Lawrence Pintak and Yosri Fouda’s assertion that, by defending online writers in the Middle East, Western press freedom groups are undermining journalism in that region is a real head-scratcher.
What’s the premise for that argument? Maybe it’s the notion that ‘bloggers are not journalists’. Or if that’s too sweeping a statement, then maybe the reasoning is ‘only a few bloggers are journalists’.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which has been defending press freedom worldwide for nearly thirty years, would not argue that anyone with a Blogspot account or a camera phone is a journalist.
But we can’t ignore the explosion in online writing pioneered by people who do not fit the mold of the accredited reporter employed by a bricks-and-mortar media company. A prescriptive definition of who is and who is not a journalist is not helpful. There are no board or bar exams for journalists like doctors or lawyers. Journalism is more a craft than a profession.
If, in the context of an authoritarian regime, you take the view that a blog is nothing but a vehicle for those who deal in opinion, rumor, innuendo and invective, then you are standing at the top of a very slippery slope leading to the licensing of journalists. The attempt to distinguish between “real” journalists who report facts and bloggers who peddle opinion is misleading. Print journalism and broadcasting have always been replete with political and social commentary. “Good” bloggers are not just those journalists who have left newspapers, whether by choice or necessity, for the Web. A whole generation of net natives has sprung up and is forcing all of us to rethink our notion of ink and paper journalism. Devising definitions to exclude them from the shield of international press freedom organizations is to play into the hands of authoritarian governments.
There are bloggers who spout vitriol at opponents or whip up emotions in support of their pet cause. If that’s all they do, they are not practicing journalism. They should not be conflated with the thousands of other bloggers whose output is based on reporting, observation, or fact-based opinion. Those are the online writers CPJ defends. We don’t endorse their views; we assert their right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to express those views freely.
In most cases, we don’t agonize over whether to take up a case. Governments make that decision for us by persecuting bloggers who air the kinds of opinion or expose wrongdoings that the cowed or compliant mainstream media will not touch.
“Bloggers shedding light or commenting on abuse of power, corruption and torture should be backed,” said Neziha Réjiba, editor of the independent news Web site Kalima, which has been targeted by a repressive Tunisian government for years. “Their emergence, particularly in this part of the world, is a natural and healthy reaction to the failure of media professionals to accurately and bravely do their job,” she told CPJ.
Bloggers stand out when professional journalists don’t stand up. In Egypt, for example, the mainstream media tiptoe around sensitive issues such as the succession of President Hosni Mubarak and dial back on coverage of political protests, corruption, and torture. Bloggers and independent journalists who directly confront these issues risk prison, but not before they have been maligned in pro-government publications by “journalists” using the very smear tactics they contend disqualifies blogging as journalism.
In the case of Philip Rizk, the Egyptian security services showed by their actions that his writing was at least one of the reasons for his arrest. His interrogators coerced him into revealing passwords to his online account and e-mail address, which were promptly used to disable his blog, delete archival material, and mine his contact book. Journalistic equipment—including cameras, computer hard drives, and memory sticks—was taken from his apartment. Rizk, upon his release, blogged about his experiences in detention.
In countries like Burma, where independent journalism has been crushed, blogging has opened a vital avenue for news and created some unlikely reporters. Maung Thura is a popular comedian and democracy activist known by his stage name, Zarganar. Angered by inadequate government relief efforts after a cyclone in May 2008, he helped organize video reporting of the devastated areas and blogged about it. He is now serving a fifty-nine-year prison term on multiple charges, including violations of the Television and Video Act.
In this case, at least the blogger was indicted directly for what he posted. CPJ’s archives are filled with research showing that governments use a broad palette of charges ranging from minor violations of bureaucratic regulations to sedition against critical writers, broadcasters, and photographers in all media, designed to divert attention from their journalism. Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Van Hai is serving thirty months in jail for tax evasion. His conviction followed his critical reporting on the government’s handling of a territorial dispute with China.
In Uzbekistan, online journalist Salidzhon Abdurakhmanov, who reports on human rights and social issues, has been charged with illegal drug possession—a trumped up accusation meant to silence him, according to his supporters. Iranian blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi wrote a post questioning Iran’s support for the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah. That was enough to earn him thirty months in prison for insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 revolution. Mirsayafi never got to serve out his sentence: he died in Tehran’s Evin prison in unexplained circumstances in March this year.
In authoritarian states, bloggers are in the vanguard of defenders of freedom of expression, often filling a vacuum left by the official press. Technology is churning up the twentieth century media landscape, burying rigid distinctions between journalists and non-journalists. Anyone who uses this new technology to disseminate news or opinion at risk to their life or liberty deserves our support.
“Chaos is among the characteristics of the blogosphere,” says Kalima’s Réjiba. “But we must acknowledge that the other characteristics are bravery and a real thirst for freedom.”
Read Pintak and Fouda’s piece here.
