Reporters Without Borders is stepping up the pressure on countries that censor or otherwise restrict access to the Internet in their countries. The RSF is kicking off its campaign with World Day Against Cyber Censorship March 12.

Places such as Iran and China pop into mind right away. Some democracies are also jumping on the censorship bandwagon.

A couple of years ago the Australian government proposed mandatory Internet filters be installed in all computers. At the time the Labor government did not have the votes to enforce the idea. But late last year the government announced new legislation to get the mandatory filters in place.

The so-called “Measures to improve safety of the internet for families” act is expected to be introduced in the Fall 2010 session of parliament. The measure is undergoing public comment at this time.

The proposed legislation has raised the hackles among many in Australia.

In January The Great Australian Internet Blackout urged Aussies to write to their members of parliament AND  blackout their profile pictures for a day. The cyber-demonstrations were planned for Australia Day, Jan. 26.

The problem with any filtering software — besides the anti-democratic nature of FORCING people to use it — is that the programs are easily circumvented and too often block important information. For example, most filters will block “breast cancer” but not sexual explicit web sites related to “Little Women.”

Good report at IFEX yesterday about how the laws and repressive attitude of the government of Myanmar is forcing journalists to work covertly.

Inside Burma, journalists must consider the risk to their lives as they attempt to practice their profession. Is it worth facing grave danger in order to cover a particular story? Is the story of national importance? Journalists consider the fine balance between being too daring in their coverage and knowing that if they don’t take any risks, many important stories will remain in the shadows. They must “keep a low profile and work secretly” at all times.

See rest of report: Undercover reporters face multiple risks to bring stories to the world

Cross posted with Journalism, Journalists and the World.

Many thanks to SPJ Ethics Committee chair Andy Schotz for bringing this to my attention.

In today’s online edition of People’s Daily a fellow from the Institute for Analytic Journalism has a piece that has me quivering so much it will take a while to write something up that doesn’t sound like a Glen Beck routine.

So let’s get some comments on this.

How a free press can shackle the public

Many of the approximately 800 out-of-town journalists in Beijing to cover the CPPCC and NPC come from Western countries. Particularly those from the U.S., carry a sense that the relative freedom of the press they enjoy back home contributes to better reporting. Putting aside the fact that the American government does restrict the press sometimes by, for example, prohibiting photos of caskets or embedding journalists with the military during the early stages of the Iraq War, the conclusion that “freer is better” may not necessarily be so.

There’s an assumption in America that freedom of the press is always a good thing. It’s enshrined in the First Amendment to the American Constitution. The amendment prohibits Congress from making laws infringing on freedom of the press. In “Lovell v. City of Griffin,” 303 U.S. 444 (1938), Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes defined the press as, “every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.”

The rationale for having an unfettered press is that it promotes the public’s right to access information. The U.S.-based Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics asserts that: “The public’s right to know of events of public importance and interest is the overriding mission of the mass media.”

Rest of article.

A few highlights from deeper in the piece:

• Specifically, does America’s free press promote truth?Increasingly, the answer is no.
• U.S. reporters are so mesmerized by an incident like the Watergate Scandal, that they believe even common stories warrant the type of secrecy accorded Deep Throat. What happens instead is that the public is left to “trust the reporter” without any way to judge the expertise of the source or the extent to which she may have been trying to manipulate the press.
• Necessity to compete for news with many sources, including the Internet, leading to inadequate fact checking, sensationalization, and the spread of rumors
• Necessity to compete for news with many sources, including the Internet, leading to inadequate fact checking, sensationalization, and the spread of rumors…

• Newsrooms rarely have the time or interest to do much fact checking beyond the story they are handed.

• To be sure, not all of the problems I’ve enumerated are peculiar to a free press. However, before the contingent of American journalists heads home, perhaps they will reflect about how to get their own house in order, rather than insisting on fixing China’s.

Few in our business can disagree with the faults and problems of American journalism. That said, however, to state that until we reach a point of Utopian journalism we are not allowed to criticize dictatorships — such as China — that brutally repress journalists is absurd. Nor do our faults prevent us from pointing out that state-run, controlled and censored media operations (such as in China and Iran) are not in the best interests of the people of those countries.

More later.

