The Brutal Persecution and Murder of 1000s of Journalists

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” -Thomas Jefferson, 1786

Shortly after leaving the radio station at 9pm, Filipino journalist Cornelio Pepino was shot multiple times in the head by two unidentified attackers on motorcycles. As he drove home with his wife, the two men pulled up next to their car and opened fire, killing him instantly. His wife barely survived.

Police have still not identified a motive, although they highly suspect it was retaliation for Cornelio’s investigations into illegal mining operations, bribery, and corruption. Attacks like these are not uncommon in the Philippines, as other journalists, such as Dindo Generoso and Edmund Sestoso, had been murdered in a similar fashion shortly after exposing illegal practices.

Sadly, stories like this are common in almost every country, as journalists are imprisoned, killed, harassed, and threatened for doing their jobs. And the situation is getting worse. According to Reporters Without Borders, an international non-profit dedicated to preserving freedom of the press, “press freedom has deteriorated by 12% since this measure was created in 2013.” Their analysis for 2020 shows only 8% of countries have good situations for journalists. Most of these are in Northern Europe.

Although most agree a free press is an essential pillar of a free society, a truly free press is rare. But why? What are the global threats to journalism?

Authoritarianism

To begin with, the governments of some countries exercise strict control over the media, as they feel it is a threat to their power structures. A clear example is North Korea, which ranks 180th, the absolute bottom, of Reporters Without Borders’ 2020 World Press Freedom Index. Kim Jong Un and his communist regime do not allow for news to be spread by anyone other than government sanctioned outlets, allowing them to control all information. Journalism doesn’t exist here, only state reporters.

The situation is similar in Iran, Syria, Vietnam, Djibouti, China, Eritrea, and Turkmenistan, which rank 173rd-179th, in order. In these countries, no free media outlets exist, and, like North Korea, citizens are imprisoned for speaking publicly against the government. Journalism here is almost non-existent, besides the brave few, such as Chinese activist and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who was eventually caught and died in prison.

Moreover, some authoritarian governments look to influence journalists abroad. For example, the Chinese government wants to impose a “new world media order” in which they use violence, intimidation, and even psychological manipulation to control the official narrative and spread it to other countries. Their state owned TV network, CGTN, broadcasts to 140 countries, in 65 languages, which they use to spread their pro-communist, anti-press agenda. They even invite journalists from developing nations to Beijing so that they can “train their critical mind,” for which they offer favorable press coverage of their countries in exchange. Reportedly, tens of thousands of journalists have attended such training.

China’s manipulation doesn’t end there. Reporters Without Borders claims “Beijing is also exporting its censorship and surveillance tools, including the Baidu search engine and WeChat instant messaging platform, and encouraging authoritarian states to copy its repressive regulations, a particularly effective strategy in Southeast Asia.” The end goal is clearly to limit criticism of it’s government, both at home and abroad, making the situation hostile for journalists from any country.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has named China, along with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt as the “world’s worst jailers of journalists.”

Furthermore, authoritarian governments have been known to target dissident journalists that have found refuge in foreign countries. For example, between 1981 and 1990, 5 Vietnamese journalists were killed while living in the US for criticizing Vietnamese politicians. Likewise, numerous journalists critical of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, have been killed while both abroad and at home. Jamal Khashoggi was also killed in Istanbul on orders by the Saudi Crown Prince for being his most outspoken critic. It seems that if journalists catch the eye of an autocrat, their lives are in danger wherever they flee to.

On a side note, the US does not officially have an authoritarian government, but recent actions might suggest otherwise. During the protests against police brutality sparked by the murder of George Floyd,  journalists have been attacked by the police and agents from the Department of Homeland Security more than 140 times. In most of these cases, the journalists had clearly identified themselves as press. In fact, some sources claim that the DHS has been compiling intelligence reports on journalists who have exposed their unethical and possibly illegal intervention in Portland, Oregon. If this is not authoritarianism, then it is certainly on the path to it.

So how can journalism survive in such a hostile climate?

Information Chaos

The average person is bombarded by information, because we now live in what some experts have dubbed the “Attention Economy.” Businesses, activists, politicians, etc. now treat human attention as a commodity, in that the more they can get, the more successful they will be. Therefore, virtually everywhere we look, someone is trying to get our attention. This is how social media, the news, smartphones, video games, etc. work. They are all massive markets worth billions, and they do little else besides occupy our attention. 

Of course, humans have a limited attention span, meaning people and organizations must compete and even pay for access to it. This results in deception, manipulation, sensationalizing, and information overload for the end users. For example, it’s common to see a headline like “Democrats eviscerates Trump.” Really? This is hyperbole to get clicks. Likewise, the internet is full of nonsense yet witty memes to get you to pause for only a few seconds, which is enough to register an ad impression, thus earning someone a fraction of a cent.

One result of this is that real information becomes less attractive, as it’s purpose is only to inform, not entertain or entice. Journalists then have to lower their standards to compete. So instead of high-quality, investigative journalism, the media is now full of what can rightly be called click-bait. If journalists don’t stoop to this level, then they may be out of a job. Therefore, this information chaos inevitably weeds out quality journalism, unless it is deliberately sought out by the conscientious few. 

