1968, but homophobic attitudes were still the norm. In 1976, Whitehouse, described by Robertson as the self-appointed conscience of the nation, sent her solicitor Graham Ross-Cornes to see The Romans in Britain, and then sought to bring her case.

The director of public prosecutions, Thomas Hetherington, advised the attorney general, Michael Havers, that the play did not contravene the Theatres Act. So Whitehouse tried another route and sought to prosecute Bogdanov under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. The legislation was designed to prevent men soliciting in public lavatories which is why, according to Robertson, the prosecution treated the National Theatre as a large public toilet.

Defence barrister Jeremy Hutchinson compiled a list of actors who were willing to give evidence for Bogdanov, while the prosecution only planned to call Ross-Cornes.

His evidence in the trial at the Old Bailey, Robertson says, prompted one of the most amazing piece of cross-examination ever heard. Giving his evidence, Ross-Cornes had not said where in the theatre he had been sitting.

Barristers are reluctant ever to ask a question in court to which they do not know the answer, and Hutchinson had to be persuaded to ask Ross-Cornes to mark on a map of the theatre where he had watched the production from.

The plan came back showing he had been sitting in the back row of the upper circle, 90 yards from the action. This exchange followed:

Hutchinson: You know that theatre is the art of illusion?

Ross-Cornes: If you say so, Lord Hutchinson.

Hutchinson: And as part of that illusion actors use physical gestures to convey impressions to an audience?

Ross-Cornes: Yes, I would accept that.

Hutchinson: And from the back row, 90 yards from the stage, you can be certain that what you saw was the tip of the actors penis?

Ross-Cornes: Well, if you put it that way, I cant be absolutely certain. But what else could it have been?

At this point Hutchinson balled up his fist, placed his hand by his groin and his gown over his hand, stuck out his thumb and made a thrusting action. He then asked: Are you sure you did not see the tip of the actors thumb? Ross-Corness subsequent admission that he might have been mistaken halted the trial.

As Robertson says, the case put an end to Whitehouses courtroom crusades. Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, meanwhile, says the cases impact went beyond the play itself: The failure of the prosecution was a huge victory, not just for LGBT+ people and the theatre world, but also against censorship and for liberal Britain. It struck a blow for gay visibility, against the homophobes and puritans.

But Lord Michael Cashman, the actor who played Colin Russell on Eastenders and portrayed the first ever gay kiss in a UK soap opera, says: The case was a very clear indicator that homosexuality would not even be tolerated, let alone expressed on a theatre stage.

He is unsure that the case accelerated the campaign for equality but says it was a vivid reminder that our rights were non-existent.

He says the support that the defence received from senior figures across the creative industries was heartening and encouraging, but adds: It must be remembered that they were defending not particularly homosexual issues but the right to artistic independence, as well as challenging the notion of censorship via the imposition of anothers perspective on morality.

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Landmarks in law: the controversial 80s play that defied gay censorship - The Guardian

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

David Cuillier, University of Arizona

(THE CONVERSATION) In times of mortal strife, humans crave information more than ever, and its journalists responsibility to deliver it.

But what if that information is inaccurate, or could even kill people?

Thats the quandary journalists have found themselves in as they decide whether to cover President Donald J. Trumps press briefings live.

Some television networks have started cutting away from the briefings, saying the events are no more than campaign rallies, and that the president is spreading falsehoods that endanger the public.

If Trump is going to keep lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us, stop broadcasting it, MSNBCs Rachel Maddow tweeted. Honestly, its going to cost lives.

News decisions and ethical dilemmas arent simple, but withholding information from the public is inconsistent with journalistic norms, and while well-meaning, could actually cause more harm than good in the long run. Keeping the presidents statements from the public prevents the public from being able to evaluate his performance, for example.

Truth and falsehood can fight it out

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics, updated in 2014 during my term as president, states that the press must seek truth and report it, while also minimizing harm.

When the president of the United States speaks, it matters it is newsworthy, its history in the making. Relaying that event to the public as it plays out is critical for citizens, who can see and hear for themselves what their leader is saying, and evaluate the facts for themselves so that they may adequately self-govern.

Thats true even if leaders lie. Actually, its even more important when leaders lie.

Think of libertarian philosopher John Miltons plea for the free flow of information and end of censorship in 1600s England. Put it all out there and let people sort the lies from the truth, Milton urged: Let her and Falsehood grapple.

If a president spreads lies and disinformation, or minimizes health risks, then the electorate needs to know that to make informed decisions at the polls, perhaps to vote the person out to prevent future missteps.

Likewise, theres a chance the president could be correct in his representation of at least some of the facts.

Its not up to journalists to decide, but simply report what is said while providing additional context and facts that may or may not support what the president said.

Maddow is correct that journalists should not simply parrot information spoon fed by those in power to readers and viewers who might struggle to make sense of it in a vacuum. That is why its imperative journalists continuously challenge false and misleading statements, and trust the public to figure it out.

