The Committee to Protect Journalists and 10 other journalism and human rights groups sent a letter on Monday, November 11, to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva ahead of its November 13 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Nicaragua’s human rights record.
The letter is a response to a September report by the State of Nicaragua asserting that there have been no violations of freedom of expression during the U.N. evaluation period (2019-2023). But reports from press freedom and human rights groups and international bodies show that press freedom in the country is nearly nonexistent.
The coalition of organizations calls on the Nicaraguan government to stop persecuting and criminalizing journalists and other dissenting voices, and urges the UNRHC to support press freedom and adopt measures to protect it.
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Ethiopian authorities to accept and implement recommendations on improving press freedom conditions and guaranteeing the safety of journalists during the United Nations’ upcoming review of its human rights record.
Earlier this year, CPJ submitted a report assessing Ethiopia’s press freedom and journalist safety record from 2019, as part of the country’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)scheduled for November 12. During the UPR, the United Nations Human Rights Council peer reviews the human rights record of a country, and considers recommendations on how a country can better fulfill its international human rights obligations.
CPJ’s report to the U.N. detailed the arbitrary detention, physical violence, harassment, and severe legal restrictions Ethiopian journalists face. CPJ made several recommendations including promptly releasing detained journalists, investigating attacks on the press, ensuring accountability for violence against journalists, and amending repressive laws to align with international human rights standards.
CPJ’s UPR submission on Ethiopia is available in English here.
An investigative journalist who was barred from attending New Zealand’s national apology to survivors of abuse in care has now been granted accreditation.
Parliament’s Speaker has now granted temporary Press Gallery accreditation to journalist Aaron Smale for tomorrow’s apology for abuse in care. He must, however, be accompanied by a Newsroom reporter at all times.
It follows a significant backlash from survivors and advocates to the initial decision.
Smale has covered abuse in care, and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the abuse, for eight years. His work has appeared in multiple publications and websites, including Newsroom, Newshub, The Listener, The Spinoff and RNZ.
Last week, speaker Gerry Brownlee declined an application from Newsroom for Smale to report on the apology.
Parliament’s Press Gallery had asked for an explanation, as a refusal was quite rare, especially when a reporter met the gallery’s criteria for accreditation.
It was told the application was declined, with the Speaker citing Smale’s conduct on a prior occasion.
This afternoon, the Press Gallery wrote to the Speaker, requesting a more fulsome explanation.
Speaker’s about-turn
In an about-turn, the Speaker approved the application.
Speaker Gerry Brownlee in select committee. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
The initial decision to decline Smale’s application was met with backlash by survivor groups and advocates, as well as politicians and Newsroom itself.
At a media conference at Parliament in July, Smale and the Prime Minister had an exchange over the government’s law and order policies, and whether the Prime Minister would acknowledge the link between abuse and gang membership.
According to Newsroom, Smale had also attended a media event at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North, and pressed Children’s Minister Karen Chhour over whether it had been appropriate to associate the memory of the Māori Battalion with the new youth justice programme.
“The Beehive was in touch with us to say they believed he had been too forceful and too rude, in their view, in those two occasions,” Newsroom’s co-editor Tim Murphy told RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme.
Murphy said that Smale had conceded he had pushed the children’s minister “a bit far”.
“But the one in Parliament, he was asking specific questions and kept asking them of the Prime Minister and I think that became irritating to the Prime Minister,” Murphy said.
‘Most informed’ of journalists
Describing Smale as “the most informed, possibly, probably of all New Zealand journalists” on the issue of abuse in state care institutions, Murphy said political discomfort should not be a reason to exclude Smale, and the ban should not stand.
“He should be there, and he should be asking questions, because he’ll know more than virtually everybody else who could be,” he said.
Murphy said Smale’s intention for his coverage of the apology itself was to write an observational piece through the eyes of survivors, and he was not intending to “get into a grilling.”
The Royal Commission Forum, an advisory group to the commission, said denying Smale accreditation was “profoundly concerning” and a damaging decision in the lead-up to the apology.
The Green Party said it was alarmed by the move, and said it set a dangerous precedent.
“As a society that values the role of the Fourth Estate, we should value the work of journalists like Aaron, because it helps us take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we may move forward,” said the Green Party’s media and communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.
“Barring a leading journalist from an important event like this speaks to this government’s lack of accountability. It is something we might expect in Putin’s Russia, not 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Press freedom is a pillar of American democracy. But political attacks on US-based journalists and news organisations pose an unprecedented threat to their safety and the integrity of information.
Less than 48 hours before election day, Donald Trump, now President-elect for a second term, told a rally of his supporters that he wouldn’t mind if someone shot the journalists in front of him.
“I have this piece of glass here, but all we have really over here is the fake news. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much,” he said.
A new survey from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) highlights a disturbing tolerance for political bullying of the press in the land of the First Amendment. The findings show that this is especially true among white, male, Republican voters.
We commissioned this nationally representative survey of 1020 US adults, which was fielded between June 24 and July 5 2024, to assess Americans’ attitudes to the press ahead of the election. We are publishing the results here for the first time.
More than one-quarter (27 percent) of the Americans we polled said they had often seen or heard a journalist being threatened, harassed or abused online. And more than one-third (34 percent) said they thought it was appropriate for senior politicians and government officials to criticise journalists and news organisations.
Tolerance for political targeting of the press appears as polarised as American society. Nearly half (47 percent) of the Republicans surveyed approved of senior politicians critiquing the press, compared to less than one-quarter (22 percent) of Democrats.
Our analysis also revealed divisions according to gender and ethnicity. While 37 percent of white-identifying respondents thought it was appropriate for political leaders to target journalists and news organisations, only 27 percent of people of colour did. There was also a nine-point difference along gender lines, with 39 percent of men approving of this conduct, compared to 30 percent of women.
It appears intolerance towards the press has a face — a predominantly white, male and Republican-voting face.
Press freedom fears This election campaign, Trump has repeated his blatantly false claim that journalists are “enemies of the people”. He has suggested that reporters who cross him should be jailed, and signalled that he would like to revoke broadcast licences of networks.
Relevant, too, is the enabling environment for viral attacks on journalists created by unregulated social media companies which represent a clear threat to press freedom and the safety of journalists. Previous research produced by ICFJ for Unesco concluded that there was a causal relationship between online violence towards women journalists and physical attacks.
While political actors may be the perpetrators of abuse targeting journalists, social media companies have facilitated their viral spread, heightening the risk to journalists.
We’ve seen a potent example of this in the current campaign, when Haitian Times editor Macollvie J. Neel was “swatted” — meaning police were dispatched to her home after a fraudulent report of a murder at the address — during an episode of severely racist online violence.
Trajectory of Trump attacks Since the 2016 election, Trump has repeatedly discredited independent reporting on his campaign. He has weaponised the term “fake news” and accused the media of “rigging” elections.
“The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect [Hillary Clinton] president,” he said in 2016. With hindsight, such accusations foreshadowed his false claims of election fraud in 2020, and similar preemptive claims in 2024.
His increasingly virulent attacks on journalists and news organisations are amplified by his supporters online and far-right media. Trump has effectively licensed attacks on American journalists through anti-press rhetoric and undermined respect for press freedom.
In 2019, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that more than 11 percent of 5400 tweets posted by Trump between the date of his 2016 candidacy and January 2019 “. . . insulted or criticised journalists and outlets, or condemned and denigrated the news media as a whole”.
After being temporarily deplatformed from Twitter for breaching community standards, Trump launched Truth Social, where he continues to abuse his critics uninterrupted. But he recently rejoined the platform (now X), and held a series of campaign events with X owner and Trump backer Elon Musk.
The failed insurrection on January 6, 2021, rammed home the scale of the escalating threats facing American journalists. During the riots at the Capitol, at least 18 journalists were assaulted and reporting equipment valued at tens of thousands of dollars was destroyed.
This election cycle, Reporters Without Borders logged 108 instances of Trump insulting, attacking or threatening the news media in public speeches or offline remarks over an eight-week period ending on October 24.
Meanwhile, the Freedom of the Press Foundation has recorded 75 assaults on journalists since January 1 this year. That’s a 70 percent increase on the number of assaults captured by their press freedom tracker in 2023.
