Media Freedom Not Sexy For Reporters, Shrugs All Around

Michael Hedges July 14, 2019 - Follow on Twitter

Big meetings of the mighty are called summits. Even for lessor mortals, conferences are usually planned and orchestrated with discussions, power-points and a handy closing statement. Regardless of scale, these get-togethers are great for networking and fundraising. It’s very simple.

A special two-day conference focused on media freedom issues was held in London this past week. It was jointly hosted by Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland and UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt. According to the official release 100 or more governments were represented. To add a little star-power, the conference, dubbed Defend Media Freedom, featured prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, recently named UK’s special envoy on media freedom.

News coverage of the event, which brought together a thousand participants, was sparse. Certainly, with the onset of summer holiday season newsrooms are depleted. Then in the UK, there was yet another Brexit-related scandal requiring hands-on reporting. Add to this the usual catastrophes, man-made and otherwise, and various Twitter distractions. There is only so much attention to go around.

Noting the dearth of interest, one participant blamed reporters’ natural aversion to charges of navel-gazing. Sussex University (UK) journalism professor Ivor Gaber called the lack of coverage “shameful,” quoted by Press Gazette (July 12). Editors, he said, could make media freedom “a sexy issue that readers will be interested in. I don’t think we’ve created a culture where attacks on journalists are a sexy issue.”

“World leaders responded with little more than a collective shrug” to the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, said Barrister Clooney, reported the AP (July 10). Intelligence sources concluded Mr. Khashoggi’s death at the hands of Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in October 2018 was premeditated and gruesome. “The vast majority of these murders go unpunished.”

Barrister Clooney recently joined the legal team representing Philippine online news porter The Rappler founder and editor Maria Ressa, who has faced ongoing harassment from authorities over critical reporting of President Rodrigo Duterte. “We've been able to find shareholders, investors that believe in us,” said Ms Ressa to a conference panel on media ownership, quoted by the Rappler (July 10). “When you don’t have control over where the money will be spent, you don’t have editorial control.”

The UK and Canadian governments are participating financially to the Global Media Defense Fund, estimated at US$4.5 million. UNESCO is administering the fund. “This will help fund legal advice ad improve security training for the benefit of reporters working in situations of conflict and danger and to help them uphold their right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press.” said UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulayin, a statement (July 11). “I call on other Member States to follow the example of the UK and Canada in contributing to this work, which includes reinforcing legal protection for media workers, and fighting impunity that still affects the vast majority of crimes against media workers worldwide. More than ever, we need such multilateral strategies to strengthen media freedom and the safety of journalists more than ever.”

See also...

• Hot Topics - Press/Media Freedom