Media watchdog paints grim image

NEW YORK – The Committee to Protect Journalists painted a bleak image of press freedom in its annual report last week, accusing governments and guerrillas alike of controlling, intimidating and censoring the media.

From tightening controls on the press in Russia to Internet restrictions in China, the New York-based watchdog said governments were increasingly shifting from overt repression to more subtle ways to muzzle their critics in the media. The ‘Attacks on the Press’ report said while journalists were protected by international law, “in an era in which even US officials describe the Geneva Conventions as ‘quaint’, these protections increasingly exist in name only”.”Events in Iraq and Lebanon reflect the erosion in war correspondents’ traditional status as neutral observers,” the group’s executive director Joel Simon said in the introduction to the more than 300-page report.”In Iraq, the most dangerous conflict in CPJ’s history, insurgents so routinely target reporters that more than two-thirds of media deaths are murders, not acts of war,” he added.The report said that while there was no evidence to suggest that the 14 journalists killed by US forces in Iraq were deliberately targeted, none of the killings had been adequately investigated by the military.The report identified Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as among the worst offenders.”Presidents Chavez and Putin represent a generation of sophisticated, elected leaders who have created a legal framework to control, intimidate, and censor the news media,” it said.”The rise of ‘democratators’ – popularly elected autocrats – is alarming because it represents a new model for government control,” it said, accusing the leaders of tolerating the facade of democracy while gutting it from within.”Other nations take a revolving-door approach, imprisoning journalists and releasing them before an international outcry.”It said Iran, for example, had banned more than 100 publications and jailed dozens of journalists since 2000, and while many were released after relatively short periods, the official threat of re-arrest hung over them.It accused governments of “calculated indifference” in many journalists’ killings, contending that in 85 per cent of cases in which journalists were murdered in the last 15 years, no one was ever brought to justice.”This unsolved violence provokes massive self-censorship,” it said.The watchdog said 13 journalists had been murdered in Russia since Putin took power in 2000 and that none of the killers had been brought to justice.”This record causes reporters to ask fewer questions, to probe less deeply, to pass up risky stories,” it said.”Putin, while professing concern, benefits from this state of fear.”China, meanwhile, was depriving its citizens of basic information by erecting massive firewalls and enlisting corporate co-operation to control the medium.”The flood of information that circulates in the Internet age can blind us to the fact that enemies of press freedom still succeed in keeping vital stories from the public eye,” Simon said in summary.”We are saturated with information but often deprived of essential news.”Nampa-ReutersThe ‘Attacks on the Press’ report said while journalists were protected by international law, “in an era in which even US officials describe the Geneva Conventions as ‘quaint’, these protections increasingly exist in name only”.”Events in Iraq and Lebanon reflect the erosion in war correspondents’ traditional status as neutral observers,” the group’s executive director Joel Simon said in the introduction to the more than 300-page report.”In Iraq, the most dangerous conflict in CPJ’s history, insurgents so routinely target reporters that more than two-thirds of media deaths are murders, not acts of war,” he added.The report said that while there was no evidence to suggest that the 14 journalists killed by US forces in Iraq were deliberately targeted, none of the killings had been adequately investigated by the military.The report identified Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as among the worst offenders.”Presidents Chavez and Putin represent a generation of sophisticated, elected leaders who have created a legal framework to control, intimidate, and censor the news media,” it said.”The rise of ‘democratators’ – popularly elected autocrats – is alarming because it represents a new model for government control,” it said, accusing the leaders of tolerating the facade of democracy while gutting it from within.”Other nations take a revolving-door approach, imprisoning journalists and releasing them before an international outcry.”It said Iran, for example, had banned more than 100 publications and jailed dozens of journalists since 2000, and while many were released after relatively short periods, the official threat of re-arrest hung over them.It accused governments of “calculated indifference” in many journalists’ killings, contending that in 85 per cent of cases in which journalists were murdered in the last 15 years, no one was ever brought to justice.”This unsolved violence provokes massive self-censorship,” it said.The watchdog said 13 journalists had been murdered in Russia since Putin took power in 2000 and that none of the killers had been brought to justice.”This record causes reporters to ask fewer questions, to probe less deeply, to pass up risky stories,” it said.”Putin, while professing concern, benefits from this state of fear.”China, meanwhile, was depriving its citizens of basic information by erecting massive firewalls and enlisting corporate co-operation to control the medium.”The flood of information that circulates in the Internet age can blind us to the fact that enemies of press freedom still succeed in keeping vital stories from the public eye,” Simon said in summary.”We are saturated with information but often deprived of essential news.”Nampa-Reuters