A recent survey of hundreds of journalists undertaking safety training provided by the International Women’s Media Foundation found that 36 percent of respondents reported being threatened with or experiencing physical violence. One-third reported exposure to digital violence, and 28 percent reported legal threats or action against them.
US journalists involved in ongoing ICFJ research have told us that they have felt particularly at risk covering Trump rallies and reporting on the election from communities hostile towards the press. Some are wearing protective flak jackets to cover domestic politics. Others have removed labels identifying their outlets from their reporting equipment to reduce the risk of being physically attacked.
And yet, our survey reveals a distinct lack of public concern about the First Amendment implications of political leaders threatening, harassing, or abusing journalists. Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of Americans surveyed did not regard political attacks on journalists or news organisations as a threat to press freedom. Among them, 38 percent identified as Republicans compared to just 9 percent* as Democrats.
The anti-press playbook Trump’s anti-press playbook appeals to a global audience of authoritarians. Other political strongmen, from Brazil to Hungary and the Philippines, have adopted similar tactics of deploying disinformation to smear and threaten journalists and news outlets.
Such an approach imperils journalists while undercutting trust in facts and critical independent journalism.
History shows that fascism thrives when journalists cannot safely and freely do the work of holding governments and political leaders to account. As our research findings show, the consequences are a society accepting lies and fiction as facts while turning a blind eye to attacks on the press.
*The people identifying as Democrats in this sub-group are too few to make this a reliable representative estimate.
Note: Nabeelah Shabbir (ICFJ deputy director of research) and Kaylee Williams (ICFJ research associate) also contributed to this article and the research underpinning it. The survey was conducted by Langer Research Associates in English and Spanish. ICFJ researchers co-developed the survey and conducted the analysis.
The Palau Media Council has condemned a political lawsuit against the publisher of the Island Times as an “assault on press freedom” with the Pacific country facing an election on Tuesday.
In a statement yesterday, the council added that the lawsuit, filed by Surangel and Sons Co. against Times publisher Leilani Reklai over her newspaper’s coverage of tax-related documents that surfaced on social media, was an attempt to undermine the accountability that was vital to democracy.
The statement also said the lawsuit raised “critical concerns about citizens’ access to information and freedom of the press.
“This lawsuit, combined with government’s statements endorsing that Island Times reported mis-information on its coverage of the tax related document and the decision to ban Island Times from Surangel and Sons [distribution] outlets, raises critical concerns about citizens’ access to information and the freedom of the press — both of which are cornerstones of a democratic society,” the statement said.
“The council sees this legal action as an assault on press freedom and an attempt to undermine the accountability that is vital to democracy.”
The statement said that Reklai, one of Palau’s senior journalists, was being targeted simply for reporting on documents that were already in the public domain.
“She did not originate the information but responsibly conveyed what these documents suggested, raising questions about the current administration’s narrative on corporate tax contributions,” the council said.
‘Journalistic duty’
“Reporting on such information is a journalistic duty to ensure transparency in tax policies and government incentives impacting the private sector.
“The Island Times, by publishing these documents, has provided a platform for clarifying public understanding of the new PGST tax law’s impact on major corporations and the actual tax contributions of Surangel and Sons.
“These issues are clearly within the public’s right to know, and the council emphasises that media plays a crucial role in reporting such findings and promoting informed debate.
The council said it stood in solidarity with Reklai and all journalists who strived to find and uphold the truth.
“In a healthy democracy, a free and open press is essential for informed citizens and responsible governance.”
Warnings are not enough. After Victoria Roshchyna’s death, we need zero tolerance of the detention and brutal treatment of female reporters
Last summer I began receiving messages about the disappearance of 26-year-old Victoria Roshchyna, a young Ukrainian journalist, who had gone missing while reporting from occupied east Ukraine.
Since we began our Women Press Freedom project, I and my colleagues at the Coalition for Women in Journalism have received a lot of messages of concern about the safety of female journalists all over the world, but I vividly remember the pain and terror that peppered the SOS calls from Roshchyna’s friends and colleagues.
Kiran Nazish is the director and founder of the Coalition for Women in Journalism and Women Press Freedom
Israel is the world’s second-worst offender after Haiti in letting the murder of journalists go unpunished, according to a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, reports Al Jazeera.
According to the CPJ’s 2024 Global Impunity Index, released yesterday, Somalia, Syria and South Sudan round up the list of the top five countries allowing journalists’ killers to evade justice.
“What’s clear from our index is that Israel is not committed to investigating or punishing those who have killed journalists . . . Israel has deliberately targeted journalists for being journalists,” CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera.
The CPJ index also noted that globally, nobody was held accountable for 80 percent of cases related to the murder of journalists, and in at least 241 killings there had been evidence that the journalists were directly targeted for their work.
Rise of criminal gangs
The index — which was launched in 2008 — comprises 13 nations this year and includes both democracies and non-democratic governments.
Haiti, which tops the list, has been challenged by the rise of criminal gangs, who played a role in destabilising the country’s administrative and judicial institutions, resulting in the murders of at least seven journalists remaining unresolved in the country, the index said.
Meanwhile, Israel, which ranks second on the list, has appeared on the index for the first time since its inception.
The CPJ said the country’s “failure to hold anyone to account in the targeted killing of five journalists in Gaza and Lebanon in a year of relentless war”, had resulted in its ranking on the index.
While the press freedom NGO is investigating the killings of at least 10 journalists, the CPJ said the number of murdered journalists might still be higher, considering the scale of Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.
Israel ‘deliberately targeted journalists’ At least 128 journalists and media workers are among the tens of thousands of people Israel has killed in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon over the past year — the deadliest time for journalists since the CPJ began to track the killings more than four decades ago.
The CPJ index also noted that Mexico has recorded the highest overall number of unpunished murders of journalists – 21 – during the index period and ranks eighth on the index because of its sizeable population.
Asian countries like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines have been appearing on the index regularly since its inception.
Calling on the international community to help journalists, Ginsberg said in a statement: “Murder is the ultimate weapon to silence journalists.”
“Once impunity takes hold, it sends a clear message: that killing a journalist is acceptable and that those who continue reporting may face a similar fate.”
The Commonwealth Heads of Government adopted the Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance at their summit meeting in Apia, Samoa, last week.
These Principles highlight the importance of freedom of expression and media freedom to democracy. They state that Commonwealth governments “should consider repealing or amending laws which unduly restrict the right to freedom of expression”.
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and the Commonwealth Journalists Association called on states to take practical and effective steps to end arbitrary and excessive restrictions on free expression. The Commonwealth as a whole must audit progress and engage with civil society to ensure that these Principles are implemented in reality.
Freedom of expression is not just a right in itself — it is the foundation that allows us to exercise and defend all other human rights, and is safeguarded under international law.
However, as we know all too well, this right is under threat.
According to UNESCO, in Commonwealth countries alone, 178 journalists were killed between 2006 and 2020. Furthermore, the impunity rate for the killings of journalists during that same time is 96 percent — which is notably higher than the global impunity rate of 87 percent.
Restrictive, colonial-era laws
Many Commonwealth countries still maintain restrictive, colonial-era laws that curtail free expression, suppress diverse voices, and inhibit the transparency that is essential for democracy.
In the Commonwealth:
41 countries continue to criminalise defamation; 48 countries still retain laws related to sedition; and
“These laws, often enforced through criminal sanctions, have a chilling effect on activists, journalists, iand others who fear retaliation for speaking truth to power”, said William Horsley of the Commonwealth Journalists Association.
“This has led to an alarming rise in self-censorship and a decline in the independent and dissenting voices that are vital for holding governments accountable.”
Civil society response
The Principles were first put forward by a group of civil society organisations in response to a general deterioration in legal protections and the working environment for journalists.
The CJA convened other civil society organisations, including the CHRI, Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, before Commonwealth member states reviewed and adopted the Principles in the form which was adopted by heads of government at the 2024 CHOGM.
States are “urged to take concrete and meaningful steps to implement them within their domestic frameworks, as set out in the CHOGM Samoa Communiqué“.
