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Editor’s Murder Verdict Sparks Public Outrage in Turkey

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:49:07 +0000

10,000 Turks march in protest of the verdict in the Hrant Dink murder trial (National Turk)

The verdict in a five year-old murder in Turkey is causing a serious public outcry. 18 people were accused in a lengthy trial over the killing of newspaper editor Hrant Dink, and only 2 were sentenced to punishment of any kind. According to Turkish media, the decision is considered bogus by the public because of suspicions over the involvement of Turkish security forces.

Following the verdict, a crowd of about 25,000 marched in protest, according to local media reports. The march was coordinated by Friends of Hrant Dink.

Dink was a Turkish-American newspaper editor who was assassinated in Istanbul in 2007. January 19 marks the five-year anniversary of his murder.

Tragedies of 2011 Also Inspire

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:30:34 +0000

Chris Hondros's photo was named one oof TIME's Top 10 Photos of 2011

2011 was a year of heartbreaking tragedies for journalists caught up in the tide of massive world events. Certain cases of journalists killed and attacked in the crossfire of the stories they were reporting stand out. In 2011, there were many instances in which the media became part of the story they were covering. Sometimes they themselves became the story.

The tide of Arab Spring that swept across many countries in the Middle East during 2011 was hailed as a humanistic victory for the region and the world. But it came at an incredibly high cost, and with very murky results. It might be too early to see what the results of the popular uprisings in the countries impacted by Arab Spring will be, but it is not too soon to see at what cost the changes came, among them that the media is more a target than ever before.

Photographers Chris Hondros’s and Tim Hetherington’s shocking deaths in Misrata, Libya were significant losses. Both men were at the height of their unique careers. Their work was highly valuable to the international public discourse on the stories they covered. The horrific sexual assault of correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo, Egypt shocked the world. The days-long captivity of dozens of journalists in the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli was another indication of how much international correspondents are needed, but how vulnerable they can be. In Syria, cameraman Ferzat Jarban was seen being taken into custody by officials while on the job. He was soon after found dead on the side of the road with his eyes gouged out. In September, when the Israeli embassy in Cairo was stormed by angry mobs, there were numerous Tweets from journalists on the ground reporting that they had seen other reporters getting attacked by the mob.

Ironically, many of the same stories of tragedy also provide inspiration. Lara Logan, in an interview with 60 Minutes, broke the unwritten code of silence for female journalists who were sexually assaulted while on the job. One of Chris Hondros’s last photos ever taken–on the afternoon he was killed–was named by TIME magazine as a top 10 photo of 2011. The reporters who were trapped in the Rixos Hotel conducted themselves, by all accounts, with tremendous professionalism and restraint. Matthew Chance, CNN International Foreign Correspondent, even managed to send out detailed, informative Tweets from inside the Rixos during the ordeal. Local reporters in Syria continue to work despite the cloud of murder they operate under after the thinly veiled, violent threat sent to them via the brutal murder of their colleague.

All of this shows not only that the world can still surprise us with its sudden change, as in the downfall of the decades-old regime of Gaddhafi in Libya. Or the Egyptian citizens who continue to insist on self-governance, despite a very rocky beginning. The work of journalists during 2011 was commendable, remarkable, highly valuable, and tragic. It will always be remembered simultaneously as a year of great change and loss.

Images Worth Perusing

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 22:29:47 +0000

An interesting find and a valuable place to look at images–BagNews features some provocative and informative photographers and their work.

For example, an image they posted of the Japanese “sumimasen” (apology without end) in action:

(photo: AFP/Getty. caption: Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) president Masataka Shimizu (C) and company executives bow to evacuees to apologise for the accident at their company’s Fukushima daiichi no. 1 nuclear-power plant at a shelter at Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture on April 22, 2011. Families forced to flee their homes by radiation leaks from a tsunami-hit Japanese nuclear-power plant on Friday angrily berated the head of the operator as he apologised for the disaster.)

