UK & Commonwealth tradition v. US laws
This case is about postponing publication of the identity of an arrestee, in a case where there does not appear to be a public good to be achieved by spreading it around; and the relation of that to a Scottish law concerning sitautions in which there may be a public good in not publishing that identity. That's a specialized situation, a very limited degree of discretion, and concern over a potential problem rather than some claim that a problem will always arise. The salient features of the situation seem to me to be all nuanced, and I'm seeing that in the comments made about them. These salient nuances appear to be lacking in the situations you're comparing it to, and also lacking from the assertions you say you're seeing — which I do not see.
Ok, let me make my position clear: I agree with the BBC and other named organizations from the previous article who went ahead and published a photo and/or identity of the charged and I don't believe journalists should wait for a conviction to publish public records. I certainly don't believe that journalists should be convicted for libel if a person is declared innocent because all the journalists did was to publish public record. Why should journalists be held accountable for law enforcement's incorrect or shoddy decision making? Charge the police with libel if you want to hold somebody responsible. Ah but they are protected! Journalists deserve equal protection unless they published falsehoods or were careless or had actual malice against the party.
The Scottish law as I understand it from your published article is a violation of freedom of expression under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and most media rights groups worldwide would downgrade the UK system for its weak contempt and libel standards that are used to prosecute journalists or media organizations for serving a necessary role in society and furthering transparency. This is why the US has libel tourism laws to protect US journalists from the UK system. I would support any Wikinews publication of the person's photo and/or identity in this case, I think Wikinews should use its global position to make information available.
The excuse of public interest on the courts' behalf is weak and unproven. The same issue of claiming public trust is made in many different situations, such as the government's conduct of foreign affairs, national security, and war that allows for abuses of power. Preventing the abuse of power is especially important to all citizens in day-to-day operations of law enforcement and the courts. Those entities in particular should not be exempt from such standards of openness, to which we hold the executive or legislative branches. The public has the right to know about what is being done on its behalf and that function is the responsibility of any government and also journalists, including Wikinews. If the system cares about the rights of the accused, then it should make the standards for burden of proof of prosecution as strong as possible and not limit the rights of expression, which is not proven to have an effect and not ineffective and unrelated to delivering justice (determining guilt or innocence). Preventing such publication merely contributes to public ignorance and complacency when rights are violated.
From my position, the article is informative, but I would be interested in interviews with those organizations about their decision-making process. If they are violating Scottish laws, ask why. To Wikinews, I say, why aren't you publishing this information and doing your job as citizen journalists!
Just a couple of remarks.
You say: "I don't believe journalists should wait for a conviction to publish public records." This is a complete nonsequitur, with no bearing on anything under discussion here.
You say "To Wikinews, I say, why aren't you publishing this information and doing your job as citizen journalists!" This is a double nonsequitur, as (1) we don't have a job here, we're volunteers, and (2) since we're an open wiki, the question could just as well be why you aren't writing the articles you apparently think we should be writing.
RE: "why aren't you doing your job? ..." I was referring to references of policy-based discussion about "public interest" from comments above. If we take this to mean, Wikinews shouldn't publish photos of accused before conviction, then yes I think that would prevent Wikinews from doing its job. We can always find reporters who can do this type story from abroad and/or legally from within that reporter's jurisdiction.
Nobody but you is talking about not publishing someone's photo until conviction. Details matter; hypotheticals tend to fall flat because there are always details of a real situation that got glossed over in a hypothetical, or worse, in the hypothetical different people filled in details differently so they weren't even talking about the same thing. This is a particular case, and we could discuss it, but not if you're not talking about this case — which it appears you aren't — not even this law.
Actually, a simple search in Google images brings up her photo in the Daily Mail for one example where it says she is to appear in court.
Are we reading the same article: "The BBC College of Journalism advises legal advice be sought ahead of publishing photos and notes it has previously been ruled contempt. The BBC used her photo prominently in their own online coverage."
It's my understanding that the delay in publishing the arrestee's identity is until they've appeared in court, which is much less restrictive than waiting until the trial is over (conviction or acquital). Of course, if I'm misunderstanding, all bets are off.
Fairly accurate (although, I'd defer to BRS on that). The point is to allow a jury to be sequestered without undue influence from publicity around the accused.
The other problem, which I've observed several displays of around this case, is people advocating mob justice. I'd never advocate going as-far as, say, France does in their advocacy of a right to privacy trumping the public interest. This case is an individual, and not a government minister or employee.
Crtew, you've cited case-types in arguing for publication where I, and I'm sure others, would seriously consider public interest trumping any legal constraints that might exist. I don't think this is anything like such.
The analogy in US law would probably be the oft-quoted "shouting fire in a crowded theatre". In any case, the odds of us obtaining an image and being able to publish such along with the name of the accused make this more of an academic debate. I'll leave "How free is Free Speech" to philosophers.