The joint report Who Controls the Narrative? Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the Commonwealth reveals the increasing use of criminal law provisions, including those related to defamation, sedition, blasphemy, and national security, to restrict freedom of expression and media freedom within the Commonwealth.
The report is the product of extensive collaboration between Commonwealth partners, legal experts, academics, human rights advocates, and media professionals, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal frameworks governing freedom of expression and outlines clear pathways for reform.
In addition to analysing legal restrictions on free speech in Commonwealth states, the report puts forward actionable recommendations for reform.
These include regional and national-level proposals, as well as broader Commonwealth-wide recommendations aimed at strengthening legal frameworks, promoting judicial independence, encouraging media pluralism, and enhancing international accountability mechanisms.
#Commonwealth Heads of Government (#CHOGM2024) adopted the Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance at their summit meeting in Apia, #Samoa. https://t.co/HP9Lr1Aire
Reforms essential
These reforms are essential for establishing an environment where free expression can thrive, allowing individuals to speak without fear of reprisal.
“While many member states share a colonial legal legacy that includes repressive laws still in effect today, they also share a commitment to democratic governance and the rule of law as set out in the Commonwealth Charter,” said Sneh Aurora, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.
“The Commonwealth has the potential to lead by example in promoting freedom of expression through legal reform, ensuring that criminal laws are not misused to silence dissent.
“The Principles provide an important opportunity for Commonwealth governments to bring their national laws in line with international human rights laws.”
A prominent journalists’ rights group is calling for international investigations into Israel’s pattern of killing journalists amid its assault of Lebanon, saying that the longtime impunity for Israel’s occupation and massacres will only allow it to kill more of the people exposing the military’s violence in the Middle East to the world. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) raised alarm…
In February 2017, as Donald Trump took office, The Washington Postadopted the first slogan in its 140-year history: “Democracy Dies in Darkness”.
How ironic, then, that it should now be helping to extinguish the flame of American democracy by refusing to endorse a candidate for the forthcoming presidential election.
This decision, and a similar one by the second of America’s big three newspapers, the Los Angeles Times, disgraces journalism, disgraces the papers’ own heritage and represents an abandonment of civic responsibility at a moment when United States faces its most consequential presidential election since the Civil War.
At stake is whether the United States remains a functioning democracy or descends into a corrupt plutocracy led by a convicted criminal who has already incited violence to overturn a presidential election and has shown contempt for the conventions on which democracy rests.
Everyone should cancel their Washington Post subscription after Bezos copped out on a presidential endorsement. It is shameful how far a once great newspaper has fallen. I cancelled today.
Why did they do it? Why would two of the Western world’s finest newspapers take such a recklessly irresponsible decision?
It cannot be on the basis of any rational assessment of the respective fitness for office of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
It also cannot be on the basis of their own reporting and analysis of the candidates, where the lies and threats issued by Trump have been fearlessly recorded. In this context, the decision to not endorse a candidate is a betrayal of their own editorial staff. The Post’s editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, resigned in protest at the paper’s decision not to endorse Harris.
This leaves, in my view, a combination of cowardice and greed as the only feasible explanation. Both newspapers are owned by billionaire American businessmen: The Post by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, and the LA Times by Patrick Soon-Shiong, who made his billions through biotechnology.
Bezos bought The Post in 2013 through his private investment company Nash Holdings, and Soon-Shiong bought the LA Times in 2018 through his investment firm Nant Capital. Both run the personal risk of suffering financially should a Trump presidency turn out to be hostile towards them.
During the election campaign, Trump has made many threats of retaliation against those in the media who oppose him. He has indicated that if he regains the White House, he will exact vengeance on news outlets that anger him, toss reporters in jail and strip major television networks of their broadcast licenses as retribution for coverage he doesn’t like.
Trump threatens to jail political opponents. Video: CBS News
Logic would suggest that in the face of these threats, the media would do all in their power to oppose a Trump presidency, if not out of respect for democracy and free speech then at least in the interests of self-preservation. But fear and greed are among the most powerful of human impulses.
The purchase of these two giants of the American press by wealthy businessmen is a consequence of the financial pressures exerted on the professional mass media by the internet and social media.
Bezos was welcomed with open arms by the Graham family, which had owned The Post for four generations. But the paper faced unsustainable financial losses arising from the loss of advertising to the internet.
At first he was seen not just by the Grahams but by the executive editor, Marty Baron, as a saviour. He injected large sums of money into the paper, enabling it to regain much of the prestige and journalistic capacity it had lost.
Baron, in his book Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and The Washington Post, was full of praise for Bezos’s financial commitment to the paper, and for his courage in the face of Trumpian hostility. During Trump’s presidency, the paper kept a log of his lies, tallying them up at 30,573 over the four years.
Against this history, the paper’s abdication of its responsibilities now is explicable only by reference to a loss of heart by Bezos.
At the LA Times, the ownership of the Otis-Chandler families also spanned four generations, but the impact of the internet took a savage toll there as well. Between 2000 and 2018 its ownership passed through three hands, ending up with Soon-Shiong.
Both newspapers reached the zenith of their journalistic accomplishments during the last three decades of the 20th century, winning Pulitzer Prices and, in the case of The Post, becoming globally famous for its coverage of the Watergate scandal.
This, in the days when American democracy was functioning according to convention, led to the resignation of Richard Nixon as president.
The two reporters responsible for this coverage, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, issued a statement about the decision to not endorse a candidate:
Marty Baron, who was a ferociously tough editor, posted on X: “This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”
Now, of the big three, only The New York Times is prepared to endorse a candidate for next month’s election. It has endorsed Harris, saying of Trump: “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States.”
Why does it matter? It matters because in democracies the media are the means by which voters learn not just about facts but about the informed opinion of those who, by virtue of access and close acquaintance, are well placed to make assessments of candidates between whom those voters are to choose. It is a core function of the media in democratic societies.
Their failure is symptomatic of the malaise into which American democracy has sunk.
In 2018, two professors of government at Harvard, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, published a book, How Democracies Die. It was both reflective and prophetic. Noting that the United States was now more polarised than at any time since the Civil War, they wrote:
America is no longer a democratic model. A country whose president attacks the press, threatens to lock up his rival, and declares he might not accept the election results cannot credibly defend democracy. Both potential and existing autocrats are likely to be emboldened with Trump in the White House.
Symbolically, that The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times should have gone dark at this moment is reminiscent of the remark made in 1914 by Britain’s foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey:
The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.
The last two decades have been an abysmal time for the right to press freedom in the U.S. Successive administrations — from both parties — have normalized using the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists’ sources. In June, the Department of Justice (DOJ) secured a conviction of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange under the Espionage Act. In doing so they achieved something once…
It was a heady week for the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) — celebration of seven years of its Taipei office, presenting a raft of proposals to the Taiwan government, and hosting its Asia-Pacific network of correspondents.
Director general Thibaut Bruttin and the Taipei bureau chief Cedric Alviani primed the Taipei media scene before last week’s RSF initiatives with an op-ed in the Taiwan Times by acknowledging the country’s media freedom advances in the face of Chinese propaganda.
Taiwan rose eight places to 27th in the RSF World Press Freedom Index this year – second only to Timor-Leste in the Asia-Pacific region.
But the co-authors also warned over the credibility damage caused by media “too often neglect[ing] journalistic ethics for political or commercial reasons”.
As a result, only three in 10 Taiwanese said they trusted the news media, according to a Reuters Institute survey conducted in 2022, one of the lowest percentages among democracies.
“This climate of distrust gives disproportionate influence to platforms, in particular Facebook and Line, despite them being a major vector of false or biased information,” Bruttin and Alviani wrote.
“This credibility deficit for traditional media, a real Achilles heel of Taiwanese democracy, puts it at risk of being exploited for malicious purposes, with potentially dramatic consequences.”
RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin speaking at the reception celebrating seven years of Taipei’s Asia Pacific office. Image: Pacific Media Watch
The week also highlighted concerns over the export of the China’s “New World Media Order”, which is making inroads in some parts of the Asia-Pacific region, including the Pacific.
At the opening session of the Asia-Pacific correspondents’ seminar, delegates referenced the Chinese disinformation and assaults on media freedom strategies that have been characterised as the “great leap backwards for journalism” in China.
