"Significant efforts to develop an independent journalism have stumbled badly in Central Asia, where politics, economics and the unforeseen consequence of widespread self-censorship have derailed development of a Western-style media and the democracy it serves. What is worse, from Kazakhstan to Uzbe
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kistan, prospects for developing a believable, fact-based journalism look grim. Much of this trouble can be laid at the doorstep of self-censorship, which flourishes across the region with uncommon vigor. Central Asian journalism is in worse shape than the rest of the post-Communist world, largely because the socioeconomic and political situations in this relatively remote region remain in flux from a backwardness that modernity is only of late and slowly affecting. One of the most confounding elements that stymie the evolution of Central Asia journalism is a culture that drives the new post-Communist institutions and the mentalities of the region's sociopolitical, economic, and cultural elites. Consequently, those who endeavor to aid the evolution of Central Asian media should look to the history and culture of the region and then impart a more complete understanding of Western journalism's mission, values, roles, and sound news business practices before addressing journalistic techniques." (Abstract)
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"Foreign correspondent Waghorn compares long-term assignments in China and Israel and observes: "Whereas in China the challenge was engaging the viewers' interest in somewhere so unfamiliar and alien, here [Israel] it is keeping them interested in somewhere they find over familiar. Rock-throwing, su
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icide bombs, helicopter gunships, funeral rallies and weeping relatives - they have seen it all before, time and time again." And in terms of physical obstacles to reporting, he writes, in Israel "they come in more dangerous forms than in China. In Gaza, for example, we operate with the risk of kidnapping and although dodging around in taxis, trying to remain unnoticed, can feel the same as ducking and diving to avoid Chinese police interference, in China a western correspondent can be fairly confident that the worst to fear is detention, losing your tapes and an occasional roughing up. Here there are more mortal dangers and neither side in the conflict has ever shown sufficient interest in the health and safety of journalists in the heat of battle." But in terms of obtaining information, Israel is light years ahead, he believes." (Abstract)
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"The Russian mass media system has experienced tremendous change since the Soviet era. It has been argued that some similarities still exist between the old Soviet system and the new post-Soviet media, such as the practice of self-censorship. Pressure has been mounting on the mass media's level of e
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ditorial freedom since the late Yeltsin era, beginning with a raft of new laws introduced under the guise of keeping the media ‘honest’. One contemporary influence constraining and shaping media de velopment is Russia's ‘war on terrorism’. Ever since the infamous apartment bombings of August 1999, over 1000 people have been killed and scores more physically and emotionally scarred by acts of terrorism on Russian soil. The political, social and economic costs have been considerable. Russia's ‘war on terrorism’ has provided the authorities with ample excuses to curtail media reporting, such as protecting the work of the security forces in combating terrorist activity, stopping the spread of terrorist ‘propaganda’ and protecting victims of terrorist acts. Numerous bills have been debated in the Duma on prohibiting activity by the mass media during an incident. Senior representatives from the mass media have been involved in talks with the authorities on the issue and in drawing up industry guidelines for reporting on a terrorist act." (Abstract)
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"In transitional societies where political pressure on the press is coupled with a commercial media system and a professional journalistic culture, the politics of self-censorship is likely to involve a strategic contest between the media and political actors. Language plays a significant role in th
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is contest. The present study focuses on the case of Hong Kong. It analyzes how two local newspapers, facing an important yet sensitive political issue, constructed two different overall storylines and used two different sets of discursive strategies in their editorials to handle political pressure, market credibility, and journalistic integrity simultaneously. The elite-oriented Ming Pao constructed a storyline of the debate as a factional struggle in order to posit itself as an impartial arbitrator. This approach was further sustained and justified by the discursive strategies of balanced and qualified criticisms and the rhetoric of rational discussion. The mass-oriented Apple Daily, on the other hand, constructed a storyline of a sovereign people whose rights are encroached upon by a powerful entity. The paper was therefore much more critical towards the power center. Nevertheless, it also appropriated the dominant discourse, constructed internal contradictions, and decentralized the Chinese central government to smooth out the radicalism of its criticisms." (Abstract)
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"The current war in Iraq saw an alliance between the media and the military, a process called embedded journalism. The aim of this study was to explore whether this process affected the journalists' vulnerability to psychological distress. Eighty-five of 100 journalists approached agreed to particip
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ate; 38 (44.7%) were embedded. There were no differences between embedded and unilateral (nonembedded) journalists on demographic measures or in their exposure to traumatic events. Similarly, the two groups did not differ on indices of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, psychological distress, and substance use. Based on General Health Questionnaire scores, one third of all journalists were psychologically distressed. There is no evidence from the recent war in Iraq suggesting that embedded journalists are at increased risk for psychological problems." (Abstract)