: (photo: AFP/Getty. caption: Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) president Masataka Shimizu (C) and company executives bow to evacuees to apologise for the accident at their company’s Fukushima daiichi no. 1 nuclear-power plant at a shelter at Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture on April 22, 2011. Families forced to flee their homes by radiation leaks from a tsunami-hit Japanese nuclear-power plant on Friday angrily berated the head of the operator as he apologised for the disaster.)

Wikileaks Cables: China’s Grip on the Media

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:55:28 +0000

Recently released U.S. State Department cables from Wikileaks show that the Chinese government exerts strict control over journalists. Domestic Chinese journalists are particularly under tight restrictions.

In terms of foreign news organizations, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Liu Jianchao said during a late-night press conference in November 2008 that Chinese nationals can only work for foreign media in China in a supporting role. They are not allowed to work for foreign media as reporters.

According to the cable, some journalists simply ignore such official edicts:

...a Chinese employee at the Beijing bureau of the UK newspaper
The Times, told PolOff that bureaus sometimes do not bother to
register employees with the DSB.  The only disadvantage of not
joining the DSB, she said, is that unregistered employees are often
denied credentials for the National People's Congress and similar
official events.

In a separate cable from April 2009, a new “code of conduct” was issued for Chinese nationals working for foreign media. The cable states in part:

The Beijing Service Bureau for Diplomatic Missions,
an arm of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that
manages hiring of PRC staff by foreign news
organizations, recently forced all assistants to
attend a briefing and sign a form promising to abide
by the code, which also requires them to portray a
"positive" image of China to their employers.  While
several assistants with whom we spoke said they
would ignore the rules and continue to conduct de
facto independent reporting, an American journalist
told us some of her local assistants are now
reticent to do reporting work.  At least one U.S.
news organization has already been called to task
for violating the code and, in response, has decided
to stop sending local staff to cover news events
alone while also adding a foreign journalist's
byline to any piece penned by a Chinese employee.

120 to be Released from Iranian Prison

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:01:40 +0000

Maziar Bahari, an Iranian Canadian journalist and writer who was held in Iranian prison while he was reporting for Newsweek noted via Facebook on Sunday night the release of a league of prisoners in Iran.

Maziar Bahari, who was held in Iranian prison last year. (http://maziarbahari.com)

Bahari said that there are going to be about 120 people released from Iranian prison.

Bahari’s comments were backed up by reports from some media, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which reports that:

Iranian reports say Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered the release of 100 prisoners convicted of what are described as “security offenses.” The reports say some of those being released were among people who were detained during the unrest that erupted over the disputed 2009 reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

http://www.rferl.org/content/iran_supreme_leader_pardons_100_security_prisoners/24310294.html

Rixos Hotel in Tripoli Prison to Dozens of Journalists

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:42:19 +0000

About 30 journalists are being held captive in the Rixos Hotel in Libya’s capital of Tripoli. According to Twitter feeds of journalists inside the hotel, notably CNN’s Matthew Chance and AP’s Dario Lopez-Mills.

Sky News’ Mark Stone describes where the Rixos is situated and why so many foreign correspondents are trapped there:

Sky News

Why Murdoch’s Media Scandal Matters

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:55:31 +0000

For those who have been following the News Corp. scandal over the last few weeks, they have seen it get increasingly complicated. For those who haven’t been following it, they should.

News Corp. controls a wide range of media-related ventures, from television to publishing to newspapers. These are entities that generally have a major influence on the way people think.

The notoriously seedy nature of the British tabloid culture aside, anyone who lives anywhere within News Corp.’s reach should be taking note of this developing story. Word is that at least one lawmaker in the US has already called for an investigation into News Corp.’s US activities and whether any Americans were impacted.

Rep. Braley on Murdoch

UK Reporter Denied Entry to Russia

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:27:06 +0000

A reporter for the UK’s Guardian has been denied re-entry to Russia after a two-month absence.

Luke Harding, who is the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, was told he could not enter Russia after two months away reporting on Wikileaks.

According to the Guardian, Harding’s reporting on Wikileaks included “allegations that Russia under the rule of Vladimir Putin had become a “virtual mafia state“.