“Disinformation — the deliberate spreading of false or biased news to manipulate minds — is gaining ground around the world,” Bruttin and Alviani warned in their article.
“As China and Russia sink into authoritarianism and export their methods of censorship and media control, democracies find themselves overwhelmed by an incessant flow of propaganda that threatens the integrity of their institutions.”
Both Bruttin and Alviani spoke of these issues too at the celebration of the seventh anniversary of the Asia-Pacific office in Taipei.
Why Taipei? Hongkong had been an “likely choice, but not safe legally”, admitted Bruttin when they were choosing their location, so the RSF team are happy with the choice of Taiwan.
Hub for human rights activists
“I think we were among the first NGOs to have established a presence here. We kind of made a bet that Taipei would be a hub for human rights activists, and we were right.”
About 200 journalists, media workers and press freedom and human rights advocates attended the birthday bash in the iconic Grand Hotel’s Yuanshan Club. So it wasn’t surprising that there was a lot of media coverage raising the issues.
RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin (centre) with correspondents Dr David Robie and Dr Joseph Fernandez in Taipei. Image: Pacific Media Watch
In an interview with Voice of America’s Joyce Huang, Bruttin was more specific about the “insane” political propaganda threats from China faced by Taiwan.
However, Taiwan “has demonstrated resilience and has rich experience in resisting cyber information attacks, which can be used as a reference for the world”.
Referencing China as the world’s “biggest jailer of journalists”, Bruttin said: “We’re very worried, obviously.” He added about some specific cases: “We’ve had very troublesome reports about the situation of Zhang Zhan, for example, who was the laureate of the RSF’s [2021 press freedom] awards [in the courage category] and had been just released from jail, now is sent back to jail.
“We know the lack of treatment if you have a medical condition in the Chinese prisons.
“Another example is Jimmy Lai, the Hongkong press freedom mogul, he’s very likely to die in jail if nothing happens. He’s over 70.
“And there is very little reason to believe that, despite his dual citizenship, the British government will be able to get him a safe passage to Europe.”
Problem for Chinese public
Bruttin also expressed concern about the problem for the general public, especially in China where he said a lot of people had been deprived of the right to information “worthy of that name”.
“And we’re talking about hundreds of millions of people. And it’s totally scandalous to see how bad information is treated in the People’s Republic of China.”
Seventeen countries in the Asia-Pacific region were represented in the network seminar.
Representatives of Australia, Cambodia, Hongkog, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Korea, Tibet, Thailand and Vietnam were present. However, three correspondents (Malaysia, Singapore and Timor-Leste) were unable to be personally present.
Discussion and workshop topics included the RSF Global Strategy; the Asia-Pacific network and the challenges being faced; best practice as correspondents; “innovative solutions” against disinformation; public advocacy (for authoritarian regimes; emerging democracies, and “leading” democracies); “psychological support” – one of the best sessions; and the RSF Crisis Response.
RSF Oceania colleagues Dr David Robie (left) and Dr Joseph Fernandez . . . mounting challenges. Image: Pacific Media Watch
What about Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand) and its issues? Fortunately, the countries being represented have correspondents who can speak our publicly, unlike some in the region facing authoritarian responses.
“While this puts Australia in the top one quarter globally, it does not reflect well on a country that supposedly espouses democratic values. It ranks behind New Zealand, Taiwan, Timor-Leste and Bhutan,” he says.
“Australia’s press freedom challenges are manifold and include deep-seated factors, including the influence of oligarchs whose own interests often collide with that of citizens.
“While in opposition the current Australian federal government promised reforms that would have improved the conditions for press freedom, but it has failed to deliver while in government.
“Much needs to be done in clawing back the over-reach of national security laws, and in freeing up information flow, for example, through improved whistleblower law, FOI law, source protection law, and defamation law.”
Dr Fernandez criticises the government’s continuing culture of secrecy and says there has been little progress towards improving transparency and accountability.
“The media’s attacks upon itself are not helping either given the constant moves by some media and their backers to undermine the efforts of some journalists and some media organisations, directly or indirectly.”
A proposal for a “journalist register” has also stirred controversy.
Dr Fernandez also says the war on Gaza has “highlighted the near paralysis” of many governments of the so-called established democracies in “bringing the full weight of their influence to end the loss of lives and human suffering”.
“They have also failed to demonstrate strong support for journalists’ ability to tell important stories.”
An English-language version of this tribute to the late RSF director-general Christophe Deloire, who died from cancer on 8 June 2024, was screened at the RSF Taipei reception. He was 53. Video: RSF
Aotearoa New Zealand
In New Zealand (19th in the RSF Index), although journalists work in an environment free from violence and intimidation, they have increasingly faced online harassment. Working conditions became tougher in early 2022 when, during protests against covid-19 vaccinations and restrictions and a month-long “siege” of Parliament, journalists were subjected to violence, insults and death threats, which are otherwise extremely rare in the country.
Research published in December 2023 revealed that high rates of abuse and threats directed at journalists put the country at risk of “mob censorship” – citizen vigilantism seeking to “discipline” journalism. Women journalists bore the brunt of the online abuse with one respondent describing her inbox as a “festering heap of toxicity”.
While New Zealand society is wholeheartedly multicultural, with mutual recognition between the Māori and European populations enshrined in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, this balance is under threat from a draft Treaty Principles Bill.
The nation’s bicultural dimension is not entirely reflected in the media, still dominated by the English-language press. A rebalancing is taking place, as seen in the success of the Māori Television network and many Māori-language programmes in mass media, such as Te Karere, The Hui and Te Ao Māori News.
New Zealand media also play an important role as a regional communications centre for other South Pacific nations, via Tagata Pasifika, Pacific Media Network and others.
Papua New Guinea’s Belinda Kora (left) and RSF colleagues . . . “collaborating in our Pacific efforts in seeking the truth”. Image: Pacific Media Watch
Papua New Guinea
The Papua New Guinea correspondent, Belinda Kora, who is secretary of the revised PNG Media Council and an ABC correspondent in Port Moresby, succeeded former South Pacific Post Ltd chief executive Bob Howarth, the indefatigable media freedom defender of both PNG and Timor-Leste.
“I am excited about what RSF is able and willing to bring to a young Pacific region — full of challenges against the press,” she says.
“But more importantly, I guess, is that the biggest threat in PNG would be itself, if it continues to go down the path of not being able to adhere to simple media ethics and guidelines.
“It must hold itself accountable before it is able to hold others in the same way.
“We have a small number of media houses in PNG but if we are able to stand together as one and speak with one voice against the threats of ownership and influence, we can achieve better things in future for this industry.
“We need to protect our reporters if they are to speak for themselves and their experiences as well. We need to better provide for their everyday needs before we can write the stories that need to be told.
“And this lies with each media house.
The biggest threat for the Pacific as a whole? “I guess the most obvious one would be being able to remain self-regulated BUT not being accountable for breaching our individual code of ethics.
“Building public trust remains vital if we are to move forward. The lack of media awareness also contributes to the lack of ensuring media is given the attention it deserves in performing its role — no matter how big or small our islands are,” Kora says.
“The press should remain free from government influence, which is a huge challenge for many island industries, despite state ownership.
Kora believes that although Pacific countries are “scattered in the region”, they are able to help each other more, to better enhance capacity building and learning from their mistakes with collaboration.
“By collaborating in our efforts in seeking the truth behind many of our big stories that is affecting our people. This I believe will enable us to improve our performance and accountability.”
Example to the region
Meanwhile, back in Taiwan on the day that RSF’s Thibaut Bruttin flew out, he gave a final breakfast interview to China News Agency (CNA) reporter Teng Pei-ju who wrote about the country building up its free press model as an example to the region.
“Taiwan really is one of the test cases for the robustness of journalism in the world,” added Bruttin, reflecting on the country’s transformation from an authoritarian regime that censored information into a vibrant democracy that fights disinformation.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, says Israel’s declaration that six Al Jazeera journalists are members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad “sounds like a death sentence”.
“These 6 Palestinians are among the last journalists surviving Israel’s onslaught in Gaza [with 130+ of their colleagues killed in the last year],” Albanese wrote on X. “They must be protected at all costs.”
