Tag Archives: Freedom of the Press

Internet Censorship: Bad for You, Bad for Business

Posted on by

As I listened live to Secretary Clinton’s remarks this morning on Internet freedom, two things in particular jumped out at me. One was her statement that countries or individuals who curtail free expression or engage in cyberattacks should “face consequences and international condemnation.” The other was her call to American companies to undertake a “principled stand” against complying with a country’s censorship requirements as the price for being allowed to do business there. Clinton wasn’t just referring to the current disagreement between Google Corporation and China.

She argued that it is in every publicly listed company’s interest, not just those from the United States, to resist restrictions for the sake of immediate business interests. Investors will ultimately lose confidence if they know that corporate decision-makers don’t have unhindered access to all the news and information that is available. “From an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech,” and the denial of either “inevitably impact on growth,” she warned.

Clinton’s ideas, if implemented, can greatly help cyberspace continue as a platform where people can freely air their ideas and interact online with whomever they wish, and put political and economic pressure on the countries who are currently censoring 31 percent of the world’s population.

Putting it succinctly, Clinton said the ultimate question is over “whether we live on a planet with one Internet, one global community and a common body of knowledge that benefits and unites us all, or a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors.”

The Internet’s social networks are already demonstrating their ability to mobilize huge numbers of people in record time, and that potential can only increase as more and more get connected. As Clinton said, one of the lessons of the 20th century’s Cold War is that it is “very hard to keep information out.”

But instead of the old “Iron Curtain,” an “information curtain” is descending on much of the world as censorship practices increase. She said viral videos and blog posts have become “the samizdat of our day.”

Ensuring a free Internet will require not only broad agreement by the international community, in the form of universal norms and guarantees, but also cooperation from the business world, whose investment and participation is vital to helping development and continued economic growth.

Is that kind of cooperation out there? What do you think would motivate companies to take a “principled stand” and not comply with censorship requirements as the price for doing business in some countries?

2009 And The State Of Journalism

Posted on by

According to Reporters Without Borders, 76 journalists were killed in 2009, up from 60 in 2008. Thirty of those killed were in a single incident in the Philippines, the largest mass-killing of journalists ever.

Here are some other pertinent numbers:

33 journalists kidnapped
573 journalists arrested
1456 physically assaulted
570 media censored
157 journalists fled their countries
1 blogger died in prison
151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents arrested
61 physically assaulted
60 countries affected by online censorship

Much more detailed information about the state of journalism in 2009 is available on the Reporters Without Borders Web site.

Do you think 2010 will be a better year for press freedom?

Bringing down the curtain on the ‘00s

Posted on by

It’s time to say goodbye to the first decade of the 21st Century. Weird. I have clear memories of the Y2K fears of 10 years ago that the world’s computer systems and everything that depended on them (i.e., everything) would collapse when the calendar switched over from 1999 to 2000. It’s amazing to think how far technology has come in so little time.

In some ways, the world is fundamentally different than it was 10 years ago, but in others it remains very much the same. On one hand, this was the decade that saw the invention of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the whole idea of “social media.” It was the decade that saw the ascendency of Google and the networked world. It brought the term globalization into everyday use and the realities of globalization into our everyday lives.

On the other, according to the non-governmental organization Freedom House and its annual survey of freedom of the press around the world, in 1999, 35.5 percent of countries around the world were categorized as “not free” for the press. In 2009, that number is still 33 percent. The number of countries classified as having a totally free press has only increased from 36.6 to 37 percent. Similarly, Freedom House’s Freedom in the World country ratings only show an overall growth in the number of totally free countries from 44 to 46 percent – a change of only four countries.

So what do you think? Has our progress toward a freer, more democratic world been marginal over the last decade, or has the spread of information technology and communication forums opened up new paths and brought more voices to the table? What do you see as the key challenges and opportunities for democracy and freedom in the next decade? What would you like to see the world accomplish by 2020?