Cross posted with Journalism, Journalists and the World

The other day I posted a piece from the Asian Human Rights Center on the journalists who were slain last year in the Philippines.

A good friend in Hong Kong pointed out that I should have noted what some other groups have said about the massacre of more than 30 journalists while traveling with an opposition political figure. (He especially wanted me to note the letter the Foreign Correspondents’ CLub of Hong Kong sent to Pres. Arroyo.)

I’ll start with the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong, my old haunt:

• FCC statement on the Mindanao Massacre
• Award a win for all the Philippines

Committee to Protect Journalists (latest report): CPJ welcomes indictment of 200 in Maguindanao slaying

Reporters Without Borders: Number of journalists killed in massacre rises to 30

International Federation of Journalists: IFJ Joins London Call on President Arroyo to Stamp out Impunity in the Philippines

Press freedom groups will be watching the Philippines closely to make sure that the murderers of our colleagues are brought to justice.

An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission

PHILIPPINES: Who were the massacred journalists? – Part 3

Marife ‘Neneng’ Montano: a mentor and a mother
By Pepe Panglao

It was ten years ago when I first met Marife Montano or ‘Neneng’ as she was known to her friends. Neneng was one of the 32 journalists killed in the Maguindanao massacre.

In paying tribute to her, I won’t repeat the countless and numerous stories about how brutal hers and the death of other journalists were. Much has been written about the horror and it has been widely reported. While her death devastated me, leaving me sleepless nights, nightmares and emotional distress, I realised that I have to move on.

That is why writing this tribute article for her took me over three months. It is not that I have forgotten the life she lived, but I wanted to write with a clear mind in a rational manner, not overwhelmed by the anger and hatred that I have had to live with for the last few months. Perhaps an emotion expected of anyone who lost person dear to them, the strength of such feelings astounded me.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Star, Malaysia’s largest English-language newspaper, decided not to publish a column about the recent caning of three Muslim women.

The author of the weekly column, Marina Mahathir, said the newspaper killed it because of concerns that it could jeopardize the paper’s printing permit. Publishers in Malaysia must get the permit renewed every year.

A few weeks ago, the country’s Home Ministry threatened The Star after it published a column criticizing the caning of three women for having sex outside of marriage. The newspaper withdrew the opinion piece and apologized.

Marina Mahathir says the license law holds publishers hostage to the government.

“If we capitulate every time, then why bother publishing at all?” she asked.

The AP story was published in The China Post (Taiwan).

Looks as if the State Department is finally understanding what the Internet is all about.

Secretary of State Clinton is currently in Brazil. Tonight (6pm EST) she will be doing a townhall at Zumbi dos Palmares University in Sao Paulo. The State Dept. will stream the townhall live.

Zumbi is Brazil’s only Afro-Brazilian university.

The Brazilian media giant Globo is co-sponsoring the event.

Click here to tune in.

Headline from a Xinhua feed today:

Hillary Clinton’s trip to Brazil to pay way for Obama’s visit

English.news.cn 2010-03-02 10:18:15

How much is she paying? And to whom?

Proving once again that dictators don’t like anyone looking over their shoulders.

The BBC reports on the closing of Iran’s largest circulation reformists newspaper and a weekly magazine run by the son of opposition leader Mehdi Karrubi.

Reformist newspapers banned in Iran

In an interview with BBC Persian television, Hossein Karroubi said that a few days ago, an Iranian government official had spoken to his mother, the proprietor of Iran Dokht.

The official had criticised the political stance of the opposition leader.

Hossein Karroubi said that three months ago there had been an attack on the offices of the journal and the attackers had taken “five or six” computer drives with them.

The actions fit in with the general absence of respect for civil rights exhibited by the Iranian government.

First posted at Journalism, Journalists and the World.

Another episode of the intimidation of journalists in northern Mexico. In this case the journalist was kidnapped in 2007.

Mexican journalist dismembered, burned, officials say

Mexico City, Mexico (CNN) — A Mexican journalist kidnapped in 2007 was cut into pieces and burned in a barrel, the Tabasco state attorney general’s office said.

The determination of reporter Rodolfo Rincon Taracena’s fate was based on confessions from people suspected of abducting him, though the remains believed to be his were not preserved enough for a DNA test, according to the office.

Rest of story

First posted at Journalism, Journalists and the World.