Bloggers are indeed in the vanguard of defenders of freedom of expression in the Middle East because of the traditional media's inability to report on a whole range of issues. At a national level journalists are strictly limited by many states on what they can investigate and write about, and what news organisations are allowed to publish or broadcast. At a local level, the press in many countries simply don't have the breadth and depth to engage in the scope of reporting that the public in many other parts of the world have come to expect. Bloggers can help to fill some of the significant gaps in the reporting of traditional media, whether they are also traditional journalists or not. I, for one, hope that the CPJ does continue to support bloggers that are threatened, persecuted or otherwise endangered because of what they write. However, in an age where blogging has become so widespread, I'm sure that the CPJ must already recognise that offering all popular bloggers its support simply because they're writings are at odds with authorities is an equally slippery slope.
It's obvious that bloggers who champion causes are usually doing so because their posted content supports their own off-line activities and those of others. Bloggers are arguably far more likely to take publically active roles in protests and other forms of activism than journalists: without having to worry about the same code of ethics or consider how credible their actions are to their profession. Bloggers often don't take part in demonstrations simply to report on them, or even to champion freedom of expression. If a journalist's vocation is to seek truth and report fairly and accurately, what is a blogger's vocation? It's rarely blogging.
In my opinion, the CPJ and other press freedom organisations can't afford to extend the same unqualified support to bloggers as they do to journalists. There is a line to be drawn here, even if it's a slightly blurred one to start with. There are new rules that need to be applied and they'll need to be applied without compromising the recognition and support that the CPJ is able to garner for journalists that really need it. And to be fair to the brave bloggers who are helping to defend freedom of expression these need to be published too, so that bloggers at risk know if they qualify for CPJ support.
Carrington Malin
Spot On Public Relations, United Arab Emirates
#1 Posted by Carrington Malin, CJR on Wed 19 Aug 2009 at 03:54 AM
I agree with Mahoney. Whether or not someone tells the truth in his or her writing is not relevant to the question of whether he or she should suffer for writing it. It is true that be coming to the rescue of bloggers who only vent or even fabricate material CPJ may be blurring the line of honor between hard-nosed journalist and random emotional citizen, but whether it is an organization like CPJ or simply the ethos of a nation that precludes harm from coming to those who write, speak or broadcast - anything, our commitment to freedom of expression should be carefully watched and protected. Excluding contingencies of libel and other values we also preserve, rumor, fallacy and fact all lie in a single pot when it comes to whether their producers are answerable to authority with their life or freedom for them.
#2 Posted by maya lessov, CJR on Thu 20 Aug 2009 at 12:32 PM
It's the other way round from what Lawrence and Foda wrote!
It is exactly because the average brick-and-mortar, syndicate-licensed journalist is not what a journalist is supposed to be, bloggers have risen to fill the need in the society for more daring and aggressive journalism. This is case in Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Most of the bloggers who built reputation as having good reporting skills, courage, and/or are known to put their personal safety - and livelihood - on the stake while reporting are more professional and better journalists than those who were supposed to do that role.
By being able to read local publications - i.e. those written in Arabic for the Egyptian public instead of in English for export-opinion and by a radically different calibre of journalists - Yosri Foda should have known that "objective", "fair", "balanced" and "citing" are as alien concepts among mainstream journalists as they are among the average early-twenties activist blogger. I argue that because of the emergence of a new generation of young people who have the skills of aggressive reporting, well-rounded writing and other essential journalistic skills that the industry of journalism is witnessing general improvement in its standards. Many of the first and second generation bloggers have joined recently established independent brick-and-mortar journalism institutions bringing with them skills that were long absent. Examples of this are witnessed for example in AlShourouq and AlMasry AlYoum; both Egyptian dailies.
If you happen to interview one of them ask about the stagnant mentalities controlling the shape that their work will appear in and about the lack of respect for the written word, often treating it merely as "lorem ipsum" that can be just cut-off anwhere to meet space requirements!
Add to that that indeed because journalism is a craft, and because professional syndications and unions are authorised and controlled by the state we - in Egypt for Example- are in a situation where journalists are effectively licensed by the government to be such - unless backed by a foreign institution - and the bulk of journalists are working for organisations owned and managed by the government. A situation which doesn't leave much freedom of space, assuming the journalist himself does have an opinion that differs from that of the government to begin with, or is willing to go out of his way for covering what could potentially put him or his livelihood in danger. Meanwhile those who are not members of the syndicate are more prone to abuse by the security apparatus, and are in need of defence and support.
The only outcome of the assertion of Lawrence and Foda is supporting the police-stately argument that journalism is a profession that requires licensing by the authorities and that the only citizens permitted to sound their opinion or to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers are state-stamped journalists. An argument that was instated in the public mentality by effect of years of official propaganda, and can be found among syndicate-journalists, partly for political and often for professional-envy reasons.
#3 Posted by Ahmad, CJR on Tue 1 Sep 2009 at 09:32 AM
by
"A situation which doesn't leave much freedom of space"
I meant
"A situation which doesn't leave much space for freedom"
#4 Posted by ahmad, CJR on Tue 1 Sep 2009 at 09:37 AM
Ahmad has said it all! I think anyone who reports stuff accurately and fairly can be called a journalist. Why not? I'm a journalist but I don't see myself as a member of an exclusive club.
Whether or not the CPJ is able to campaign on behalf of all the smart people out there who use the net to publih their reportage is another matter.
#5 Posted by tom s, CJR on Mon 21 Sep 2009 at 12:38 PM