Share your thoughts on where we’ve come from and where we’re heading in the comments!

Elements of Journalism

Posted on by

I’m a graduate of the best university journalism program in the United States: Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Okay, so I can’t really prove that it’s the “best” as that is a subjective term. But it you ask several of the Northwestern graduates now working at America.gov, they will be more than happy to tell you about how the Illinois school prepared them for careers in journalism. Which is why it pains me a bit to admit that my new favorite journalism professor comes from Northwestern’s rival, the University of Missouri.

I happened to sit in on a “training the trainers” class in Pristina, Kosovo in which Kent Collins was visiting and teaching media professionals how to train their newer colleagues on reporting practices in a democratic society.

As is often the case these days, the discussion delved into old media versus new media and how journalism practices have changed. Not too long ago I sat in a Northwestern classroom learning about the “inverted pyramid” and in Kosovo, I listened to Collins explain that in the Internet age, stories that pull out specific anecdotes up top often are best.

But regardless of the tools or styles, some elements of journalism always ring true. Collins passed out a sheet listing nine basic principles of journalism, identified by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their book “The Elements of Journalism.” Most of the elements are what you would expect – journalists’ first obligation is to the truth is the first tenet- but some are more surprising. For example, element number nine is “practitioners have an obligation to exercise their personal conscience.”

What do you consider to be an element of journalism?

Youth Leaders

Posted on by

I was talking with University of Novi Sad media studies student Andrea Jerinic about the future of her career path. Independent media plays an important role in all democratic societies, but many non-partisan media outlets are struggling to stay afloat. I asked Andrea if she really believed newspapers and other forms of traditional media will survive.

She does. She thinks what the media industry in Serbia needs is some fresh voices, that today’s media students are exactly what they need. “They need fresh energy, and we can do everything.”

At first it seemed like an overly optimistic statement that I would expect to hear from a student who had yet to spend much time in the working world.

But since then I have been thinking more about it. In Serbia, youth have proven they can do just about everything. A few days ago I mentioned in an America.gov article B-92 radio station. B-92 was a student-run radio station in the 1990s that was a leading voice against oppression. Today it is among the popular mainstream radio and television stations in Belgrade. European music fans are probably familiar with Novi Sad’s annual EXIT festival which brings hundreds of thousands to the city for concerts. But how many of these fans know that EXIT was started in 2000 by a group of young people seeking a way to rebel against leader Slobodan Milosevic?

All this optimism makes me want to visit Serbia again in ten years to see what these students have done as young adults.

Communication And Its Challenges

Posted on by

A hallmark of a democratic society is a free and independent press. But after decades of state-run media, making the transition to independent media is a challenge – and comes with great expenses.

Students of the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade have learned a great deal about what it takes to run an independent radio station – and not just from sitting in classes. In 2003, the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade provided $50,000 in equipment to help the students establish their own 24-hour radio station.

But a new broadcast law – designed to promote independent media – meant the end of the student station, as the new law prohibited state-owned institutions like the University of Belgrade from obtaining a broadcast license.

Recently, with additional financial assistance from the embassy, the students now run a one-hour program each weekday on local Radio Studio B. The show includes pre-recorded segments, live on-air interviews, news, film reviews, updates on sporting events and whatever other topics the students see fit. They plan every aspect of the show. When I was visiting the studio the students were planning a broadcast on contraception issues, ahead of September 26th’s World Contraception Day.

Means of communication – television, Internet and other – are regulated by Serbia’s Republic Telecommunication Agency, an independent regulatory agency much like the United States’ Federal Communications Commission. The agency’s acting cabinet chief, Vladica Tintor, met FCC officials when he was in the United States as part of the International Visitors Leadership Program, a State Department sponsored initiative that brings leaders of an industry to meet with their counterparts in America. In fact, the FCC has been sharing with Serbia its lessons learned from the United States’ challenging transition from analogue to digital televisions – a process Serbia hopes to complete in 2012.

