Female Beauty

The story and pictures of Gillian Chung changing her clothes drew an outcry with public protests against the publication of the images and campaigns for the public to boycott the magazine. More than 800 complaints were filed with the Television and Licensing Authority. The Press Council has lambasted Easy Finder magazine for publishing the “peeping tom” photographs of Twins pop star Gillian Chung Yan-tung.
The council said yesterday it had written to the magazine twice asking for an explanation but had not yet received a reply.

The guidelines say journalists should respect an individual’s reputation and privacy, and should not try to invade his or her privacy without good reason. Journalists should obtain pictures and stories through decent methods and photojournalists should respect the subject’s privacy while taking pictures, the guidelines say.

Publishing the photos without reasonable justification was against council guidelines on journalists’ ethics, it said. Although the pictures did not breach any Hong Kong law, “the council hopes that journalists can maintain self-discipline … and should not invade an individual’s reputation and privacy in a way that people’s trust in journalists would be affected”, the council added.  Jackie Chan led a protest against the magazine, and Hong Kong’s Obscene Articles Tribunal classified it “indecent,” a ruling Easy Finder has appealed.

Easy Finder is challenging an interim ruling by the Obscene Articles Tribunal that the issue containing the photos was Class II indecent, meaning it should have been wrapped in plastic and not sold to anyone under the age of 18. It was the latest in a string of complaints against the magazine since the pictures of the singer changing her clothes in a dressing room in Malaysia were published on August 22.
“The council believes the story’s publication seems to try to satisfy a group of people’s interest in peeping at the female body. It has nothing to do with news value,” it said.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 1st, 2006 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Career, Entertainment, Gossip, Her Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.