Al Jazeera Media Network has strongly condemned the “unfounded’ accusations by Israel’s military, saying it views them “as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide”.
The network noted that Israeli forces in Gaza have killed more than 130 journalists and media workers in the past year, including several Al Jazeera journalists, “in an attempt to silence the messenger”.
URGENT! These 6 Palestinians are among the last journalists surviving Israel’s onslaught in Gaza (with 130+ of their colleagues killed in the last year). Declaring them “terrorists” sounds like a death sentence.
They must be protected at all cost. https://t.co/8AHQ0F4f4l
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) October 23, 2024
Al Jazeera has strongly rejected the Israeli military claim.
In a post on X, the Israeli military had accused some of the named Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents as “operatives” working for Hamas’s armed wing to promote the group’s “propaganda” in the besieged and bombarded enclave.
The six named journalists are Anas al-Sharif, Talal Aruki, Alaa Salama, Hosam Shabat, Ismail Farid, and Ashraf Saraj.
According to an Al Jazeera Network statement, the military published “documents” that it claimed proved the “integration of Hamas terrorists within” Al Jazeera. The military claimed the papers showed lists of people who have completed training courses and salaries.
‘Fabicated evidence’
“Al Jazeera categorically rejects the Israeli occupation forces’ portrayal of our journalists as terrorists and denounces their use of fabricated evidence,” the network said.
“The network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide,” the statement read.
Al Jazeera condemns Israeli accusations towards its journalists in Gaza and warns against being a justification for targeting them. pic.twitter.com/m0hu4TjY8h
It said the “baseless” accusations came following a recent report by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit that revealed potential war crimes committed by Israeli forces during the continuing assault on Gaza, where more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed — many of them women and children.
Al Jazeera said its correspondents had been reporting from northern Gaza and documenting the dire humanitarian situation unfolding “as the sole international media” outlet there.
Israel has severely restricted access to Gaza for international media outlets since it launched its assault on the Palestinian territory on October 7, 2023, in response to a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
Gaza: The Al Jazeera investigation into Israeli war crimes.
Northern Gaza has been under siege for 19 days as Israeli forces continue a renewed ground offensive in the area.
About 770 people have been killed in Jabalia since the renewed assault began, according to the Gaza Government Media Office, with Israel blocking the entry of aid and food from reaching some 400,000 people trapped in the area.
‘Wider pattern of hostility’ “The network sees these accusations as part of a wider pattern of hostility towards Al Jazeera, stemming from its unwavering commitment to broadcasting the unvarnished truth about the situation in Gaza and elsewhere.”
Last month, Israeli forces raided Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and ordered its immediate closure following the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet in May 2024 to shut down Al Jazeera’s operations within Israel.
Israeli forces have killed at least three Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza since October last year.
In July, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi were killed in an Israeli air attack on the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City. The pair were wearing media vests and there were identifying signs on their vehicle when they were attacked.
In December, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Samer Abudaqa was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis. Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, was also wounded in that attack.
Dadouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson had been killed in an Israeli air raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp in October last year.
In January, Dahdouh’s son, Hamza, who was also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed in an Israeli missile strike in Khan Younis.
Prior to the war on Gaza, veteran Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli forces as she covered an Israeli raid in Jenin in the West Bank in May 2022.
Hopes of pardon dashed for Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who were cleared of collaboration with US
Two young female journalists who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for reporting on the death of Mahsa Amini have been cleared of charges of collaborating with the United States government but will still spend up to five more years behind bars, the Iranian authorities have announced.
This week marked the grim one-year anniversary of the surprise October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza — a conflict that has taken a devastating toll on journalists and media outlets in Palestine, reports the International Press Institute.
In Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed at least 123 journalists (Gaza media sources say 178 killed) — the largest number of journalists to be killed in any armed conflict in this span of time to date.
Dozens of media outlets have been leveled. Independent investigations such as those conducted by Forbidden Storieshave found that in several of these cases journalists were intentionally targeted by the Israeli military — which constitutes a war crime.
Over the past year IPI has stood with its press freedom partners calling for an immediate end to the killing of journalists in Gaza as well as for international media to be allowed unfettered access to report independently from inside Gaza.
In May, IPI and its partner IMS jointly presented the 2024 World Press Freedom Hero award to Palestinian journalists in Gaza. The award recognised the extraordinary courage and resilience that Palestinian journalists have demonstrated in being the world’s eyes and ears in Gaza.
This week, IPI renewed its call on the international community to protect journalists in Gaza as well as in the West Bank and Lebanon. Allies of Israel, including Media Freedom Coalition members, must pressure the Israeli government to protect journalist safety and stop attacks on the press.
This also includes the growing media censorship demonstrated by Israel’s recent closure of Al Jazeera’s Ramallah bureau.
Raising awareness
IPI was at the UN in Geneva this week with its partners Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters without Borders (RSF), and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), and others for high-level meetings aimed at raising awareness of the continued attacks on the press and urging the international community to protect journalists.
Among the key messages: The continued killings of journalists in Gaza — and corresponding impunity — endangers journalists and press freedom everyone.
On this sombre anniversary, the joint advert in this week’s Washington Post honours the journalists bravely reporting on the war, often at great personal risk, and underscores IPI’s solidarity with those that dedicate their lives to uncovering the truth.
— Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership (@wppressfreedom) October 7, 2024
“But it is clear that solidarity is not enough. Action is needed,” said IPI in its statement.
“The international community must place effective pressure on the Israeli authorities to comply with international law; protect the safety of journalists; investigate the killing of journalists by its forces and secure accountability; and grant international media outlets immediate and unfettered access to report independently from Gaza.
“We urge the international community to meet this moment of crisis and stand up for the protection of journalists and freedom of the press in Gaza.
“An attack against journalists anywhere is an attack against freedom and democracy everywhere.”
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Regulator says advert by publisher of the Citizen newspaper ‘likely to harm national unity’
Tanzania has suspended the online operations of a top newspaper publisher after one of its publications ran an animated advert depicting the country’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and referencing a spate of recent abductions and killings of dissidents.
The advert, published on X and Instagram on Tuesday by the Citizen, an English-language newspaper, showed a character resembling the president flipping through TV channels. Each channel showed people speaking about loved ones they had lost through disappearances.
WikiLeaks founder says he pleaded ‘guilty to journalism’ in deal for his release and calls for protection of press freedom
Julian Assange has said he chose freedom “over unrealisable justice” as he described his plea deal with US authorities and urged European lawmakers to act to protect freedom of expression in a climate with “more impunity, more secrecy [and] more retaliation for telling the truth”.
In his first public statement since the plea deal in June ended his nearly 14 years of prison, embassy confinement and house arrest in the UK, the WikiLeaks founder argued that legal protections for whistleblowers and journalists “only existed on paper” or “were not effective in any remotely reasonable time”.
Country held chair due to rotating presidency despite Orbán government being under EU sanctions procedure
Hungary’s government has presided over EU talks on upholding democratic standards across the continent, in a development one prominent MEP described as “outrageous”.
Viktor Orbán’s government has been under an EU sanctions procedure since 2018 for posing a “systemic threat” to democracy and the rule of law.
Israel stepped up its censorship of Al Jazeera on Sunday as soldiers raided the Qatar-based news network’s Ramallah offices in the occupied West Bank and ordered a 45-day closure of the bureau. This comes after the Netanyahu government banned the network inside of Israel in May under a new media law giving authorities broad power to censor foreign outlets deemed to be security threats.
Ahead of the United Nations’ Summit of the Future that began Sunday, the Committee to Protect Journalists and 123 other signatories released a statement September 19, 2024, welcoming the final revision of the Pact for the Future and urging strong action to safeguard media freedom, freedom of expression, and access to information.
The Pact for the Future is an agreement by world leaders that aims to boost implementation of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals as the roadmap for overcoming crises and securing a better future for all. CPJ had earlier called for previous drafts of the Pact to be strengthened, with those recommendations largely being reflected in the final text of the Pact and its appendix, the Global Digital Compact.
