2016 World Press Freedom Index: Deep Decline in Media Freedom

This is great for censorship. Putin, Erdogan and other authoritarian leaders are celebrating.  We need to fight back the “deep and disturbing” decline in media freedom across every continent, at both the global and regional levels. 

The 2016 World Press Freedom Index, recently published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), shows that every continent has seen its press freedom score decline. The Americas have plunged 20.5%, mostly as a result of the impact of physical attacks and murders targeting journalists in Mexico and Central America. Europe and the Balkans declined 6.5%, mostly because of the growing influence of extremist movements and ultraconservative governments.  The Central Asia/Eastern Europe region’s already bad score deteriorated by 5% as a result of the increasingly glacial environment for media freedom and free speech in countries with authoritarian regimes.

This matters enormously because if journalists are not free to report the facts, denounce abuses and alert the public, how would we resist the problem of children-soldiers, defend women’s rights, oppose injustice or preserve our environment? In some countries, torturers stop their atrocious deeds as soon as they are mentioned in the media. In others, corrupt politicians abandon their illegal habits when investigative journalists publish compromising details about their activities. Still elsewhere, massacres are prevented when the international media focuses its attention and cameras on events.

The reasons for the decline in freedom of information documented by RSF include the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of governments in countries such as Turkey and Egypt, tighter government control of state-owned media, even in some European countries such as Poland, and security situations that have become more and more fraught, in Libya and Burundi, for example, or that are completely disastrous, as in Yemen. 

The survival of independent news coverage is becoming increasingly precarious in both the state and privately-owned media because of the threat from ideologies, especially religious ideologies, that are hostile to media freedom, and from large-scale propaganda machines. Throughout the world, “oligarchs” are buying up media outlets and are exercising pressure that compounds the pressure already coming from governments. 

Published every year since 2002, the World Press Freedom Index ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists. It offers a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country. It does not rank public policies even if governments obviously have a major impact on their country’s ranking. Nor is it an indicator of the quality of journalism in each country.

You can find more about the report here. 

2015 - another deadly year for journalists

The passing year has been another deadly one for journalists, with at least 109 journalists and media staff killed in targeted killings, bomb attacks and cross-fire incidents, according to the annual report by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).   Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’ annual round-up puts the figure at 110 – in addition to 27 citizen-journalists also killed in 2015.  In total, 787 journalists have been killed since 2005, according to RSF.

The very high number of journalists killed in 2015 (although there was a slight drop from 2014) reflects the increasingly deliberate use of violence against journalists. It is also indicative of the failure of initiatives designed to protect journalists and of the near absolute impunity for such crimes.

2015 was marked, in particular, by an increase in targeted terrorist attacks against journalists. French journalists paid a disproportionately high price when terrorists gunned down media workers at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. In the United States, the killing by a disgruntled ex-employee of two former colleagues at US TV WDBJ in Virginia took place in front of a global TV audience during a live transmission.

The IFJ 2015 list names the 109 journalists and media staff killed across 30 countries, together with 3 who died of accidental deaths.

This year, the killing of journalists in the Americas topped the toll, at 27 dead. For the second year in a row, the Middle East comes second, with 25 deaths. Asia Pacific comes third, with 21– a drop on last year due to the big fall in violence in Pakistan. Africa is in fourth place with 19 dead, followed by Europe with 16.

In response to the increasing violence against journalists, Jim Boumelha, IFJ President, is calling for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of UN agencies to enforce international laws protecting journalists. “The attacks in Paris shocked the world and put on the world stage the tragedy of the drip-drip slaughter of journalists worldwide, which are today the only professional group that pays so dearly for just doing the job… Journalism is put daily to the sword in many regions of the world, where extremists, drug lords and reckless warring factions continue murdering journalists with impunity.”

The Federation is urging the UN to take concrete measures through its Action Plan for the Safety of Journalists and take a strong stand against impunity for crimes targeting journalists. The IFJ ran a three-week campaign this year to hold governments accountable for the lack of investigation of crimes against journalists, which leads to the erosion of freedom of expression across the world. 

War Correspondents

Rebecca Thorn and Oliver Senton/credit: Simon Richardson

--> The dangers of life as a war reporter are horribly familiar. Only last week, the front page of the Times showed the bloodied face of Anthony Loyd, a British reporter shot twice by Syrian rebels who were holding him hostage. According to Reporters Without Borders,  18 journalists have been killed and 173 imprisoned since the beginning of this year alone.


