Hong Kong Media Law

Doreen Weisenhaus is Director of the Media Law Project and Associate Professor of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong, Eliot Hall, Room 113, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.

email: doreen@hku.hk

A specialist in media law and ethics, Doreen is director of the JMSC’s Media Law Project, a resource for students, journalists, scholars, lawyers and other media professionals in the region. She is author of Hong Kong Media Law: A Guide for Journalists and Media Professionals (HKU Press 2007).

Prior to joining HKU in January 2000, Doreen was city editor of The New York Times where she helped supervise coverage of New York City, with particular responsibility for criminal justice and the courts; labor and the workplace; local business and finance; social services, and immigration. She also was the first legal editor of The New York Times Magazine. Prior to joining The New York Times, Weisenhaus was editor-in-chief of the National Law Journal, a leading publication for lawyers in the U.S, where she led award-winning coverage of such issues as the death penalty and environmental racism.

Weisenhaus also was a prosecutor in New York City; a television news producer in Chicago, and a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University’s School of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree from the Medill School of Journalism, also at Northwestern.

At the JMSC, her research areas include press freedom, media law, ethics, newsroom practices, media ownership trends and journalism history, with a focus on the increasing globalization of media law developments. Her other publications include chapters for National Security and Fundamental Freedoms: Hong Kong’s Article 23 Under Scrutiny (HKU Press 2005); International Encyclopedia of Communication (on Communication Law and Policy, Asia) (Blackwell 2008); Media and Development in Asia: Regional Perspectives (on media ownership trends in Greater China) (AMIC Asian Communication Series 2008); International Libel and Privacy Handbook, 2d ed., (Bloomberg Press, 2009).  She is currently working on books on media law in China (Oxford University Press) and elsewhere in Asia.

Mei Ning YAN (甄美玲), BA (HKU), Cert. Ed. (HKU), LLB (London), LLM (Queen’s, Belfast), PhD in law (Essex), became a journalist in 1981 and worked for many Hong Kong media organizations, including Cable Television and Television Broadcasts (TVB). An assistant professor in the Department of Journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University since 1999, she teaches media law and ethics, media regulation and policies, and the production of current affairs programmes. Her research areas include broadcasting policy.

Her publications include “Freedom of Expression and the Right of Journalists to cover protests and demonstrations: Hong Kong and Beyond” (Hong Kong Law Journal 2003) and Media Photography in Hong Kong Streets: The Impact of Proposed Privacy Torts (Media & Arts Law Review 2006)

  Jill COTTRELL, LLB, LLM (London), LLM (Yale), has been teaching law since 1965, most recently at the University of Hong Kong, and has written widely on defamation, including Law of Defamation in Commonwealth Africa (1998).