The Guardian also says that they believe it is the first expulsion of a journalist from Russia since the end of the Cold War. The newspaper further reports:

After spending 45 minutes in an airport cell, he was sent back to the UK on the first available plane – with his visa annulled and his passport only returned to him after taking his seat. Harding was given no specific reason for the decision, although an airport security official working for the Federal Border Service, an arm of the FSB intelligence agency, told him: “For you Russia is closed.” The tightly controlled nature of Russian politics means the expulsion is likely to have been ordered at a very senior level, but the British government has so far been unable to find out any more details about the decision.

Al Jazeera 'Demands' US Broadcasting

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 12:37:02 +0000

Al Jazeera is leveraging the crisis in Egypt (and their coverage of it) to campaign for broadcasting rights throughout the US. They say they are not available in most of the 50 states in the US, but want the right to be.

In an opinion article on their website, Al Jazeera’s Director General Wadah Khanfar said their broadcasting has been unfairly blocked in the past:

Elsewhere, in the United States, Al Jazeera faces a different kind of blackout, based largely on misinformed views about our content and journalism. Some of the largest American cable and satellite providers have instituted corporate obstacles against Al Jazeera English.

So the company is taking matters into its own hands with a campaign to “demand Al Jazeera on your TV.” The campaign includes February 10 Meetup gatherings to tell satellite and cable providers how much Al Jazeera is wanted.

The demands are overshadowed, though, by Al Jazeera’s reputation for bias. In his manifesto about the campaign, Khanfer himself alludes to the approach their reporters take.

…our journalists exist in the right places and are given the space and resources to get the job done. Most importantly, they have editorial freedom.

According to the Meetup website, the February 10 event is planned in 345 communities, including New York.

Getting 'Street Cred' in Egypt

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:05:52 +0000

Journalists and reporters have an unofficial badge of honor they work for in their careers: credibility. Or what people in the media industry sometimes jokingly refer to as “street cred.” It is usually earned by reporting under dangerous, extremely taxing, or even life-threatening circumstances.

An extreme example is a story I heard from a former journalist who worked for NPR in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980?s. He told me that he and another journalist were once kidnapped while working on a story. That’s serious street cred. Other stories I have heard include things like riding in a vehicle on rough roads in a third-world country while trying to outrun gunfire. Or breaking a leg while on night patrol with US soldiers in Afghanistan and walking on it all night to get out of enemy territory.

Those examples of street cred so infallible that the reporter instantly earns a certain level of respect. Those, and many other stories, involved journalists who went to the verge of the battle–whatever it might have been–and got a little too close for their own personal safety. Luckily, they made it out alive.

The situation in Egypt is likewise forcing numerous journalists into this category of those who have brushed up against danger and death and lived to tell the tale. But the problem is, reporters in Egypt shouldn’t be getting attacked, kidnapped, arrested, detained, and beaten with iron bars.

Most recently, a journalist working for the semi-official state newspaper, Al-Ahram, Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud, was killed.

Not that it should ever happen anywhere, but Egypt’s track record in an extremely short period of time is so bad that it should do more than raise eyebrows back home. It should awaken alarm, because targeting journalists is an obvious intention to hide the truth from the world.

Whatever the story is in Egypt at the moment is of grave importance, and the world needs to hear about developments from reporters who are there, on the ground. The news and information coming from inside Egypt, despite the ruling administration’s efforts to thwart it, is punctuated with a tremendous number of stories about attacks on reporters. At best, it’s distracting from the main story the very people getting attacked are trying to tell. At worst, it’s pushing journalists into the mix and making them part of the story. And when a reporter becomes part of the story as violent as this one, their personal safety becomes paramount, not the news they are trying to gather.

There’s an encouraging thought in all of this, though. Of all the tales I’ve heard from journalists who have worked throughout the world from Africa to Afghanistan and beyond, there is an overarching theme: no matter what the powers that be do to control information and those who convey it, the truth will come out.

