UNESCO Briefing - Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age

Region: Global
Category: Journalism and Source Protection
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UNESCO Series on Internet Freedom: Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age (2017)

Part of UNESCO Series on Internet Freedom, this research report analyses international regulatory norms and regional instruments of human rights, highlighting the synergies between journalist source protections and whistleblowing.

It charts the trend of derogation of such rights in the digital era – from mass-surveillance to anti-terrorism - setting out an 11-point assessment tool for measuring effectiveness of legal source protections. It also provides a model universal framework which is useful to advocate for protections at a national level - Principle 11 explicitly recognises that complementary whistleblowing legislation strengthens source protection laws.