Recognizing the significant threats facing the world’s media and journalists and “the utmost importance of access to information and freedom of expression in empowering people to address shared needs,” the joint statement calls on member states and the U.N. to not only uphold their commitments in the agreed texts but to also “take further actions that align with key international human rights frameworks.”
Israeli forces raided and shuttered the West Bank bureau of news organization Al Jazeera, accusing the newsroom of “supporting terrorism” in an order that compelled the office to close for 45 days. The raid of Al Jazeera was captured on video by the camera people of the Qatar-funded broadcaster. In the clip, bureau chief Walid al-Omari reads the order aloud and questions soldiers.
The International Press Institute (IPI) has strongly condemned the Israeli government’s recent decision to revoke the press passes of Al Jazeera journalists, months after the global news outlet was banned in the country.
“The Israeli government’s decision to revoke Al Jazeera press passes highlights a broader and deeply alarming pattern of harassment of journalists and attacks on press freedom in Israel and the region,” IPI interim executive director Scott Griffen said.
Nitzan Chen, director of Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO), announced the decision via X on Thursday, accusing Al Jazeera of spreading “false content” and “incitement against Israelis”.
Use of press office cards in the course of the journalists’ work could in itself “jeopardise state security at this time”, claimed Chen.
The journalists affected by the decision would be given a hearing before their passes are officially revoked.
While the GPO press card is not mandatory, without it a journalist in Israel will not be able to access Parliament, Israeli government ministries, or military infrastructure.
Only Israeli recognised pass
It is also the only card recognised at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank.
Griffen said the move was indicative of a “systematic effort” by Israeli authorities to “expand its control over media reporting about Israel, including reporting on and from Gaza”.
He added: “We strongly urge Israel to respect freedom of the press and access to information, which are fundamental human rights that all democracies must respect and protect.”
At the time, Al Jazeera described it as a “criminal act” and warned that Israel’s suppression of the free press “stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law”.
GPO Director Nitzan Chen: “Al Jazeera disseminates false content, which includes incitement against Israelis and Jews and constitutes a threat to IDF soldiers. Use of GPO cards in the course of the journalists’ work could in itself jeopardize state security at this time”.
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Media freedom petition rejected A petition for military authorities to allow foreign journalists to report inside Gaza was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court in January 2024.
IPI and other media watchdogs have repeatedly called on Israel to allow international media access to Gaza and ensure the safety of journalists.
Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israeli analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the attack was something that Israel had had in the works for several months and risked losing if Hezbollah became suspicious.
This concern may have led the Israeli army to trigger the blasts, but Israel’s strategy overall remains unclear.
“Where is Israel going to go from here? This question still hasn’t been answered,” Zonszein said.
“Without a ceasefire in Gaza, it’s unclear how Israel plans to de-escalate, or if Netanyahu is in fact trying to spark a broader war,” the analyst added, noting that more Israeli troops were now stationed in the West Bank and along the northern border than in the Gaza Strip.
In a historic moment, Palestine, newly promoted to observer status at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), has submitted a draft resolution at the body demanding an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
Building on a recent International Court of Justice ruling, the resolution calls for Israel to withdraw its troops, halt settlement expansion, and return land taken since 1967 within 12 months.
While the US opposes the resolution, it has no veto power in the UNGA, and the body has previously supported Palestinian recognition.
The resolution, which will be voted on by UNGA members today, is not legally binding, but reflects global opinion as leaders gather for high-level UN meetings next week.
Mexico City, August 27, 2024—Nicaragua has escalated its persecution of critical voices since 2018, pushing freedom of expression to a nearly nonexistent state, according to a joint submission to the United Nations by the Committee to Protect Journalists and eight other journalism and human rights groups.
The submission, prepared for Nicaragua’s Universal Periodic Review in 2024, documents the government’s use of various tactics to silence journalists, including media shutdowns, property confiscations, and the suppression of independent reporting. The report highlights how press freedom has been systematically dismantled during the 2019-2023 review cycle.
The coalition of organizations aims to bring these ongoing violations of free expression and access to information to the attention of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The submission’s findings are based on data collected and analyzed by the signatory groups, emphasizing that these abuses continue without consequence.
Reporters cautiously optimistic as interim government takes over after years of intimation and censorship under outgoing prime minister
Bangladeshi journalists are hoping the resignation of the prime minister Sheikh Hasina will bring an era of censorship and fear to an end, as they prepare to hold a new interim government to account.
Arrests, abuse and forced disappearances at the hands of Bangladesh’s security forces have loomed over journalists for most of Hasina’s 15-year rule, preventing them from routine reporting for fear of writing anything that could be perceived as embarrassing for the government.
WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has finally put an end to his 14-year-long judicial persecution by the United States and the United Kingdom, thanks to the prowess of his legal team and the tenacity of his family members, but also thanks to an assist from the British High Court and the support of millions of activists around the world. Fifty-thousand people, for example…
By Maxim Bock, Queensland University of Technology
Fiji journalist Felix Chaudhary recalls how the harassment began: “Initially, I was verbally warned to stop.”
“And not only warned but threatened as well. I think I was a bit ‘gung-ho’ at the time and I kind of took it lightly until the day I was taken to a particular site and beaten up.
“I was told that my mother would identify me at a mortuary. That’s when I knew that this was now serious, and that I couldn’t be so blasé and think that I’m immune.”
Pressing risks of Chaudhary’s early career
Felix Chaudhary, now director of news, current affairs and sports at Fiji TV, and former deputy chief-of-staff at The Fiji Times, was detained and threatened several times during the period of government led by former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama from 2007 to 2022.
Commodore Bainimarama, as he was known at the time, executed his military coup in December 2006 against Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and President Josefa IIoilo.
Although some media outlets were perceived as openly supporting the government then, not all relinquished their impartiality, Chaudhary explains.
“Some media organisations decided to follow suit. The one that I worked for, The Fiji Times, committed to remaining an objective and ethical media organisation.
“Everyone who worked there knew that at some point they would face challenges.”
Military impact on sugar industry
During the early days of the coup, Chaudhary was based in Viti Levu’s Western Division in the city of Lautoka, reporting about the impact of the military takeover of the sugar cane industry. It was there that he experienced some of his most severe harassment.
“It was just unfortunate that during the takeover, I was one of the first to face the challenges, simply because I was writing stories about how the sugar cane industry was being affected,” he says.
“I was reporting about how the military takeover was affecting the livelihoods of the people who depend on this industry. There are a lot of people who depend on sugar cane farming, and not necessarily just the farmers.
“I was writing from their perspective.”
A lot of countries, including Australia, in an effort to avoid appearing sympathetic to a government ruling through military dictatorship, turned their backs on Fiji, Chaudhary explains.
“These countries took a stand, and we respect them for that,” he says.
“However, a lot of aid that used to come in started to slow down, and assistance to the sugar industry, from the European Union, didn’t come through.
“The industry was struggling. But the Fijian government tried to maintain that everything was fine as they were in control.
‘Just not sustainable’
“It was just not sustainable. They didn’t have the resources to do it, and people were feeling the impact. This was around 2009. The military had been in power since 2006.”
Chaudhary chose to focus his writing on the difficulties faced by the locals: a view that was in direct contention with the military’s agenda.
He experienced a series of threats, including assurances of death if he continued to report on the takeover. His first encounter with the military saw him seized, driven to an unknown location, and physically assaulted.
Chaudhary soon realised this was not an isolated case and the threats on his life were far from empty.
“Other people, in addition to journalists, were taken into custody for many reasons. Some ended up dead after being beaten up. That’s when I knew that could happen to me,” he says.
“I figured I’d just continue to try and be as safe as possible.”
Chaudhary was later again abducted, threatened, and locked in a cell. No reason was given, no charges were laid, and he was repeatedly told that he might never leave.
Aware of military tactics
Having served in the Fiji military in 1987–1988, Chaudhary was aware of common military tactics, and knew what these personnel were capable of. Former army colleagues had also tried to warn him of the danger he was in.
“When I was taken in by the military, I was visited by two of my former colleagues. They told me if I didn’t stop, something was going to happen,” he says.
“That set the tone. It reminded me that I needed to be more careful.”
On another occasion, military personnel entered The Fiji Times offices and proceeded to forcefully arrest both Chaudhary, and his wife, the newspaper’s current chief-of-staff, Margaret Wise.
