Haiti on the mind, and let’s keep it that way

Haiti’s earthquake has certainly brought a lot of attention to the island, which, let’s face it, has never received this amount of news coverage in the Western world before. The media commentary site Mediaite offered this  little gem of a post on this topic which really got my goat, and I’d like to tell you why. As “many studies” have shown, Stever Krakauer writes, Americans normally do not pay attention to international news and, surprise surprise, Haiti has bucked this trend. Evening news broadcasts have had their best ratings in years, especially for FNC and CNN (maybe at two ends of the political spectrum?).

Now, why don’t we take a look at some other studies about news trends and push this statement a little further? If they had cared to look, Mediate would have found studies that indicate that negative news such as natural disasters, and particularly those on such a large-scale (such as widespread loss of human life), play a significant role in increasing media coverage of an event. So, no, in fact, this is not bucking the trend but rather following it to a T. Why not, therefore, take this as a lesson and provide alternative coverage of the developing world that is not focused on disaster, disease, war and corruption? And, perhaps keep Haiti on the mind a bit longer than it takes for all the death and destruction to be forgotten in the minds of the public until the next tragedy occurs?

A recent article published by the New York Times regarding a peaceful transfer of power in Guinea after the horrible political violence offers an example of non-negative news coverage of the developing world. While yes, the original story was centered on the negative news of massive brutality, the NYT decided to go back and take another look at the country when it was all but forgotten in Western news after the violence ended. They didn’t focus on who is to take the blame for the violence, which some did, but instead provide a thorough historical and then hopeful outlook of the future by the Guinean people themselves. If you are interested, take a look here for some African opinions on the events in Guinea.

I’m also a fan of solution-based reporting in the developing world that says this is what we need to get done and why. This article by MediaGlobal addresses a not very talked about issue (the current and future psychological effects this earthquake has had on the Haitian people), how the effects differ due to Haitian culture and some possible solutions to this problem. Again, it started with a negative event, but it focuses on possible solutions rather than simply focusing on the tragedy. I worked at MediaGlobal so I am a little bias, but I still think it is a great example of what good international journalism can do.

Do not get me wrong, Haiti needs all the attention it can get through the Western news media in order to help fund the necessary rebuilding of the country. But let us check back on it on a more regular basis, and maybe some of neighboring poor countries of the Caribbean, to report on some positive gains made in the region and not just the loss it has suffered.

Obama in China: Public Enemy #1

Obama’s recent trip to China has created a media circus turning him into public enemy number one. China’s press censors have had a field day deciding where and how much of Obama’s visit would be covered in the national media, resulting in a skewed view of his visit by Chinese. On the other hand international press has criticized him for treading too lightly on the toes of the Chinese political elite. Is there any way for Obama not to come out of this looking like the bad guy?

Obama tried to walk the fence by placating human rights advocates and the Chinese government alike. While his speech given to Chinese students criticizing China’s stringent laws regarding freedom of expression was reported on by the international press, China instead received a much edited version of his comments through the Xinhua news agency government-vetted transcript and articles and a few Shanghai stations and international news outlets, according to multiple news sources. If you read Obama’s quote below, you can understand the reason why in the context of China’s limited views on freedom of information:

I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity. (New York Times Lede Blog, Nov. 16, 2009)

However during his visit to Beijing, Obama followed the straight and narrow, rejecting offers to visit with human rights groups and not pushing their cause to Chinese officials – a decision not lost on the foreign media. The Chinese media, and even some Chinese citizens, instead emphasized how much Obama showed the necessary deference to their government’s message. Obama came away looking subservient to the Chinese and a hypocrite to foreigners, but was this image justly warranted?

Wheeler’s Daily Beast article claims that “for the first time, the United States needs China.” While she and many other journalists have made the observation that the United States is more dependent on China now to help solve its economic crises because it has dug itself into such a deep hole, I would say it is a bit extreme to say it is the first time. The United States has relied on China for consumer goods since Nixon’s visit reestablished ties to the country in the 1970s, and that need hasn’t exactly gone away (visit here for an interesting timeline on U.S.-China trade relations).

So let us not criticize without knowing the facts. Let us ask instead ask the right question of how much the United States is really complicit in these human rights violations. It really is a catch-22 situation – the US needs the goods that China produces, yet in order to keep up with the demand Chinese workers are submitted to horrible, dehumanizing conditions. So while many are criticizing Obama’s lack of human rights talk, maybe it is time to take another look at the driving force behind the situation which encourages these human rights abuses to be committed.