Attacks on Media in Recent Weeks

Journalists killed: Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud from Al-Ahram
Journalists attacked but not detained: 75
Journalists detained for at least 2 hours: 72
Journalists we don’t have any news about: 7
Case of material harmed and media offices closed: 25
Media the most targeted: Al Jazeera with 3 reporters attacked and 4 detained (all released) + office trashed.
Countries with the most harassed journalists in Egypt: US (29 + a VOA team) France (18) Poland (9) Qatar (7 – all Al Jazeera)

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Egypt's War on Journalists

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:17:19 +0000

As the situation in Egypt ramps up by the day, a casualty that is frequently making headlines is the media. Specifically, reporters.

The attacks on journalists have become so frequent and high profile (think Anderson Cooper) that the White House, in a rare move, has commented on it. According to a story in the New York Times on Thursday:

The Egyptian government broadened its crackdown of a 10-day uprising that has shaken its rule Thursday, arresting journalists and human rights activists.

The NYTimes added that White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs, in statements to press traveling with President Obama, said that the Mubarak government’s harassment of journalists, is “completely and totally unacceptable.”

The State Department said in a statement from spokesperson PJ Crowley on Wednesday:

After days of peaceful protests in Cairo and other cities in Egypt, today we see violent attacks on peaceful demonstrators and journalists. The United States denounces these attacks and calls on all engaged in demonstrations currently taking place in Egypt to do so peacefully. These attacks are not only dangerous to Egypt; they are a direct threat to the aspirations of the Egyptian people. The use of violence to intimidate the Egyptian people must stop. We strongly call for restraint.

The comments by the US government on the attacks on the media are unusual and demonstrate the highly sensitive nature of the events unfolding in Egypt. A key strategy has been to limit the outflow of news and information, but the attacks on and arrests of members of the media has had the opposite results.

Media freedom organizations also had strong condemnations for the targeting of journalists, with one organization calling the attacks an “all-out witch-hunt” against the media.

Sri Lankan News Website Office Set Afire

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 12:10:35 +0000

The office of a news website, Lankaenews (or Lanka-e-news) was set on fire over the weekend, apparently in an act of arson.

The news website shows photos of the completely decimated office after the fire, which destroyed the organization’s computers. It is not the first time they have been attacked. According to a statement from Sri Lanka’s UNP Deputy Leader and Gampaha district Parliamentarian Karu Jayasuriya, published on tamilweek.com, they have been targeted at least twice in the past.

Jayasuriya states that in January 2010, special feature writer Prageeth Eknaligoda disappeared, and a few days later the website’s office was surrounded by a crowd upset by the site’s support for General Sarath Fonseka during the presidential election. He added that the owner of Lanka-e-news has left Sri Lanka due to threats against him.

Lanka-e-news said on their website that the most recent attack against them was caused by arsonists who used gasoline to set fire to their office.

According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), the media in Sri Lanka are often targets of threats and violence. RSF added that the attack might be connected to the website’s recent editorial content:

The attack came several days after Lanka-e-News published an article questioning the testimony that defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse, the president’s brother, gave in a case brought against former army commander Sarath Fonseka.

Images from the Lanka-e-news website of their office after a fire that they suspect was arson.

The Tortured Writer

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 10:00:08 +0000

I don’t ever want my name as a journalist to be prefaced with the phrase “Pulitzer-prize winning reporter.” It’s not that I am against winning the Pulitzer Prize for my work someday, or that I think the Prize is the mark of a bourgeois journalist. There are simply too many people in the world doing too much great work that will likely never be recognized with a prize of any kind–let alone a Pulitzer.

Every week I see summarized stories of these journalists and writers in newsletters from Editor & Publisher, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders, and other organizations. They live in far-flung places like Pakistan, the Philippines, El Salvador, China, Brazil…Egypt.

The thing about these writers–whether they are bloggers or poets or investigative journalists or filmmakers–is that most of the time I hear their story only after it has a tragic twist to it. Yet they, and many, many others whom I will never hear of continue to do the work that they love and live by. Sometimes they die by it.

Last week I got an email from Editor & Publisher with a small snippet buried among other newsy items about the industry, noting that a reporter in Egypt had been beaten in the face with a steel bar.

