Viral Video: Careful, This Stuff's Powerful

For the past four years, the Sunshine Press, which operates the non-profit website WikiLeaks, has caused quite a stir among governments—both U.S. and international—by posting documents and information provided or “leaked” to it by anonymous sources close to those governments. As an example of just how seriously governments take WikiLeaks, a March 2008 U.S. cyber counterintelligence report posted on the site on March 15, 2010 details U.S. Intelligence’s plans to destroy WikiLeaks, citing that there is no way to determine whether sensitive or classified information is shared that might damage national security. WikiLeaks has persevered, although not without its share of censure (it’s been blocked by the governments of China, Zimbabwe, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam and Israel, for example).

But on April 5, it posted what is probably the most sensational material in its tenure: a classified 18-minute video leaked by an anonymous Pentagon source that allegedly shows the Apache helicopter killing of two Reuters employees and their rescuers outside of Baghdad in 2007, which it posted under the URL “CollateralMurder.com.” For the past three years, Reuters had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain this video and related materials from the Pentagon through the Freedom of Information Act.

WikiLeaks sent two reporters to Baghdad to research the story and interview the families of the victims and, according to founder Julian Assange, broke the code that encrypted the video. Within 24 hours of its posting, it had garnered over 1.3 million hits on YouTube. Critics of the video, including a helicopter pilot involved in the mission, state that the video is misleading in its portrayal of a malicious act rather than the result of confusion on the ground. But the mushroom effect of this video points up the immediacy of digital media and its powerful reach.

WikiLeaks is currently in the process of soliciting funds to cover the costs of releasing another video showing civilian killings in Afghanistan. The organization has operated on a budget of about $600,000 per year, and states that it has currently raised just over half of that for 2010. It claims to have thousands of pages of documents that it cannot share with the world due to limited capacity, but its method of digital sharing appears to be a cost-effective one: even $10 can cover the cost of releasing a document to 10,000 people.

As Assange puts it, “In terms of journalism efficiency, I think we discovered a lot with a small amount of resources.”

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CIMA Launches Global Media Assistance Resource

The Center for International Media Assistance has just launched a new web site aimed at filling a gap in globally accessible media law assistance. The goal of the site is that it serve as a source for both information and analysis through seminal texts, legislation, and court decisions on media law. The result of a two-year process involving various stakeholders, the web site has been designed and administered by the Center for Global Communication Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. Two of the key features are an online community where users can discuss issues related to media law with lawyers, journalists and academics, as well as a news blog covering developments in the area of global media law.

To visit this new resource, go to: http://www.globalmedialaw.com

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Journalists in the Crossfire... 'Foregoing the Why'

The Washington Post has a good piece on violence against journalists in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, a gritty industrial city of 1.5 million that has tallied more than 1,300 grizzly homicides already this year. Since 2000, more than 30 Mexican journalists have been slain, and the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Joel Simon calls the border region – where powerful drug cartels are battling for control – ‘ground zero.’ The costs to society are many, including the fact that journalists flee or simply self censor… only exploring the who, what, when and where… but foregoing the why.

To see the WP story, click here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112402776.html?hpid=topnews

To see CPJ’s recent report on journalists along the Mexican border (“The Disappeared in Mexico”) click here: http://www.cpj.org/americas

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Sticks and Stones...

"A Twit"
"Cowardly"
"El Esposo Gordo"
They sound like humorous enough insults from afar. But according to the current issue of National Geographic magazine these insults were considered going too far by governments around the globe. These examples of insult laws, provided by the World Press Freedom Committee, show how stifled speech still is in many countries.

Insulting Turkishness is no longer a crime in Turkey, the magazine says. But insulting a public figure, or the republic's founder Ataturk, is.

The kicker? That breaking these insult laws often comes with a hefty price. Sentences have included $10 million in Paraguay and 74 lashes in Iran.

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World 'Divided' on Press Freedom

You have two doors to choose from: #1 is marked press freedom and #2 stability. Choose. Quick. No questions.

Well, some disturbing news for press-freedom advocates: In a global survey that posed essentially that question, about 40 percent said it was more important to maintain social harmony and peace, even if it meant curbing the press’s freedom to report truthfully. That means a lot of people chose option #2.

The survey, which looked at views in 14 countries, also covered:
+ Whether people feel the press can operate freely in their country
+ How good a job respondents feel the press does in covering news accurately
+ The concentration of private media in the hands of fewer large companies.

Interestingly, in the U.S., Britain and Germany, about 29 percent thought the press does a good job of reporting news accurately.

See the study at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7134918.stm

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Toasting A Friend of Press Freedom...

The world of press freedom lost a true leader this past week. Dana Bullen, who for many years headed the World Press Freedom Committee, passed away June 25. A real ‘journalist's journalist,’ Bullen was foreign editor at The Washington Star, covered the U.S. Senate and Supreme Court, wrote a syndicated column and was selected as a Nieman Fellow. He headed the WPFC for 15 years, sitting in on many UNESCO meetings - where New World Information and Communication Order proposals were launched - lobbying behind the scenes to nip potential dangers in the bud. On an individual level Bullen also helped many journalists lacking institutional support by covering their legal bills through WPFC’s Fund Against Censorship. In 2000, Bullen was awarded the Inter American Press Association’s Chapultepec Grand Prize in recognition of his work for press freedom.

