The Legislation From The Perspective Of News Lawsuit

The media has been indicted against so frequently since the first news lawsuit in 1985 in China that several waves of "suit against press" and "suit against journalists" fever happened again and again. This article intends to discuss news legislation and its trends through investigating the status quo of news legislation, the relationship between news and laws, the rights and infringement activities of the press.This article falls into five parts. The first part, starting from news lawsuits, discusses the key problem in current news lawsuit. On the one hand, reporters need to protect the interests of journalists, and ensure public surveillance from media; on the other hand, citizens want to defend their rights from infringement. It hence raise the question of keeping balance between the right of surveillance and that of reputation.The second part states from the concept of news law the necessity of news legislation. With the development of socialist market economy and the increase of news lawsuits, the call for news legislation is becoming louder and louder.In the third part, the author explains the current legislation on news media, and discusses the three stages of research on news legislation in China.Main reasons for the barriers of laws legislation are investigated in the fourth part. Such difficulties are the definition and essential contents of the freedom of press, the boundary of press surveillance, the rights to establish a news media, the balance between rights of surveillance and those of reputation, and etc.The fifth part provides journalist with practical advices on how to avoid news lawsuits in current legislative framework.