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.

(First posted for students and faculty at George Mason University.)

Face it, it’s a rough market for journalists. Reporters and editors are getting laid off all over the place.

So what is a student journalist to do?

I have argued to my students that they need to do something to set them apart from all the other qualified writers, editors or producers. One way is to come up with story ideas (and stories) that show how local and global events are connected. Another is to take some time between graduation and journalism work to do something that will make them look more “hire-able.”

I recommended to my students one way to do that is to sign up for the Peace Corps. And today being the 49th anniversary of the founding of the Corps got me thinking about it again.

And let us not forget that President Kennedy first proposed the idea of the Peace Corps to students at the University of Michigan in 1960.

Besides all the experiences — and language skills — a person gets working for the PC, it gives them an overseas work experience line on their resume.

When I lived in the Dominican Republic (2003-2006) my family regularly hosted large numbers of Peace Corps volunteers in our house. Each time I talked with these volunteers, I felt more impressed with those who signed up to live in the wilderness and help others gain a better life.

The skills learned negotiating with local leaders to help them develop sustainable agriculture or build education or health infrastructure projects far exceed anything one can learn in college or in the first few years of journalism work.

Exposure to foreign cultures gives PC volunteers a wider (and better) view of how events affect people. Peace Corps volunteers end up seeing more to an issue than those who have not had the international experience.

And working in the Peace Corps — as mentioned earlier — gives a job applicant international work experience. Employers know the difference between “semester abroad” experiences, “traveled overseas,” and “worked and lived overseas.” (To my mind, there is nothing like living and working in a different culture to get a wider perspective of the world.)

Here is a partial list of some of the notable journalists who were Peace Corps volunteers:

• David Briscoe, chief correspondent of World Desk for Associated Press (Philippines 1966-70)
• Dan Carney, reporter for Business Week (Benin 1983-85)
• Judy Dugan, assistant editorial page editor for the Los Angeles Times (Philippines 1966-68)
• Josh Friedman, Pulitzer prize winner for international reporting and director of international programs, Columbia School of Journalism (Costa Rica 1964-66)
• Kathleen Ingley, reporter for the Arizona Republic (Senegal 1972-75)
• Al Kamen, writes In the Loop column in the Washington Post (Dominican Republic 1967-69)
• Robert Laird, op-ed page editor for N.Y. Daily News (Somalia 1962-63)
• Michael Maidenberg, Pulitzer prize-winning publisher and member of the board of trustees for the Knight Foundation (India 1964-66)
• Chris Matthews, host of NBC’s Hardball (Swaziland 1968-70)

One of the other benefits of signing on with the Peace Corps for just-graduated or soon to graduate students is that many student loan programs allow loan payments to be deferred during the 18 month PC assignment.

Check out the Peace Corps here.

This story got some coverage a couple of weeks ago, but it just came to my attention, so I wanted to pass it along.

There’s an effort in Iceland to create a so-called haven for journalists by strengthening the country’s free speech laws and bolstering legal protections for reporters.

It’s called the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. According to its website, the proposal’s goal “is to task the government with finding ways to strengthen freedom of expression around world and in Iceland, as well as providing strong protections for sources and whistleblowers.”

The initiative is partly a response to Iceland’s recent economic disaster. Some blame the collapse on a lack of rigorous coverage of the country’s banking and economic sector.

The New York Times and The China Post (Taiwan) recently published reports about the effort.