“The military entered the newsroom while we were both at work, demanded our phones and attacked [Margaret] physically. I came to her defence, and I was also attacked. These threats were not only to me, but to her as well.”
Chaudhary admires Margaret Wise’s incredible tenacity.
“She’s a very strong woman. Any other person might have wanted to run away from it all, but we both knew we had a responsibility to be the voice for those that didn’t have one,” he says.
Dictatorships have a ‘limited lifespan’
“She also knew that governments come and go, and that dictatorships only have a limited lifespan. On the other hand, media organisations have been here for decades, in our case, a century and a half. We knew we had to get through it.”
The pair supported each other and decided to restrict their social life in an effort to protect not only themselves, but their families as well.
Looking back, Chaudhary acknowledges the danger of that period, and questions whether he would have done the same thing again, if presented with a similar situation.
“I think I might have changed the way that I did things if I had thought about the livelihoods of the people working for The Fiji Times,” he says.
“I didn’t think about that at the time. Some people might say that was a bit reckless, and maybe it was.
“I kept thinking about my family, but then you have to think about the other families as well. Sometimes you have to make a stand for what is right, no matter what the consequences are.
“People think that’s bravery. It’s not really. It’s just doing what is right, and I’m glad I’m here today.
“I have a lot of respect for other people who went through what I went through and are still alive to tell the tale.”
Chaudhary maintains that anyone in a similar situation would do the same.
“What I do know is everybody, regardless of who they are, has the wanting to do what is right. And I think if presented with this sort of situation, people would take a stand,” he says.
Fiji TV dealing with harassment
Although journalists continue to experience incidents of harassment, the form of harassment has changed, with women often receiving the worst of it, Chaudhary explains.
“Harassment now is different. Back then, they had a licence to harass you, and your policies meant nothing, because they had the backing of the military,” he says.
“Nowadays, harassment is different in the sense that there is a lot of male leaders who feel like they have the right to speak to females however they want.”
Chaudhary, through his position at Fiji TV, has used his past experiences to shape the way he deals with cases of harassment, and especially when his female journalists are targeted.
“For us at Fiji TV, it’s about empowering the female journalists to be able to face these situations in a diplomatic way. They don’t take things personally, even if the attack is verbal and personal,” he says.
“Our journalists have to understand that these individuals are acting this way because the questions being asked are difficult ones.
“I’ve tried to make changes in the way they ask their questions. They are told not to lead with the difficult questions. You ask the more positive questions and set them in a good mood, and then move to the more difficult questions.
“The way you frame the questions has a lot to do with it as well.
“When the females ask, especially these sources get personal, they use gender as a way to not answer the question and just deflect it. So, now we have to be a bit more creative in how we ask.”
Things are improving
Nevertheless, Chaudhary maintains that things are improving, citing the professionalism of his female journalists.
“We are able to break a lot of stories, and it’s the female journalists doing it,” he says.
“They are facing this new era with this new government with the hope that things are more open and transparent.
The 2022 Fiji research report ‘Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists’. Image: Screenshot APR
“I’m really blessed to have four women who are very strong. They understand the need to be diplomatic, but they also understand the need to get answers to the questions that need to be asked.
“They are kind of on their own, with a little bit of guidance from me. We worked out how to handle harassment, and how to get the answers. They have kind of done it on their own.”
While asking the tough questions may be a daunting exercise, it is imperative if Fiji is to avoid making the same mistakes, Chaudhary explains.
“I think for me now, it’s just about sharing what happened in the past, and getting them to understand that if we don’t ask the right questions now, we could have a situation similar to that of the last 16 years.
“This could happen if we don’t hold the current government to account, and don’t ask the hard questions now.”
Fiji’s proposal to end sexual harassment
A 2022 research report, ‘Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists’, revealed that more than 80 per cent of Fijian female journalists have experienced physical, verbal and online sexual harassment during the course of their work.
The report by The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme and Fiji Women’s Rights Movement also proposes numerous solutions that prioritise the safety and wellbeing of female journalists.
Acknowledging the report’s good intentions, Chaudhary argues that it hasn’t created any substantial change due to long-standing Fijian culture and social norms.
“The report was, for many people, an eye opener. For me, it wasn’t,” he says.
“Unfortunately, I work alongside some people who hold the view that because they have been in the industry for some time, they can speak to females however they want.
“There wasn’t necessarily any physical harassment, but in Fiji, we have a lot of spoken sexual innuendo.
“We have a relationship among Fijians and the indigenous community where if I’m from a certain village, or part of the country and you are from another, we are allowed to engage in colourful conversation.
“It’s part of the tradition and culture. It’s just unfortunate that that culture and tradition has also found its way into workplaces, and the media industry. So that was often the excuse given in the newsroom.
Excuse that was used
“Many say, ‘I didn’t mean that. I said it because she’s from this village, and I’m from there, so I’m allowed to.’ The intent may have been deeper than that, but that was the excuse that was used,” he says.
Chaudhary believes that the report should have sparked palpable policy change in newsrooms.
“It should have translated into engagement with different heads of newsrooms to develop policies or regulations within the organisation, aimed at addressing those issues specifically. This would ensure that young women do not enter a workplace where that culture exists.
“So, we have a report, which is great, but it didn’t turn into anything tangible that would benefit organisations.
“This should have been taken on board by government and by the different organisations to develop those policies and systems in order to change the culture because the culture still exists,” he says.
Maxim Bockis a student journalist from the Queensland University of Technology who travelled to Fiji with the support of the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan Mobility Programme. Published in partnership with QUT.
In Aurora, Colorado, in 2016 and then in Denver in 2019, police radio transmissions went silent. Many journalists, accustomed to using newsroom scanners for monitoring police radio communications to identify newsworthy events, found themselves suddenly disconnected from crucial updates on events jeopardizing public safety, impeding their ability to report promptly. “Like law enforcement…
No other world conflict has killed as many journalists in recent memory.
Israel has a long history of violently targeting journalists, so their Gaza kill total is not necessarily surprising.
In fact, a 2023 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) report documented a “decades-long pattern” of Israel targeting and killing Palestinian journalists.
Targeted attacks
For example, a Human Rights Watch investigation found that Israel targeted “journalists and media facilities” on four separate occasions in 2012. During the attacks, two journalists were killed, and many others were injured.
In 2019, a United Nations commission found that Israel “intentionally shot” a pair of Palestinian journalists in 2018, killing both.
More recently, in 2022, Israel shot and killed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank.
Israel attempted to deny responsibility, as it almost always does after it carries out an atrocity, but video evidence was overwhelming, and Israel was forced to admit guilt.
There have been no consequences for the soldier who fired at Abu Akleh, who had been wearing a press vest and a press helmet, or for the Israelis involved in the other incidents targeting journalists.
CPJ has suggested that Israeli security forces enjoy “almost blanket immunity” in incidents of attacks on journalists.
Given this broader context, Israel’s targeting of journalists during the current genocide is genuinely not surprising, or out of the ordinary.
Relative silence
However, what is truly surprising, and even shocking, is the relative silence of Western journalists.
While there has certainly been some reportage and sympathy in North America and Europe, particularly from watchdog organisations like the CPJ and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), there is little sense of journalistic solidarity, and certainly nothing approaching widespread outrage and uproar about the threat Israel’s actions pose to press freedoms.
Can we imagine for a moment what the Western journalistic reaction might be if Russian forces killed more than 100 journalists in Ukraine in under a year?
Even when Western news outlets have reported on Palestinian journalists killed since the start of the current war, coverage has tended to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, often framing the killings as “unintentional casualties” of modern warfare.
Also, Western journalism’s overwhelming reliance on pro-Israel sources has ensured the avoidance of colourful adjectives and condemnations.
Moreover, overreliance on pro-Israel sources has sometimes made it difficult to determine which party to the conflict was responsible for specific killings.
BREAKING: Al Jazeera “journalist” Ismail al-Ghoul has reportedly been killed in Gaza.
A unique case? One might assume here that Western news outlets have simply been maintaining their devotion to stated Western reporting principles of detachment and neutrality.