Of course I would be remiss to say that abuses against workers are the only type of human rights violations that take place in China. As I have written above and in a previous post on this blog, China has a long way to go in terms of allowing freedom of expression. It also has a lot of work to do in terms of discrimination against certain ethnic groups such as the Uighurs and Tibetans. These revelations are nothing new – human rights groups such as Amnesty International have been talking about them for years, but maybe it is time to take another look.

In many ways Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place. He understands we need China’s economic might but that he might have to bite his tongue on human rights abuses to get it. What is frustrating is that some journalists have not made the connection between human rights and the economy that is at the root of the problem. It is bad for us to generalize, but even worse when journalists do not try to challenge the cause of these generalizations.

China: Young and old face the red tape

China is not exactly known for freedom of the press – more accurately it is known for the exact opposite, and as I will later discuss, something I learned firsthand. I learned this week that Caijing, a Chinese business magazine that has taken a more outspoken stance against the government, might soon be another casualty of government pressure and be going by the wayside. By happenstance, the Saturday profile in the New York Times is about a Chinese man, Du Daozheng, who has dealt with Chinese censorship for decades. These two examples demonstrate how little has changed in Chinese censorship over many years.

Last year while I was in Beijing volunteering at the Olympics, I had the opportunity to visit Caijing because a friend of mine from college was interning there. To help recall my first memories of being there, I will excerpt from my old blog, the Beijing Zou:

I also have a friend who is interning this summer at Caijing, a Chinese business and financial magazine. It is an interesting publication because it is one of the few that can get away with discussing what are normally considered taboo topics by the rest of the media, and for one very important reason: money. While the magazine is technically run by the Stock Exchange Executive Council (SEEC), which in turn is financed by the government, in reality the council is controlled by private investors in whose best interest it is to have an honest assessment of China’s economy. They are thus able to stay away from government funding which would demand they follow the rules which apply to other Chinese media. For example, they were able to keep the recent earthquake story on the front page of their magazine while other media were refrained from any criticism.

My friend said that the journalists in China are some of the best and most dedicated she has ever worked with. Two of those journalists are Mizzou alums, I might add. It was nice to meet alums out and about in the world of international journalism beyond the school’s walls. It gives me a bit more hope that there still is indeed a need for foreign journalists, and more specifically me! I got to have lunch with all of them as well as two other interns which I thoroughly enjoyed as there was some frank discussion of Beijing now.

Now things have changed. “Differences” in editorial policy between the managing editor, Hu Shuli and magazine’s owners have seen over 80 people at the magazine resign. The owners are getting pressure to “tone it down,” according to this New York Times article.  I have asked that same friend about what is happening at the magazine with this news unfolding, but she says she hasn’t heard from anyone yet about the situation. The outcome is still unclear, but as the story on Mr. Du explains, censorship can come at any time.

Mr. Du used to be head of the government’s press and publications administration during the rule of Zhao Ziyang. He obviously therefore knows a thing or two about government censorship, and thus provides a fascinating look on the topic having gone from government employee distributing censored information to dissident citizen who now publishes a small magazine revealing what he once censored. He spoke out against the government, supported Zhao’s promise for a peaceful resolution to Tiananmen Square protests and later listened to and transcribed Zhao’s words for his memoirs.

While I have never experienced such limitations as a journalist, I personally experienced censorship on a more profound (rather than abstract) level when I was in Beijing airport prior to departing the country. A man came up to me and tried to communicate something to me, but it seemed most of what he was trying to say was lost in translation. He gave me pieces of paper explaining his story of government corruption gone wrong in badly translated English, hoping that I would pass along this information to someone outside China who could do something about it. He had tried to get his story out to the public, but since it was so negative towards the government, it wasn’t touched by the Chinese media. It is an all too common story that gets lost in the huge Communist-run vacuum that is China. It hit home more than ever the limitations on those in the country I was leaving behind and the freedoms I was allowed back home.

P.S. If you are interested in more of my personal experiences in China, including this experience I just mentioned, please read the article “Shadow of Censorship” on my Portfolio page.

Argentina, the truth is…sneaky

Normally when a government enacts legislation in favor of censorship, there is usually a huge outcry by the public and press alike. But the Argentine government has gone after the press rather sneakily in a new law that was passed this week with much support and under the auspices of President Cristina Kirchner.

Rather than outrightly claim full government ownership of the broadcast airwaves, the government has hidden under the guise of encouraging media diversity to protect the media landscape and avoid certain media monopolies. However the law in fact paves the way for the government to become a media monopoly itself by ousting out their biggest competitor and critic, Grupo Clarin , which was raided last month by government officials due to “tax issues.” Both Kirchner and her husband Nestor, the former president, have bones to pick with Clarin over negative coverage of their respective political agendas, and the proof is in the pudding. The government recently bought the rights to broadcast soccer in the country, ones previously owned by Clarin, and therefore control one of the most watched events by Argentinians. Furthermore the president will get to choose members of the broadcasting regulatory body  who will in turn get to pick and chose to whom they give broadcast licenses.  It is assured that the Kirchners’ friends will get first pick and dissident media companies like Clarin will be left with next to nothing – nepotism at its best.