The Republic Telecommunication Agency, established in 2005, has helped introduce new market competition in Serbia – particularly transforming the mobile phone industry as operators from Austria and Norway have come into Serbia, helping lower the costs of mobile phone service and contributing to a more than 100 percent mobile phone penetration in the country.

Internet penetration remains fairly low at about 30 percent, and the agency is working to speed this process up. So while newspapers in the United States are struggling to survive, print publications in Serbia have not been as hard hit.

As Internet access increases, will Serbia’s independent media face even more challenges? Radio journalism student Masa Ivkovic is not worried, saying that radio is easy to adapt for the Internet. Besides, “everybody must be able to adapt for what the people like.”

Fairness Doctrine

Posted on by

Following on my “One Man, One Vote, One Time” entry, I note as a bridge to discussing the proper regulation (if any) of media in a democracy, that the Chavez regime in Venezuela now apparently has driven many opposition radio stations off the air, citing improper “paperwork.”

In the United States, officeholders may be forgiven for assuming that the media effectively is the opposition. But, for radio and television (not newspapers) at least, it wasn’t always that way. From 1949 until 1987, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission enforced a policy called the “Fairness Doctrine.” As Wikipedia explains, it required “the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the Commission’s view) honest, equitable and balanced.”

A recipe, in other words, for boredom. My co-bloggers here, weaned as they are on modern news programs like Hardball, and CNN Ideology Deathmatch 2000 (ok, I made the last one up but watch some CNN exec grab the idea and run with it) cannot conceive how it used to be. Right between one’s favorite programs, a somber looking man or primly-dressed woman would appear on the screen as an even more serious voice intoned: “This is a Channel 9 editorial.”

“The management of this station,” my brother and I would learn, while wishing Big Suit would clam up so Bugs Bunny could start, “opposes littering. It is highly regrettable when citizens deposit their trash on the ground instead of in the supplied receptacles.” The key was that if Channel 9 took a stand on any issue one might actually care about, like the Vietnam War, or Yankees versus Mets, “honest, equitable, and balanced” would be a bit harder to achieve: “On the one hand, Walter, we must support our noble South Vietnamese allies; on the other, the people plainly prefer the Communist alternative…”

When the Fairness Doctrine ended, the gloves came off, but American conservatives were faster. Chafing under perceived oppression by the “liberal media, “conservative listeners flocked to right-wing talkers like Rush Limbaugh, and many radio stations began to program hard-hitting and often pungent conservative-themed talk programming. Some of it is informative; some is of the “Barack Obama is either a foreigner or a space alien” variety. (A liberal network now exists, but no one listens. Mostly because it’s boring.)

But with Democrats ensconced in both the congressional majority and the White House, rumors abound that the Fairness Doctrine is poised for a return. What do you think? “Deathmatch 2000” or “Crusade Against Litterbugs?” Are the Democrats trying, Chavez-like, to silence their opponents? And does the internet render the whole debate irrelevant?

Five Reasons Why Blogging About Democracy Is Cool

Posted on by

Have you read America.gov‘s science blog, Science Planet? It’s one of my favorites. The author, Daniel Gorelick, is a scientist who is taking a year off from research to work at the State Department. I think he’s missing the lab, because on May 20 he published a list of five reasons why scientific research is cool.

So now I’m making my own list of five reasons why blogging about democracy is cool:

1. You are your own free press. Check out this map (PDF) from Freedom House that tracks press freedom throughout the world. You’ll notice that relatively few countries have completely free presses. But with the Internet, a large number of people have found an alternate outlet to express their views without censorship.

2. Surfing the web is your job. Any good blogger has to keep attune to the blogoshpere. Had I not been surfing the web looking to see what other democracy bloggers were up to, I would have missed all the online discussion on Vote Report India, which led to a great story about how the internet is helping people report on political events.