With journalists currently reporting on conflicts in countries such as Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Central African Republic, this is certainly an interesting time for the launch of a new theatrical work that examines the conditions of their employment. I always find it very interesting to see how artists convey and translate serious and difficult issues. And how they manage to make us understand them on a different level, touching us beyond words. 


“War Correspondents” is a 75-minute show that tells the stories of five foreign correspondents, three men and two women - representing the many who take great risks to report on conflicts across the world.  Using a capella songs and choreographed movement, interspersed with poems and extracts of interviews, it tries to bring to life the fear, moral dilemmas, pain, thrill, courage and frustrations that characterise this particular form of journalism. 


The show is the second “song theatre performance” created by Helen Chadwick, a composer, and Steven Hoggett, an Olivier-Award-winning choreographer. The idea emerged from an encounter between Chadwick and Jon Spaul, a photographer who worked on the first Chechen war in the 1990s. “He showed me his devastating photos and told me about what was happening to him and other photographers working there,” she says. “He was just a normal bloke doing extraordinary work. That inspired me.”


Chadwick and Miriam Nabarro, the show's designer, who has worked extensively in conflict zones, spent six years interviewing war correspondents with experience of reporting in Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Bosnia and elsewhere. Their subjects included Martin Bell, a renowned former correspondent with the BBC, and Giuliana Sgrena, who was taken hostage in Fallujah, Iraq, and subsequently shot at by the American army on her way to the airport.


They started with general questions, and from the answers saw themes emerge that could be used to shape the show: danger, the reason for the correspondents’ choice of work, its impact on their lives, censorship, changes to the job since 9/11 and others.


Chadwick wrote 30 songs based mostly on the testimonies, but also some poems by Brecht, Saadi Yousef and Mansur Muhammad Ahmad Rajih. Hoggett then choreographed accompanying dances. 


Both songs and dances are performed by just five actors, and the result is exquisite, with the music preventing the whole performance from veering too much into the earnest and the sombre. 


Of the many issues examined, the most moving concerns what journalists are supposed to do about the suffering they witness and the guilt they feel when leaving it behind at the end of their assignments. One is surprised that years of covering conflicts have made him “battle-softened” rather than “battle-hardened”. Another comments, “Wars, disasters… they all live inside me. I cannot get rid of them.”


"War Correspondents" is touring around Britain until October 25th.

You can read my review for the Economist’ Prospero blog here.

National security, conflicts threaten press freedom - 2014 Press Freedom Index

The 2014 Reporters Without Borders (RWB) World Press Freedom Index highlights the negative impact of conflicts and abusive interpretation of national security on freedom of information and its protagonists.  This trend constitutes a growing threat worldwide and is even endangering freedom of information in countries regarded as democracies, such as the US. 

“Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation of national security needs, marking a disturbing retreat from democratic practices. Investigative journalism often suffers as a result,” says RWB report. 

Press freedom in the United States has suffered “one of the most significant declines” in the last year with the NSA surveillance scandal topping the list of wrongdoings. The US is now placed in 46th place out of 180 countries, a 13-place drop from last year. 

The United Kingdom ranks 33^rd, losing three places from last year, because of “the disgraceful pressure it puton The Guardian newspaper and its detention of David Miranda, journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner and assistant, for nine hours. 

“Both the US and UK authorities seem obsessed with hunting down whistleblowers instead of adopting legislation to rein in abusive surveillance practices that negate privacy, a democratic value cherished in both countries,” the report states.

The index also reflects the negative impact of armed conflicts on freedom of information and its actors. The world’s most dangerous country for journalists, Syria, is ranked 177th out of 180 countries, rubbing shoulders with the bottom three: Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, where freedom of information is non-existent.

 

At the top of the index is Finland (for the fourth year running), closely followed by Netherlands and Norway, like last year. 

The World Press Freedom Index is a reference tool based on seven criteria:

-the level of abuses,

-the extent of pluralism,

-media independence,

-the environment and self-censorship,

-the legislative framework,

-transparency

-infrastructure

For more information and to see the 3D map "freedom of the press worldwide", click http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php

Press Freedom Worldwide in 2013 - a story of dashed hopes

This is a clear and sobering map of what freedom of the press looks like worlwide in 2013, after the Arab Spring: a story of dashed hopes and a map that looks pretty similar to that of previous year. The map produced by Reporters Without Borders shows that while regimes fall and change, repression of the press predures.  The organization, which fights for press freedom across the world, also produced a very useful  Press Freedom Index.