According to an AFP report that quoted the reporter for BBC, Assad Sawey, journalists have been”deliberately” targeted by Cairo police in the recent unrest there. He recounted what happened to him during a BBC World television interview in Cairo.

“They took my camera away and when they arrested me they started beating me up with steel bars…like the ones used here for slaughtering animals,” he said. “They used electric bars to electrify me,” he said.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg as far as Egypt is concerned. RSF issued a release on Friday Jan. 28 with this ominous information:

It is hard to establish exactly how many journalists have been arrested or physically attacked by police officers in the past 48 hours. According to the latest information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, more than a dozen journalists have been arrested.

The interesting thing about the dangers that writers face is that most of the time they labor in relative anonymity. People in New York City might sit around and note the work of this or that columnist for the Washington Post, or a talented blogger for some well-known site. And in my mind, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that the writers whose names are so much less known, or only known after they have been tormented or killed for using their craft to speak the truth, are just as deserving of praise and support. Even if they never win a Pulitzer.

Obama's State of the Union Rhetoric

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:02:41 +0000

Every speechwriter knows that when a politician needs a speech, there are certain key words and phrases to hit on. In the case of the President of the United States, they are usually things like “hope” and “challenge” and “promise.” There is also the seminal standby: reaching across the aisle to work with (fill in opposing political party here).

While listening to President Obama’s State of the Union speech earlier this week, I heard two red flags mixed into the smooth delivery. One was that I felt like I was listening to a politician’s speech. The only thing missing was the free lunch that usually comes as a consolation prize when sitting through an event with a keynote speaker who rambles on for 30 or 40 minutes. (It was much longer in this case, by the way). The second red flag is that I could hear the speechwriter’s voice in the speech, mostly in the attempts at witty phrasing. My personal favorite: Sputnik moment. As soon as I heard Obama say it, I could see it in a newspaper headline. That could be because I’m a journalist, but it could also be because my country’s political discourse seems to have been reduced to a game of key-word catch phrases. It happened during the height of the healthcare reform debate. It happened in the aftermath of the recent Arizona shootings. And it happened during Obama’s State of the Union speech.

So it begs the question: if I think politicians, including the president, are just full of hot air–because it’s their job to pontificate–then what would I like to hear them say?

To begin with, I wouldn’t mind hearing Obama address the fact that our country continues to fail to truly bring countries like China to task for egregious human rights violations. China’s leader, Hu Jintao, just swept through the US earlier this month to a cavalcade of red carpet events and high-level meetings. It seemed that the only people with the chutzpah to raise questions about why China continues to kill its own citizens who dissent with the ruling regime were reporters. Good on them for doing their job well.

I also wouldn’t mind hearing Obama address the fact that members of our military who have been returning from Iraq and Afghanistan these past several years are increasingly committing suicide. Many of those who don’t kill themselves are suffering in a dark haze of PTSD, virtually unnoticed. It sounds worse than empty when the Commander in Chief stands up in front of the country and talks about the men and women who serve in the military overseas, but fails to mention that we face a domestic mental health crisis among many vets who return home.

It’s hard to argue with the fact that Obama is a populist president, though, which helps him tremendously when he speaks to the nation. He can talk about the hard work it takes to get an education, or find a place in the workforce, and you know he has personal, lived experience behind the words. His story is the American story of struggle and rewards earned through perseverance. So when he makes major speeches in the future, maybe he can bring that audacity he drew on to succeed in life to take a stronger stance on issues that he shied away from this week.

UNESCO to Host Journalism Symposium in Paris

Genevieve Long Belmaker — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:55:19 +0000

Paris will be home to a conference of over 300 of what IFEX characterizes as “media professionals, government officials, policymakers and civil society activists” on Jan. 26 when UNESCO’s headquarters hosts an international symposium on freedom of expression.

The event will be one day and will focus on the state of the free press around the world.

More information here: http://www.ifex.org/international/2010/12/22/unesco_symposium/

The one-day event will focus on the status of press freedom worldwide, the safety of media professionals as well as the changes to the media landscape in the digital age.