Government censorship is not a new concept in Argentina. Beginning with President Juan Peron, who shut down publications that spoke out against his policies in the 1940s and 50s, we now have the Kirchners, members of his eponymous political party, following in his footsteps. This “subtlety” in exerting censorship is also nothing new in the Argentine government, according to IPS. The biggest problem is the domination of government advertising that is used to reward supporters of the government and punish those against it – Clarin again being a big example of the later. This interesting report discusses the use of government funding as a form of global media censorship. Other methods of censorship have included government officials harassing media that is anti-government and limiting public access to government information by delaying the passage of a national sunshine law.

The Argentine government’s rather sly attempts at imposing a government monopoly on the type of media produced is rather surprising for a country that calls itself a democracy. This is a trend however, says journalist Don Podesta in the above mentioned report on the relationship between government funding and censorship. Democracies that sprung from dictatorships are slowly inching back to more government control. Celia Szusterman of OpenDemocracy.net agrees, stating that the country is currently in the hands of those who have no regard or understanding for the democratic rule of law, and as such the country is a democracy in name only.

A side note – besides this newly implemented law, an large censorship issue in Argentina in recent years has been the required censoring by Google and Yahoo of searches of famous Argentinians such as soccer star Diego Maradona in case such searches put them in a negative light. What’s interesting about this situation is that judges who heard these cases and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs have effectively communicated that search engines are responsible for their content, a move that wouldn’t fly in the US or Europe comments CNET’s Stephanie Condon in a 2008 article on the subject.

Now while these two types of censorship may seem vastly different in their consequences, in the end they both limit the type of information to which the public has access. The government and the plaintiffs cry misrepresentation by media, but maybe open dialogue rather than closed censorship is the answer.

There is always lots going on in the world of media censorship, so keep up by following me on Twitter @eapeer16. Also look for new posts soon on the plight of the vanguard magazine Caijing in China and the aftereffects of the recent protests on journalists in Iran.

Zimbabwe: The crocodile in the room

This post is inspired by a book I just finished entitled When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by the journalist Peter Godwin. It chronicles his own family’s experience living in Zimbabwe  within the larger context of the country’s continuing crisis under dictator Robert Mugabe. The title refers to a Zimbabwean legend that a solar eclipse happens when a crocodile eats the sun because he is not pleased with the actions of men, a metaphor that Godwin proves is indeed playing out in the daily reality of his home country.

If you have been paying attention to international affairs, it has been pretty hard to avoid the news of Zimbabwe’s downward spiral. Zimbabwe’s rank of 186th (along with Equatorial Guinea) out of the world’s 195 countries on Freedom House’s 2008 Press Freedom Report is just one indication of the dire situation in this African country. Zimbabwean media are extremely limited in what they can publish due to fear of government reprisal as described in this article. Both Godwin and his sister are practically exiled from the country due to their journalism work – he freelancing for a number of publications and working for the Sunday Times, she working for SW Radio Africa that now broadcasts out of London because it was banned from the country by Mugabe.

I was also fortunate to work with three African journalists (two from Zimbabwe and one from Nigeria) firsthand while completing my internship this past semester, and would like to acknowledge their influence on my knowledge of the censorship situation in the continent. I can sit here from my comfortable perch in one of the most liberal cities in the United States and preach about the importance of press freedom, but these journalists have lived through real censorship and have survived to tell the tale.

The two Zimbabwean journalists were both raised in Zimbabwe but came to the United States for education, and now they are educating Americans about their home country and its situation. They lament that many now place Zimbabwe in the same category as some African countries that are believed to be forever lost in a cycle of corruption and greed, when in fact it used to be one of the most educated countries in Africa before Mugabe. The international media themselves remain misinformed due to limited access within Zimbabwe which in turn perpetuates the negative stereotype of the country among news consumers. I liken it to coverage of the Darfur crisis in Sudan where the media was physically and literally blocked by the Sudanese government from getting first-hand information out. Check out this article in the American Journalism Review about the challenges and frustrations for journalists working in Darfur region.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about modern Africa and/or press freedom issues. The interweaving of history and first-hand accounts present a striking picture of not just one family but Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole. Just ordered Mukiwa: A White Boy In Africa by the same author on Amazon to get the first half of his life story, will let you know how it turns out.

Up for a vote: Why we need a federal shield law

Now that I am official on the internet with my own domain name (!), here we go with my first post.

