{"id":218348,"date":"2022-08-22T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T11:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=218348"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:07:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:07:21","slug":"the-deadly-business-of-reporting-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/08\/the-deadly-business-of-reporting-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Deadly Business of Reporting Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two grim anniversaries demonstrate how journalists around the world increasingly face violence, but leaders\u2014including President Biden\u2014have been slow to act.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

17 Aug 2022 – <\/em>Violence is the most basic and blunt form of press censorship. To kill or imprison a journalist is to silence the public\u2019s source of news. To date, 33 journalists around the world have been killed this year and another 494 are currently imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders<\/span><\/a> (RSF). Put another way, thus far in 2022, on average, once per week somewhere in the world a journalist is killed for reporting the news.<\/p>\n

Sometimes these cases make headlines, as was true in October 2018 when Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian journalist who reported for the Middle East Eye and the Washington Post<\/i>, was murdered<\/span><\/a> by agents of the Saudi government, and in May 2022 when Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed<\/span><\/a>\u2014almost certainly by Israeli soldiers\u2014in the occupied West Bank while reporting for Al Jazeera<\/i>.<\/p>\n

More often, however, the killing or imprisonment of journalists occurs without significant news coverage. As Project Censored has previously reported, attacks on journalists<\/span><\/a> are a global phenomenon, which the establishment press in the United States often fails to cover adequately. Journalists working in the United States are not immune to violent assault or arrest either, as the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker<\/span><\/a> meticulously documents.<\/p>\n

August 2022 marks the somber anniversaries of two cases that epitomize the threats to reporters and the impunity (so far) of those who would silence them.<\/p>\n

On August 14, 2012, Austin Tice was abducted in Syria, where he was working as a freelance\u00a0 <\/span>reporter for McClatchy, the Washington Post<\/i>, CBS, and other news outlets. Tice, a US Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, received numerous accolades for his reporting from Syria, including the prestigious George Polk Award<\/span><\/a> for war reporting.<\/p>\n

Tice is one of 43 journalists that RSF identifies as being held hostage in Syria<\/span><\/a>, in addition to another 31 who remain imprisoned<\/span><\/a> there.<\/p>\n

For ten years, Tice\u2019s family has petitioned<\/span><\/a> the governments of the United States and Syria to \u201cmake every possible diplomatic effort to bring Austin safely home.\u201d This August, during a campaign supported by RSF, the Washington Post<\/i>, and many other news organization to mark the tenth anniversary of Tice\u2019s abduction, President Joe Biden issued a statement<\/span><\/a> on Tice\u2019s captivity. Although Tice\u2019s family has had previous communication with Biden, including a May 2022 meeting<\/span><\/a> with the president, this was the first time that Biden referred to Tice by name in public. However, as Clayton Weimers, the executive director of RSF\u2019s US office, told me, \u201cWhat\u2019s missing from Biden\u2019s statement is a clear commitment to direct negotiations\u201d between the US and Syria.<\/p>\n

On August 26, 2017, Christopher Allen, a journalist with dual US-UK citizenship, was killed in South Sudan. Allen, a freelancer whose reporting was published by the BBC, Vice News, the Telegraph<\/i>, and Al Jazeera<\/i>, was embedded with opposition forces at the time of his death. Sources told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that government troops deliberately targeted<\/span><\/a> Allen. Although a 2018 Columbia Journalism Review<\/i> report<\/span><\/a> disputed claims that Allen wore clothing that identified him as a press member, he was unarmed and carrying a camera\u2014a sign he was present as a reporter, rather than a combatant. \u201cTaking photographs and reporting events is not attacking. It is journalistic work done by civilians, who are protected under international law,\u201d said Angela Quintal<\/span><\/a>, CPJ\u2019s Africa\u00a0Program Coordinator in New York.<\/p>\n

Five years since Allen\u2019s death, and despite credible allegations of war crimes having been committed against him, including the treatment of his body after his death, there has been no official investigation into the circumstances of his killing, either by South Sudanese authorities or any other law enforcement agency.<\/p>\n

In the context of a civil war dating back to 2013, which has displaced 2.3 million people<\/span><\/a>, journalists working in South Sudan face extraordinary threats. As the CPJ has documented, authorities there have closed<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0obstructed access<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to news outlets,\u00a0arrested journalists<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0expelled reporters<\/span><\/a>. In August 2015, South Sudan\u2019s president, Salva Kiir, publicly threatened<\/span><\/a> to kill journalists for reporting \u201cagainst the country.\u201d Since 2014 at least ten journalists including Allen have been killed<\/span><\/a> while working in South Sudan, according to RSF.<\/p>\n

Allen\u2019s case has received virtually no news coverage in the United States. His family continues to call for a criminal investigation into his death\u2014including the possibility that it involved grievous breaches of international humanitarian law\u2014by South Sudan authorities and the US Department of Justice and FBI.<\/p>\n

Lack of news coverage entails a lack of public knowledge and engagement, which in turn contributes to what RSF, the CPJ, the International Press Institute, and others have described as a culture of impunity<\/span><\/a> for those who kill, harass, or intimidate journalists. Threats to journalists\u2014significant in their own right\u2014also undermine fundamental rights to freedom of information and freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we don\u2019t impose real consequences for crimes against journalists, perpetrators\u00a0only grow bolder,\u201d Clayton Weimers of RSF says. \u201cThe United States has an obligation to fight to free Austin Tice and for justice for Christopher Allen not only because they\u2019re American citizens, but because not fighting for them puts every media worker in greater danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporting the truth has always entailed risks. But the global scope of impunity for those who would silence journalists by killing or imprisoning them compounds those risks, making journalism a potentially deadly business. Resolute efforts to ensure Tice\u2019s release and justice for Allen are important steps in chipping away at that culture of impunity and ensuring better protections for journalists everywhere.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Andy Lee Roth is the associate director of <\/em>Project Censored. He coordinates the Project\u2019s Campus Affiliates Program, a news media research network of several hundred students and faculty at two dozen colleges and universities across North America. His research and writing have been published in a variety of outlets, including<\/em> Index on Censorship, In These Times, YES! Magazine, Media, Culture & Society, and the<\/em> International Journal of Press\/Politics. He earned a PhD in sociology at the University of California and a BA in sociology and anthropology at Haverford College. Contact me<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Go to Original – projectcensored.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Aug 2022 – Violence is press censorship. To kill or imprison a journalist is to silence the public\u2019s source of news. 33 journalists around the world have been killed this year and 494 are imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders. In 2022 once per week, average, somewhere in the world a journalist is killed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":218349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[1785,101,1169,100,125,378,234,599,880,99],"class_list":["post-218348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-censorship","tag-cultural-violence","tag-death","tag-direct-violence","tag-freedom-of-the-press","tag-journalism","tag-media","tag-oppression","tag-state-terrorism","tag-structural-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265839,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218348\/revisions\/265839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}