proffesional codes of practice

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the self-regulatory organization (SRO) of the advertising industry in the UK.
Its role is to "regulate the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK” by investigating "complaints made about ads, sales promotions or direct marketing", and deciding whether such advertising complies with its advertising standards codes. These codes stipulate that "before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation" and that "no marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise".

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is a regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines. It has no legal powers - all newspapers and magazines voluntarily contribute to the costs of, and adhere to the rulings of, the Commission, making the industry self-regulating.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 35,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). There is a range of national councils below the NEC, covering different sections and areas of activity. There is an industrial council for each of the NUJ's "industrial" sectors -- Newspapers and Agencies, Freelance, Magazine and Book, Broadcasting, New Media and Press and PR.

Criminal and Civil Law
Criminal law deals with criminals that have broken the law, while civil law involves disputes between people
Copyright is the set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. These rights can be licensed, transferred and/or assigned. Copyright lasts for a certain time period after which the work is said to enter the public domain.

Defamation; also called calumny, vilification, slander (for transitory statements), and libel (for written or broadcast statements) is the communication of a statement that makes a claim that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. It is usually, but not always, a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).

Information privacy, or data privacy is the relationship between collection and distribution of data, accounting for technology, the public expectation of privacy, and the legal and political issues surrounding them.

Ethics refers to the unwritten moral obligations of creators and distributors of media, dictating the inclusion of racist, sexist or homophobic material and other potentially offensive content