 "The ranking of most countries is no longer attributable to dramatic political developments. This year’s index is a better reflection of the attitudes and intentions of governments towards media freedom in the medium or long term," the report states.  The same three European countries that toped the press freedom index last year, came top again this year: Finland, followed by Norway and the Netherlands.  Many criteria are considered, ranging from legislation to violence against journalists, but democratic countries occupy the top of the index while dictatorial countries occupy the last three positions. Like last year, they are Turkemistan, North Korea and Eritrea.  Syria, Somalia and Iran are trailing near the bottom of the list too.   The United Kingdom is ranked 29, just before Ghana, Suriname and the US.

"The Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders does not take direct account of the kind of political system but it is clear that democracies provide better protection for the freedom to produce and circulate accurate news and information than countries where human rights are flouted,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“In dictatorships, news providers and their families are exposed to ruthless reprisals, while in democracies news providers have to cope with the media’s economic crises and conflicts of interest. While their situation is not always comparable, we should pay tribute to all those who resist pressure whether it is aggressively focused or diffuse.”

Coinciding with the release of its 2013 Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders is for the first time publishing an annual global “indicator” of worldwide media freedom. This new analytic tool measures the overall level of freedom of information in the world and the performance of the world’s governments in their entirety as regards this key freedom.

Pencils against bullets?

 Reporters Without Borders' team wishes you an excellent 2013

 I've just received this greeting e-card from Reporters Without Borders, the international reporters' organization fighting for freedom of information.  I really like it: the simplicity of the drawing and the powerful message.  Am just wondering who is winning....

 It also reminds me that while the Leveson Inquiry has exposed the seediest aspects of our profession, where journalists debase their skills to stalk celebrities and ordinary people and bug their phones, many other journalists are applying them to nobler causes.

In #Syria, sharing information kills

 

At least 38 citizen journalists and media workers have been killed by the Assad government since the start of the uprising in Syria in March last year. Break the silence, scan the QR code or disseminate in other ways.

Arts and Human Rights in Iran/for Iran

Tomorrow, Monday December 7, students will hold major demonstrations in Iran to support the Iranian civil rights movement and protest the severe repression, widespread arrests and imprisonment of hundreds of civil society activists across the country.

And on December 12, international arts events organized under the banner of ArtsUnited4Iran will try to draw the world’s attention onto human rights abuses in the country.

On the occasion of the six-month anniversary of the disputed elections and the sixty-first anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, artists and activists will join together to highlight the ongoing protests in Iran and honour the Iranian people’s peaceful struggle for their human and civil rights. They will call on the Iranian government to respect the freedom of assembly, expression and press, to free all prisoners of conscience, to end rape and torture in prisons, and to hold those responsible for committing human rights crimes accountable, the ArtsUnited4Iran organizers say.

The arts and culture events will include lectures, concerts, gallery showings, readings, round tables, film screenings in over 20 locations worldwide.

Iran experts and activists speaking out in support of the civil rights movement in Iran include Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University Professor and CNN commentator; Hadi Ghaemi, Director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran; Firuzeh Mahmoudi, United4Iran’s International Coordinator; Omid Memarian, Iran expert at Human Rights Watch; and Reza Moini, Iran expert for Reporters without Borders (RSF).

United4Iran is a non-political global network of individuals and human rights activists building a mass movement in solidarity with the people of Iran. United4Iran is opposed to blanket economic sanctions and military action against Iran, which they believe, will have detrimental effects on the situation of human rights and harm the Iranian people.

The ArtsUnited4Iran sponsors include Reporters without Borders, Human Rights Watch, the Nobel Women’s Initiative, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, ARTICLE 19, and Front Line.

For more details on December 12 events visit united4iran

Iran - Show Trials and database of detainees

Show Trials
Today, Iran's opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami are denouncing "show trials" of politicians and activists charged with fomenting unrest after the disputed presidential election on 12 June . Both men accused the Tehran regime of using forced confessions to charge senior opposition figures of "acting against national security" and "conspiring with foreign powers to stage a velvet revolution".

Database of dead and detained
Hundreds, probably thousands, have been arrested in Iran since the election. Human rights and campaign groups such as Human Rights Watch, the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Reporters Without Borders have been collecting and publishing the names of those dead or detained.

The Guardian newspaper have brought those lists, and reports from trusted media sources, into a database. They are asking readers and those elsewhere on the internet to contribute too.
Since they launched this exercise, they have had hundreds of emails, photographs and names sent to us. Keep them coming. Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on their Flickr group or mail them at datastore@guardian.co.uk