Borders & Bylines
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June 26, 2012 01:04 PM
The tenuous claim of Israeli ‘pinkwashing’
The charge that a culture of tolerance works as a PR superweapon seems bogus
JERUSALEM—Let’s dispense with the charge of “pinkwashing” that has been leveled against Israel. The word has come to stand for the claim that Israel officials use the nation’s relatively progressive stance on gay rights as a tool to distract journalists and public attention from its treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Some Israel supporters do indeed push...
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May 29, 2012 01:25 PM
From SOS to SMS
Mobile journalism service aims to protect Indonesian forests, connect villages
WEST KALIMANTAN PROVINCE, INDONESIA—Alim, the chief of news for Ruai TV, remembers when the area didn’t have a privately operated station to serve as a voice for the province’s indigenous people; it didn’t have the infrastructure to support one.
“When I was growing up in my village, we didn’t even have electricity,” says Alim, 31, who goes by one name....
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April 23, 2012 02:18 PM
Loneliness at the Foreign ‘Bureau’
News organizations exaggerate the size of their overseas newsrooms
The Washington Post has 16 foreign “bureaus,” and 12 of them consist of just a single reporter, according to the newspaper’s website. The four remaining bureaus all consist of two journalists. Is the Post using the word bureau a bit loosely? One Post reporter, Sudarsan Raghavan in Nairobi, is listed as the paper’s “bureau chief in Africa.” Raghavan is the...
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April 16, 2012 05:25 AM
Statistics and Moral Sense
A dialogue about Justin Martin’s “Which Countries Jail the Most Journalists Per Capita?”
Editor’s note: This piece begins with journalist Sohrab Ahmari’s criticisms of Justin D. Martin’s recent article. Martin’s response comes next, then Ahmari closes it out with a response of his own.
In recent years, the Columbia Journalism Review has devoted special attention to the use and misuse of statistics in American journalism, taking reporters to task when they have fallen...
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April 2, 2012 03:17 PM
Which Countries Jail the Most Journalists Per Capita?
Taking the CPJ data one step further
At the end of each year, the Committee to Protect Journalists counts the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide and lists the countries in which they’re locked up.
These data are very helpful, but I think we can consider them under a new lamp by taking into account each country’s size. China and Eritrea, for example, have about the same...
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March 26, 2012 11:34 AM
Denying Death
Most people ignore genocide denial. Growing numbers of governments do not
While I’ve argued in this column that free speech in the world is trending toward expansion, a position I still maintain, governments nonetheless display a mushrooming fondness for thought control when it comes to the darker side of human nature.
In a March 9 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote that “Western...
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March 7, 2012 04:54 PM
News Organizations That Haven’t Learned To Share
The seams in certain outlets’ social sharing strategies
The Economist does not let users of its free app share news items via e-mail, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or anything else. An Economist representative told me over the phone that paid app users are permitted to share content, and that’s good, but the purpose of their free content is to lure payers, no? The Economist website allows users to share...
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February 15, 2012 01:05 PM
Story on Tiny Country A Giant Failure
60 Minutes whiffs on recent story about Qatar
A recent 60 Minutes segment on the nation of Qatar was the most imprecise piece of journalism I can remember in the more than 20 years I’ve been watching the show.
Bob Simon, who was assigned to the story, couldn’t even pronounce the name of the country correctly. When pronounced ka-taar, the word is close to the Modern Standard Arabic...
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January 31, 2012 11:21 AM
Why Aren’t More Arab Americans Working in Mainstream Journalism?
Group remains underrepresented in US newsrooms
There are anywhere between 3.5 and 5.1 million Americans of Arab descent, according to figures from the Arab American Institute, yet relatively few work in journalism full time. While meaningful estimates aren’t known, as journalism scholars that conduct demographic research in American newsrooms do not typically tally newsmakers of Arab descent, the National Arab American Journalists Association counts around 250...
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January 6, 2012 02:02 PM
Twifficult
Tweeting the change you wish to see is easy. Global attention is as elusive as ever
I was alone on a drive from Maine to Massachusetts in early December when a crazy idea hit me. Listening to Christmas music along a snow-lined I-95, my epiphany was to write a letter to rockstar Pink and ask her to sing a Christmas duet with me, the proceeds from which would be given to Doctors Without Borders to help...
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December 20, 2011 12:18 PM
A Presidential Debate Abroad?
An argument for holding a foreign policy debate in a foreign country
Every fourth fall, more Americans watch presidential debates than just about any other live event in the US but the Super Bowl. The contests are by far the most-watched political events in this country. More than 50 million Americans watched the first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain in September 2008, while 63 million paused for the second live...
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December 7, 2011 11:48 AM
Hell Yes to Hell No
New book flags ways US targets dissent
Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America | By Michael Ratner & Margaret Ratner Kunstler | The New Press | 176 pages, $17.95
A number of twentieth-century legal decisions helped establish the US as having one of the freest press systems on earth. In 1925, the US Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects citizens not only...
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November 4, 2011 02:17 PM
Speech in Israel Is Not Free
There's more to democracy than just holding regular elections
Both Israeli and US policymakers are fond of calling Israel and the United States likeminded democracies. “America has no better friend than Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to applause from a joint session of Congress in a 2011 address. “We stand together to defend democracy.” Vice President Joe Biden has basically called Israel his second America. “No matter how...
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October 21, 2011 04:52 PM
A Grand Year for Free Speech
Gaddafi’s death just one indicator of the global surge in free expression
Not since the disintegration of the Soviet Union have so many opponents of free expression quickly fallen from executive power.
Countries like Tunisia and Libya weren’t just unwelcoming to journalists; these countries were routinely listed as among the worst places on earth for those looking to report the truth. Merely alluding to Gaddafi’s brutality could leave a journalist with...
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