3. You get to talk about yourself. Some people are shy. Others, like myself, enjoy any excuse to talk about themselves. Turns out my life is quite a democratic exercise – I’ve never had to reach too hard to find examples of how my life has been shaped by democratic ideals and practices. In recent weeks I’ve talked about baking, about honeymooning, even about going to the doctor.

4. People hand you ideas. I can’t tell you how many articles or blog entries I have written thanks to ideas suggested by people who comment on the blogs I write for.

5. When you don’t have a good idea for a blog entry, you can just throw up a top five list!

Does Libel Tourism Threaten a Free Press?

Posted on by

Countries define defamation, whether written (libel) or oral according their own legal standards and social norms.

In the United States, the Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) established that the Constitution protects even false statements about “public figures.” To prevail in a libel case, such a figure must prove not only that what an author or reporter wrote was wrong, but that the author knew it was false (or else acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity.) By placing the burden of proof on the plaintiff, the U.S. standard maximizes press freedom, but makes it more difficult for an individual to protect his reputation. In Great Britain, by contrast, the burden is on the defendant to prove the truth of an allegedly defamatory statement. As a result, many British publishers would prefer to settle libel cases, even pulp offending books, rather than risk hefty damage awards, or the litigation costs required to prove “truth.”

So far, a case of different nations/different standards. Plaintiffs, of course, frequently choose to sue authors and publishers in Britain — known to some as “Club Med for Libel Tourists.” But again, different countries/different laws, right?

Enter the internet, and a terrorist financing expert named Rachel Ehrenfeld. Her book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed—And How to Stop It, was published in the U.S., and not in Britain. But about two dozen Brits managed to buy copies on the internet. Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, named in the book as “alleged to have deposited” funds into terrorist accounts, and a veteran plaintiff in British libel court, sued Ehrenfeld—in British court. Ehrenfeld declined to defend the suit, asserting that she neither lived nor worked in Britain, and that her book had not been published there. Regardless, a British court ordered the book’s destruction, and that Ehrenfeld both apologize publicly and pay $200,000 damages.

American courts normally could be required to enforce a British judgment. But U.S. legislators began to take notice. The New York legislature passed a new law declaring unenforceable in that state foreign judgments contrary to a party’s First Amendment free speech rights. Congress now is discussing a similar law, dubbed the Free Speech Protection Act.

A number of interesting issues here. What is an appropriate legal standard for libel? Should one country’s judgment be honored by another whose standard is more (or less) restrictive? Whose law controls when the internet routinely carries words and images across national boundaries? A lot to discuss. I hope we can hash this out on the discussion boards.

None of Your Business, Part II: The Battle Over a Burger

Posted on by

Barack Obama enjoys a burgerA few weeks ago, I talked about how many Americans feel they have a right to learn some personal details about their political leaders, like their medical histories or income information.

Journalists in the United States do a fairly good job of sharing these details with the public. But when does it get too personal to the point of silliness?

In another blog I author, I wrote about President Obama and Vice President Biden’s lunch break to a burger joint. I was hardly the only person blogging about this: a quick Google search brings up more than 14,000 blog references to the lunch. I also was not the only one to receive criticism for choosing to “report this news.” Here’s what one of my readers had to say:

“I like the idea of light-hearted posts. Don’t get me wrong. But are we appeasing those other not-so-reputable ‘news’ sources by writing what the president had for lunch? There are more pressing issues. Let’s get real. And with the World Press Day just a few days ago, can’t we do justice to those 700 + reporters who’ve died trying to write something worthwhile?”

The reader brings up a good point. Each year, as I learned on World Press Freedom Day earlier this month, dozens of journalists are killed and dozens more are imprisoned for their work exposing wrongdoings throughout the world. When news outlets devote so much attention to a presidential lunch, it’s easy to overlook the great investigate reporting journalists do every day. For more stories of these journalists, see “Journalism Under Siege.”