I’ve been trying to come up with an idea for a blog for a while, but nothing quite stuck. Something to do with international news?Check. Uses a variety of news sources? Check. Unique idea that no other blogger has? Stumped on that one. Then the other day I learned through SPJ that the federal shield law in the United States was up for a vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and thought, hey, why not a blog on global press freedom issues? I have found  censorship an interesting topic in undergrad when studying Russia, and my interest in press freedom developed when I worked at Global Journalist while a graduate student at the Missouri School of Journalism. So what better way to start a blog than with a topic that will affect journalists in my home country?

Normally when issues of press freedom come to mind in the United States, many people think of it as an outside problem that only affects those in foreign countries – that the US represents the pinnacle in allowing complete freedom of speech. Not so, my friends. Not all confidential sources are protected by legal grounds to provide vital information to journalists that are paramount to ensure that the lifeblood of our democracy remains intact, and that is what the federal shield law would do.

A little history about the shield law, and why there is an argument to take it to the federal level. Nathan Siegel, a lawyer by trade, wrote in the Washington Post that journalism goes through a period every approximately every 35 years when the issue of federal media protection arises. In modern times, it began when a Baltimore Sun Reporter named John Morris refused to reveal his sources for an article about bribery of government officials in 1896. In consequence Maryland passed the first state law prohibiting reporter’s confidential sources from being subpoenaed, and thus made it a state rather than federal issue. Following Siegel’s 35 year timeline, more court cases arose surrounding this issue around 1935, and ten more states decided to follow Maryland’s lead and enact a shield law. In the Nixon era, the issue arose once more when the administration demanded information from journalists about certain political organizations under suspicion. In Branzburg vs. Hayes in 1972, four journalists went to the Supreme Court to challenge this action, but lost 5 to 4. Journalists were no longer able to instill confidence in anonymous sources that they could indeed remain anonymous, and they feared jail time for themselves. More cases have arisen since then, most famously that of Judith Miller of the NY Times. Siegel sees this pattern repeating because “it reflects a fundamental conflict between the judiciary and the press that tends to recur whenever a new generation of judges and prosecutors uninfluenced by the memory and lessons of prior conflicts emerges.”

Today, 36 states plus DC have shield laws and four states have some protection for journalists – you can read and learn about each state’s laws here.

So why do we need a federal shield law? I have provided a variety of arguments for and against this law, and will pose some of my own thoughts later on. Siegel, coming from a legal background, takes the angle of the public who he says has spoken out time and time again in favor of a shield law because they believe journalists should not be treated as outlaws. Douglass Lee, another lawyer who wrote the overview for the First Amendment Center about this topic, argues that the lack of uniformity in the different states shield laws and questions as to how they apply in certain national cases are reason enough to have one that applies at the federal level.

Victor E. Schwartz & Phil Goldberg’s argument against a federal shield law prepared for the National Legal Center for the Public Interest is discussed in their “Total immunity without accountability: why the proposed federal media shield bill is out of balance with America’s laws and values.” For them, the problem is that the law would provide immunity to journalists no matter what the situation (except for certain national security instances), and that the definition of journalist that the law employs is too broad. Arguments point to particular problems such as “empowering the paparazzi, inviting invasions of privacy and making it difficult for reporters to be held accountable when they or their “anonymous sources” defame people in their stories.”

While I myself have not yet been in a situation where a source has asked for anonymity based on the information they provide, I have had the opportunity to research the topic for my Missouri grad school application essay and for my Media Ethics course at that institution. While I have read a variety of sources ranging from the 1950′s onwards arguing both for and against the use of anonymous sources, the most interesting challenge to anonymity is the internet as a news source. The internet allows a certain degree of anonymity depending on how much information the person decides they want to reveal, but how do we verify information from an anonymous source on the internet? Do we trust that anonymous source more or less than those used in traditional media? Does the medium even matter? These are certainly some of the many questions facing journalism today as it goes through probably one of its largest metamorphoses as a profession in the past two centuries. There is no doubt that they affect how this shield law is written and will be implemented with the internet fast becoming the main source of news around the globe.

The most recent news is that the federal shield law, which was slated to be discussed by the Senate today, has again been postponed. According to SPJ, the holdup is due to both parties having issues with the law as it affects national security. Please take a look at the law (S. 448) for yourself, and, if decide you agree with its principles, please call your Senator on the Judiciary Committee and encourage them to vote for it – their information can be found here. I believe it is essential for the continuing functioning of democracy in the best sense of the word, but I encourage you to make up your own mind.

As an aside, if you are interested in press freedom issues and censorship, I encourage you to check out the book Censored 2009: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007-08 – very interesting stuff.