To see the New York Times obituary
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/us/27bullen.html?ex=1183608000&en=2e4f8a07d1090586&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERNEWS

We welcome you to post a comment about Bullen

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Being There

It’s a stark and grisly black-and-white image from the past – a line of executioners, kneeling and squatting under a hot mid-day sun - captured the moment they open fire on a row of prisoners several yards in front of them. Facing in the direction of the firing squad, but blindfolded, most of the prisoners are already crumbling to the ground or being thrown backward as bullets hit them, dust flying up from the earth. A lone prisoner on the far right side of the image adds to the photograph’s considerable power – he still stands facing above and beyond his executioner, unable to see him, awaiting death.

For 27 years this Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Kurdish prisoners being executed was attributed only to an ‘anonymous’ photographer. When it ran the photo in 1979, the Iranian newspaper Ettela’at chose not to reveal the photographer’s name out of concern for his safety. Fast forward to 2002, when reporter Joshua Prager of The Wall Street Journal tracked down the unknown photojournalist. He eventually found the author of the photograph – Jahangir Razmi – and convinced Razmi to show him the entire contact sheet. The Iranian journalist’s name finally appeared as the photo’s author in a Journal story from December of this past year (throughout the years numerous other photographers had been cited as the author) and at the Pulitzer luncheon at Columbia University on May 21 Razmi received his Pulitzer certificate and $10,000 prize.

Kudos go out to many in a fascinating story like this – to the folks at the local UPI desk 27 years ago who immediately appreciated the photo’s value and had it transmitted around the globe; to Prager for the persistence in pursuing a difficult story; to Sig Gissler, who administers the Pulitzer for exploring whether this is now a safe time for the prize to be given; and to Razmi. For being there when it counts.
To see Prager’s December 2006 piece in the Wall Street Journal (includes a link to the entire contact sheet of photos that Razmi took that day)
To see a New Yorker piece on Razmi’s recent trip to the U.S.
To see an International Herald Tribune piece which includes the photograph

For those in the Chicago area: The First Division Museum at Cantigny (Wheaton, IL) is hosting a summer exhibit “REQUIEM: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina.” These 150 ‘moving and powerful photographs – taken by men and women on all sides who gave their lives during the conflict – begin with the French Indochina War in the 1950s and culminate with the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon in 1975.’ The opening is June 21, 2007, at 6:30 pm. See the Cantigny website for more information at www.FirstDivisionMuseum.org.

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Please Don't Shoot the Messenger

Reading about journalists who go beyond the call of duty to carry out their work is a reminder that this is a job, yes, but also a calling that can inspire passion and demand exceptional courage. Take the case of Lydia Cacho, a Mexican journalist and human rights activist who reports for the CIMAC news agency and also writes features for "Dia Siete" magazine. Cacho has written extensively about prostitution rings in Cancun and wrote a book published last year, “Los Demonios del Eden” (“Demons of Eden”), about the Lebanese-born head of a local child pornography and prostitution ring. When she testified at his trial in May of this year, her car was sabotaged and she was threatened with violence. She now travels with bodyguards .

Lydia Cacho has just been named one of the 2007 Courage in Journalism Award Winners by the International Women’s Media Foundation. IWMF’s award, created in 1990, honors ‘women journalists who have shown extraordinary strength of character and integrity while reporting the news under dangerous or difficult circumstances’ and includes high-profile events in Los Angeles and New York. Other 2007 winners are:
+ The Iraqi women reporters of McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau, who risk their lives to cover the war in Iraq;
+ Ethiopian publisher Serkalem Fasil, who gave birth to a son while confined to a vermin-infested jail cell for her work; and
+ Peta Thornycroft of Zimbabwe, who is being given a lifetime achievement award for her many years of independent reporting on human rights abuses, farm occupation and government repression.

Read more at http://www.iwmf.org/press/10092.

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Free Speech vs. Press Responsibility: The Venezuela Situation

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been making worldwide headlines this week with his closure of Radio Caracas Television network (RCTV), the country's oldest television channel, founded in 1953. The move comes as part of a larger effort to "socialize" the country's media with government-backed channels such as TVes, which broadcasts cultural programs. Chavez had earlier accused CNN of comparing him to Osama bin Laden by juxtaposing images of the two during a broadcast. CNN acknowleged the mix-up, but denied comparing Chavez with the al-Qaida leader.

Most international coverage of the station closings is overwhelmingly negative, with several media rights groups calling it a serious blow to free speech. Chavez and his supporters counter that the privately-owned independent stations do not represent the interests of Venezuela's people, and that many of these stations were supporting overthrow attempts and some had even encouraged assassination attempts. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) points out that in 2002, RCTV participated in a short-lived coup that temporarily removed Chavez' democratically-elected government and that once Chavez returned to power, RCTV refused to report on it, forcing the question of a media outlet's responsibility to report relevant news events, and the consequences of abdicating that responsibility.

Student protests against the closings continue, and police have responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Several students have been injured and one police officer has suffered a broken leg.

Other reading:

Yahoo! News

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

CNN

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