Craving information

Those who would urge the medias censorship of the presidents speeches may feel they are protecting citizens from being duped, because they believe the average person cant distinguish fact from fiction. Communication scholars call this third-person effect, where we feel ourselves savvy enough to identify lies, but think other more vulnerable, gullible and impressionable minds cannot.

It is understandable why journalists would try to protect the public from lies. Thats the minimizing harm part in the SPJ code of ethics, which is critical in these times, when inaccurate information can put a persons health at risk or cause them to make a fatal decision.

So how do journalists report the days events while minimizing harm and tamping down the spread of disinformation? Perhaps this can be accomplished through techniques already in use during this unorthodox presidential period:

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Report the press briefings live for all to see, while providing live commentary and fact-checking, as PolitiFact and others have done for live presidential debates.

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Fact-check the president after his talks, through contextual stories that provide the public accurate information, in the media and through websites such as FactCheck.org.

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Call intentional mistruths what they are: Lies. With this administration, journalists have become more willing to call intentional falsehoods lies, and that needs to continue, if not even more bluntly.

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Develop a deep list of independent experts that can be on hand to counter misinformation as it is communicated.

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Report transparently and openly, clearly identifying sources, providing supplemental documents online, and acknowledging limitations of information.

The coronavirus pandemic is a critical time for the nations health and its democracy. Now, more than ever, we need information. As humans, we crave knowing what is going on around us, a basic awareness instinct, as termed by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their foundational book, The Elements of Journalism.

People arent dummies

Sometimes people dont even realize they need information until after they have lost it.

In his autobiography, the late Sen. John McCain wrote that upon his release after five years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war, the first thing he did when he got to a Philippines military base was order a steak dinner and stack of newspapers.

I wanted to know what was going on in the world, and I grasped anything I could find that might offer a little enlightenment, McCain wrote. The thing I missed most was information free, uncensored, undistorted, abundant information.

People arent dummies. They can decipher good information from bad, as long as they have all the facts at their disposal.

And journalists are the ones best positioned to deliver it.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read our newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/its-a-bad-idea-for-journalists-to-censor-trump-instead-they-can-help-the-public-identify-whats-true-or-false-134962.

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It's a bad idea for journalists to censor Trump instead, they can help the public identify what's true or false - goskagit.com

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 42,000 people worldwide according to Johns Hopkins University, but the figure may be far from reality as countries like Turkmenistan take drastic steps to suppress information about the spread of pandemic.

A recent report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reveals that the central Asian country has banned the word Coronavirus as the country continues to deny any information on the spread of virus.

According to Turkmenistan Chronicle, one of the few sources of independent news, the state-controlled media are no longer allowed to use the word and it has even been removed from health information brochures distributed in schools, hospitals and workplaces.

There is no data available on the number of coronavirus patients in the country. A correspondent of Chronicles of Turkmenistan reports from the infectious diseases hospital in Ashgabat that a lot of patients with respiratory infections have been admitted to the hospital but all of them are officially diagnosed with acute respiratory viral infection.

According to journalists based in the capital, Ashgabat, who report for Radio Azatlyk, the Turkmen language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, people wearing face masks or talking about the coronavirus on the street, at bus stops or in lines outside shops are liable to be arrested by plainclothes police.

The Turkmen authorities have lived up to their reputation by adopting this extreme method for eradicating all information about the coronavirus, said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSFs Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

However, a report by Turkmenistan Chronicle says, despite the official statements about no confirmed cases, large-scale prevention measures are underway in the country. In public places and bank officers people are provided with sanitizers to wipe their hands and are requested to use a mouth spray; at the train stations and at entry checkpoints in Ashgabat residents get their temperature taken; the municipal buses are disinfected with a chlorine solution. Even bus stops are washed with an unidentified sanitizer.

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Turkmenistan bans the word Coronavirus, wearing of masks, in a major censorship move - The Statesman

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Covid-19, the condition that first rose from a wet market in Wuhan, is now crippling a better part of the world. While China says that it is recovering and is returning to normalcy, it is worth noting that the country has time and again wiped evidence, manipulated the state media, and blatantly lied.

This has been the same way the country tackled the SARS outbreak hiding facts and silencing whistleblowers.

A leader of the WHO that recently visited China was in awe of the countrys miraculous recovery from the outbreak. I think the key learning from China is speed its all about the speed, said Dr. Bruce Aylward.

That has been true indeed. Whether it was building an emergency hospital in ten days or suppressing the news of the mysterious infection from December till January, the Chinese Communist Party was indeed swift.

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Heres a brief account of all the activity that took place prior to China officially acknowledging the fact that it was hit with an epidemic disease:

First, the government workers and officials of Wuhan kept mum when several people were falling sick and suffered from a set of common symptoms. Not a single official divulged the dire situation to any media personnel within the country.