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"The notion of survival skills and safety guidelines has been slow to catch on with top media managers in the United States. In Europe, the BBC, ITN and Reuters mandate training for foreign correspondents. It has taken an era of international terrorism to spark a stronger push on the home front." (A
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bstract)
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"Although it is an issue of immediate interest to reporters and press organizations, antipress violence has not elicited a great deal of scholarly attention. While in the context of developed democracies, studies have concluded that violence against the press has significantly diminished in the twen
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tieth century, the situation is markedly different elsewhere. This gap is not surprising considering that the literature on press and democracy has been largely produced in the West and has largely reflected the absence of antipress violence in Western nations. The persistence of attacks against journalists outside the West, however, makes it necessary to put it at the center to analyze the situation of journalistic labor and the prospects for the press in historically weak democracies. This article analyzes antipress violence by focusing on the Latin American case. The argument is that in postauthoritarian situations, the breakdown of the state accounts for why the press, particularly investigative reporters and publications, is the target of violence. Antipress violence reflects the impossibility of the state’s fulfilling its mission to monopolize the legitimate use of violence and the lack of accountability of those responsible for the attacks. Because it is a central arena in the battle for public expression, the press becomes a prominent target when naked violence replaces the rule of law. The fate of the press is intrinsically linked to the fate of the democratic state. There cannot be a democratic press as long as the state does not secure minimal institutional conditions that democracy demands." (Abstract)
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"This article examines the development of freedom of the press and censorship in Egypt and the Arab world. Further, it discusses patterns of influence on freedom of the press and their impact on Arab journalists. It finds that press freedom in Arab countries and the performance of Arab journalists a
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re still threatened by a censorial political culture, one that develops in an environment usually dominated by a single political party. Overt censorship and self-censorship are commonplace in the Arab news media today and journalism education programs, just as the media themselves have, in fact, been recruited into a national enterprise for the production of propaganda. The technological changes sweeping the world will increase the pressure for change and make issues of censorship obsolete as journalists find outlets for reporting among transnational media." (Abstract)
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"The document discusses the Inter American Press Association's (IAPA) project on unpunished crimes against journalists. Over the past decade, more than 200 journalists have been murdered for doing their jobs reporting the news. Many of these crimes remain unsolved, allowing impunity to prevail. The
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IAPA's project aims to draw attention to this problem and bring perpetrators to justice in order to discourage future crimes against journalists and protect freedom of the press. The document outlines some of the IAPA's investigations and efforts to engage other international organizations in supporting this cause." (Horacio Ruiz, https://www.slideshare.net)
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"Hong Kong's handover has induced self-censorship among the press in order to curry favor with and avoid coercive pressure from China. Based on a comprehensive survey, this article shows that many journalists perceive their colleagues as being afraid to criticize China but think of themselves as bei
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ng more courageous. Journalists from the party press are systematically different from those from the market-oriented press. However, market-driven “information newspapers” are moving toward apoliticization and toward accommodating the new sovereign, thus blurring their differences with market-driven “story newspapers." (Abstract)
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"In identifying the chief types of U.S. anti-press violence, the author discusses four basic patterns: violence among individuals, violence against ideas, violence against groups, and violence against an institution. Each pattern has its own chronology. Five models of the press in U.S. history are d
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eveloped: rational liberty, partisanism, commercialism, industry, and institution. The author implicitly argues that media ideologies are rooted in media practices. The outline of media models is meant to illustrate the point that media are defined historically. Media are networks of relationships that can be constructed, reconstructed, and deconstructed in various ways with varying implications for where power is located and how it is exercised. Violent activity is often involved in the process of definition. Maintaining that violence has been an integral part of the culture of public expression in this Nation since earliest times, this survey develops the concept that violent reactions to writers and publishers, rather than occurring sporadically, have been systematic and recurrent, indicative of a long and consistent process of cultural evolution. Disputing claims that anti-press violence is a marginal aspect of American society conducted by fringe elements of the population, the book profiles decades of such incidents of aggression, from colonial printers to Salman Rushdie. The author presents a detailed taxonomy of the various forms of anti-press violence and historical analyses of such conflicts during the American Revolution, Early Republic, Civil War, and other periods. Chapter notes, a subject index, and appended survey questionnaire and discussions of the flow of antiabolitionist violence and Civil War newspaper mobbings." (Abstract)
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