But, in other situations, Western journalists have shown that they are indeed capable of making quite a fuss, and also of demonstrating solidarity.
The 2015 killing of 12 Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists provides a useful case in point.
Following that attack, a genuine media spectacle ensued, with seemingly the entire institution of Western journalism united to focus on the event.
Thousands of reports were generated within weeks, a solidarity hashtag (“Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie”) went viral, and statements and sentiments of solidarity poured in from Western journalists, news outlets and organisations dedicated to principles of free speech.
Freedom House issued a similarly harsh commendation, calling the attack “horrific,” and noting that it constituted a “direct threat to the right of freedom of expression”.
PEN America and the British National Secular Society presented awards to Charlie Hebdo and the Guardian Media Group donated a massive sum to the publication.
All journalists threatened
The relative silence and calm of Western journalists over the killing of at least 100 Palestinian journalists in Gaza is especially shocking when one considers the larger context of Israel’s war on journalism, which threatens all journalists.
In October, around the time the current war began, Israel told Western news agencies that it would not guarantee the safety of journalists entering Gaza.
Ever since, Israel has maintained a ban on international journalists, even working to prevent them from entering Gaza during a brief November 2023 pause in fighting.
More importantly, perhaps, Israel has used its sway in the West to direct and control Western news narratives about the war.
Western news outlets have often obediently complied with Israeli manipulation tactics.
For example, as global outrage was mounting against Israel in December 2023, Israel put out false reports of mass, systematic rape against Israeli women by Palestinian fighters on October 7.
Western news outlets, including The New York Times, were suckered in. They downplayed the growing outrage against Israel and began prominently highlighting the “systematic rape” story.
ICJ provisional measures
Later, in January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures against Israel.
Israel responded almost immediately by issuing absurd terrorism accusations against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
Western news outlets downplayed the provisional measures story, which was highly critical of Israel, and spotlighted the allegations against UNRWA, which painted Palestinians in a negative light.
These and other examples of Israeli manipulation of Western news narratives are part of a broader pattern of influence that predates the current war.
One empirical study found that Israel routinely times attacks, especially those likely to kill Palestinian civilians, in ways that ensure they will be ignored or downplayed by US news media.
During the current genocide, Western news organisations have also tended to ignore the broad pattern of censorship of pro-Palestine content on social media, a fact which should concern anyone interested in freedom of expression.
It’s easy to point to a handful of Western news reports and investigations which have been critical of some Israeli actions during the current genocide.
But these reports have been lost in a sea of acquiescence to Israeli narratives and overall pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian framing.
Several studies, including analyses by the Centre for Media Monitoring and the Intercept, demonstrated overwhelming evidence of pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian framing in Western news reportage of the current war.
Is Western journalism dead? Many journalists in the United States and Europe position themselves as truth-tellers, critical of power, and watchdogs.
While they acknowledge mistakes in reporting, journalists often see themselves and their news organisations as appropriately striving for fairness, accuracy, comprehensiveness, balance, neutrality and detachment.
But this is the great myth of Western journalism.
A large body of scholarly literature suggests that Western news outlets do not come close to living up to their stated principles.
Israel’s war on Gaza has further exposed news outlets as fraudulent.
With few exceptions, news outlets in North America and Europe have abandoned their stated principles and failed to support Palestinian colleagues being targeted and killed en masse.
Amid such spectacular failure and the extensive research indicating that Western news outlets fall well short of their ideals, we must ask whether it is useful to continue to maintain the myth of the Western journalistic ideal.
Is Western journalism, as envisioned, dead?
Mohamad Elmasry is professor in the Media Studies programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar. Republished from Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi have been killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip, reports Al Jazeera.
The reporters were killed when their car was hit on Wednesday in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to initial information.
They were in the area to report from near the Gaza house of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas who was assassinated in the early hours of Wednesday in Iran’s capital, Tehran, in an attack the group has blamed on Israel.
Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, reporting from Gaza, was at the hospital where the bodies of his two colleagues were brought.
“Ismail was conveying the suffering of the displaced Palestinians and the suffering of the wounded and the massacres committed by the [Israeli] occupation against the innocent people in Gaza,” he said.
“The feeling — no words can describe what happened.”
Al Jazeera journalist and cameraman killed in Israeli attack on Gaza. Video: Al Jazeera
Ismail and Rami were wearing media vests and there were identifying signs on their car when they were attacked. They had last contacted their news desk 15 minutes before the strike.
During the call, they had reported a strike on a house near to where they were reporting and were told to leave immediately. They did, and were traveling to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital when they were killed.
There was no immediate comment by Israel, which has previously denied targeting journalists in its 10-month war on Gaza, which has killed at least 39,445 people, the vast majority of whom were children and women.
In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network called the killings a “targeted assassination” by Israeli forces and pledged to “pursue all legal actions to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes”.
“This latest attack on Al Jazeera journalists is part of a systematic targeting campaign against the network’s journalists and their families since October 2023,” the network said.
According to preliminary figures by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 111 journalists and media workers are among those killed since the start of the war on October 7. The Gaza government media office has put the figure at 165 Palestinian journalists killed since the war began.
Mohamed Moawad, Al Jazeera Arabic managing editor, said the Qatar-based network’s journalists were killed on Wednesday as they were “courageously covering the events in northern Gaza”.
Ismail was renowned for his professionalism and dedication, bringing the world’s attention to the suffering and atrocities committed in Gaza, especially at al-Shifa Hospital and the northern neighbourhoods of the besieged enclave.
His wife has been living in a camp for internally displaced people in central Gaza and had not seen her husband for months. He is also survived by a young daughter.
Both Ismail and Rami were born in 1997.
“Without Ismail, the world would not have seen the devastating images of these massacres,” Moawad wrote on X, adding that al-Ghoul “relentlessly covered the events and delivered the reality of Gaza to the world through Al Jazeera”.
“His voice has now been silenced, and there is no longer a need to call out to the world Ismail fulfilled his mission to his people and his homeland,” Moawad said. “Shame on those who have failed the civilians, journalists, and humanity.”
String of journalist killings The killings on Wednesday bring the total number of Al Jazeera journalists killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war to four.
In December, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Samer Abudaqa was killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis. Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, was also wounded in that attack.
Dadouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson had been killed in an Israeli air raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp in October.
In January, Dahdouh’s son, Hamza, who was also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed in an Israeli missile strike in Khan Younis.
Prior to the war, Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by an Israeli soldier as she covered an Israeli raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in May 2022. While Israel has acknowledged its soldier likely fatally shot Abu Akleh, it has not pursued any criminal investigation into her death.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Wednesday, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reflected on the daily dangers journalists face.
“We do everything [to stay safe]. We wear our press jackets. We wear our helmets. We try not to go anywhere that is not safe. We try to go to places where we can maintain our security,” she said.
“But we have been targeted in normal places where normal citizens are.”
She added: “We’re trying to do everything, but at the same time, we want to report, we want to tell the world what’s going on.”
Jodie Ginsberg, the president of the CPJ, said the killing of al-Ghoul and al-Refee is the latest example of the risks of documenting the war in Gaza, which is the deadliest conflict for journalists the organisation has documented in 30 years.
Ginsberg told Al Jazeera the organisation haD found at least three journalists had been directly targeted by Israeli forces in Gaza since the war began.
She said CPJ was investigating an additional 10 cases, while noting the difficulty of determining the full details without access to Gaza.
“That’s not just a pattern we’ve seen in this conflict, it appears to be part of a broader [Israeli] strategy that aims to stifle the information coming out of Gaza,” Ginsberg said, citing the ban on Al Jazeera from reporting in Israel as part of this trend.
Detention of reporters for covering sensitive news is having a ‘chilling’ effect on free media in Somalia, say rights groups
The arrest of a journalist for reporting on drug use in the Somali military is the latest incident in an apparent clampdown on critical reporting in the country, which is having a “chilling” effect on Somalia’s media, rights campaigners said.
AliNur Salaad was detained last week and accused of “immorality, false reporting and insulting the armed forces”, after publishing a now-deleted video suggesting that soldiers were vulnerable to attacks by al-Shabaab militants because of widespread use of the traditional narcotic khat.
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