Secondly, by December 25, Dr. Lu Xiaohong, who first recognized that some catastrophic was about to occur, hesitated to speak up to the authorities or media persons.

In China, journalists and their sources face a harsh action for speaking up about any concerning happenings in the country.

Had it not been so risky, Lu would have revealed the facts to at least one media outlet, if not higher authorities, who should have probably made the news public.

MORE:Viral video shows Police in China arriving at womans door, telling her to delete coronavirus post

Finally, when a group of whistleblowers tried to make it public knowledge that there was an infection ravaging the masses, they were arrested on grounds of circulating false rumors.

Whats more, eight of these whistleblowers have passed away from coronavirus infection. Finally, by December 31, China broke its silence and intimated the WHO about the to-be pandemic.

Four days after China revealed the Coronavirus outbreak to the WHO, it ended up sequencing the virus, and yet again, chose not to reveal the information immediately. So despite sequencing the virus on January 5th, the information was not out till January 11th, when the first coronavirus-related death surfaced.

MORE:Dr. Li Wenliang, who was reprimanded for warning people of coronavirus on Weibo, has died

Now, despite publicly declaring the news of coronavirus infections, China went on to censor several keywords related to the outbreak on its highly controlled platform, WeChat.

According to an analysis by the University of South Hampton, it was revealed that China could have potentially manipulated the statistics of the number of coronavirus-infected people by as much as 67%.

The study estimates that by the end of February 2020 there was a total of 114, 325 COVID-19 cases in China. It shows that without non-pharmaceutical interventions such as early detection, isolation of cases, travel restrictions and cordon sanitaire the number of infected people would have been 67 times larger than that which actually occurred, reads an excerpt taken from the analysis.

MORE:China tells citizens to only share coronavirus news from state-run media, or face up to seven years in jail

The leading international NGO Reporters Without Borders also claims that Chinas lackadaisical attitude when it came to revealing the growth and spread of the Coronavirus could cost millions of lives around the globe.

Without the control and censorship imposed by the authorities, the Chinese media would have informed the public much earlier of the severity of the coronavirus epidemic, sparing thousands of lives and perhaps avoiding the current pandemic, argued the RSF.

Sadly, most social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are also blocked in China, meaning that the citizens cant even reach out to social media and share their angst with their fellow countrymen.

While tech-savvy individuals still browse the social media networks with the help of VPNs, they still remain silent about the surrounding happenings. Because in China, expressing dissent from the governments actions can end up causing costly repercussions.

Cut to a decade earlier, there was another epidemic, much like the coronavirus, that the Chinese government ended up successfully dealing with: The SARS pandemic.

China got away with manipulating the figures, consequences, and every possible detail of the epidemic; back then, the internet was still in its nascent stages, meaning that people did not have social media and other similar outlets to spread information.

While the WHO is simply blowing the trumpet of the Chinese government and its excellent measures in tackling the coronavirus outbreak, it must account for the blatant censorship and manipulation of the truth that takes place behind the scenes and the lives that it cost.

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The mounting human cost of Chinas coronavirus censorship - Reclaim The Net

Albanian journalists and cameramen reporting about COVID-19 Pandemics in Tirana, on 30 March 2020. Photo: LSA

Singling out Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic as especially worrying examples, ten human rights organisations including Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders have written to the Council of Europe and other official bodies, urging them to address the danger of governments misusing the coronavirus crisis to pursue authoritarian policies.

Several governments across Europe are already using the pandemic to claim extraordinary powers that can undermine democratic institutions, including the free press, the organisations said. We believe that some Council of Europe Member States are at risk of derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights, they noted.

Among the concerns expressed in the letter is an emergency law that aims to tackle false information by penalties of up to five years in jail, limits to press conferences introduced in several countries and an outright ban on them in Slovenia and the Czech Republic. Such measures must not be allowed to restrict media scrutiny of governments, the ten organisations say.

They say governments across the world have pushed the boundaries of what they are allowed to do during the COVID-19 crisis, adopting measures including the almost unchecked use of private data collected by mobile phone networks and, in some cases, use of facial recognition surveillance systems that were allegedly conceived before the crisis to tackle dissident activity.

Our organisations are concerned about the effects of enhanced surveillance measures introduced to monitor the spread of the virus, the letter said.

While we recognise the potential benefits in terms of combating the spread of the virus, the use of surveillance must have proper oversight and be clearly limited to tackling the pandemic, it added.

The letter has been signed by ARTICLE 19, the Association of European Journalists, AEJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, the Free Press Unlimited, FPU, Index on Censorship, the International Federation of Journalists, IFJ, International Press Institute, IPI and Reporters Without Borders, RSF.

The letter was published on the Council of Europe website.

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CoE Urged to Stop Countries Abusing Pandemic to Curb Freedoms - Balkan Insight