“The growing confusion between commercial, political and editorial content has destabilised democratic guarantees of freedom of opinion and expression,” according to Reporters Without Borders. 

Another result is that some governments pass laws to combat misinformation, but these can be problematic. While they may do some good, they can also be twisted and weaponized against legitimate journalism that those in power are not fond of. For example, in Benin (ranked 113th) a law regulating the spread of fake news was turned against journalist Ignace Sossou in 2019 for publishing 3 tweets which were embarrassing yet verbatim quotes from Public Prosecutor Mario Mètonou. If they were exact quotes, then why was he prosecuted using anti-fake news legislation?

Similarly, Singapore passed the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) in 2019. Shortly after, this act was used to attack Brad Bowyer, who criticized the ruling party’s use of the sovereign wealth fund on Facebook. He was compelled to change his posts or face steep fines and/or prison time. International Commission of Jurists stated that there is “real risk that the law will be misused to clamp down on opinions or information critical of the government.” And this is exactly what happened.

So what are journalists supposed to do against laws like these that have been clearly designed to silence them?

Hostility and Hatred

Wannabe authoritarians must resort to more subtle means to subdue their critics. That is, some leaders don’t have the power to outright kill or imprison journalists that expose their misdeeds. Instead, they look to discredit and embarrass them, in an attempt to dissuade the public from listening.

For example, in Brazil (ranked 107th), President Jair Bolsonaro has orchestrated a campaign to smear and foment hatred towards journalists that criticize him. He created a task force dubbed “the office hate,” which includes “the digital militia,” whose job it is to harass, intimidate, and lie about those investigating him and his allies. In fact, he recently turned this cabinet on the Supreme Court Justices, as they are investigating alleged disinformation networks, unethical financial arrangements, and corruption charges. 

Similarly, Donald Trump, the president of the US (ranked 45th), has engaged in his own campaign to discredit the media. If he is criticized, he can simply dismiss it as “fake news.” If a particular journalist or publication continues to criticize him, he attacks them with childish nicknames, threatens legal action, actually sues media outlets, or threatens to change laws to remove certain protections for the media. In fact, Trump has filed a lawsuit against the New York Times for libel, even though these are dead on arrival. 

Likewise, Trump is threatening to change section 203 of the Communication Decency Act, which states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This prevents websites from being sued for what is posted by its users. Without section 203, the internet would not be feasible. However, after Twitter began fact checking his Tweets, he threatened to remove this protection. Of course, this threat is empty, as he does not want to be known as the person who destroyed the internet nor does he have the power to do so. Regardless, this is all an attempt to bully the media and make them less credible in the eyes of the public.

In case you need more proof, Trump tweeted on May 11th, 2020 “The Lamestream Media is truly out of control. Look how they work (conspire!) together. They are the Enemy of the People, but don’t worry, we will WIN in November!” Here, he offers no tangible evidence of bias against him. His only goal is to hopefully stop the public from listening to his critics. When he lost the election in November 2020, quite predictably, he blamed journalists.

Yet another example, is that both Trump and Bolsonaro have demonized the media for allegedly creating hysteria over the Covid-19 pandemic to make them look bad. Not only is this dangerous, but it undermines the ability for journalists to do their jobs. It’s no wonder that both the US and Brazil have performed abysmally in containing the virus.

In the face of such hatred, it’s amazing so many journalists are still pushing forward.

Dwindling Public Trust

Because of all of the above, the public’s trust in the media continues to fall. In virtually every country, the media has less than half of the public’s trust. According to Reporters Without Borders, “57% of the people polled in its latest international survey thought the media they used were contaminated with untrustworthy information.” 

One implication of this is that journalists may become the target of violence, as people blame them for whatever is going wrong at the moment. That is, those that believe the smear campaigns of authoritarians, wannabe authoritarians, or those intentionally disseminating information chaos, might turn to assaulting journalists. For example, when 84,000 “Yellow Vest” protesters took to the streets in France (ranked 34th) in 2019 to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reforms, numerous journalists were beaten.

A similar situation arose in February, 2020 in Lebanon (ranked 102nd). During anti-government protests, various members of the media, such as Rima Hamdan, Mohammad Zbeeb, Issam Abdallah and Paula Nawfal, were beaten within inches of their lives for how they covered the protests. Several other journalists became the target of public ire and harassment once their personal info was made public.

Likewise, in Iraq in 2019, armed militias turned on journalists who covered protests against the government. “The targeting of journalists has had a deep impact on press freedoms and freedom of expression in Iraq,” said Ibrahim Al-Sarraj, head of Iraqi Journalists Rights Defense Association (IJRDA).

With even the public against journalists, what are they supposed to do?

Concentration of Power

With so many difficulties for journalists and the availability of digital content these days, small media outlets struggle to stay profitable. Many have been forced to close or to sell to larger companies, resulting in the media being owned by only a handful of people. In fact, Reporters Without Borders estimates that half of the media jobs have been lost in the US over the last 10 years.

This is because the American media is almost entirely owned by 5 companies. National Amusements owns CBS, Paramount, Showtime, BET, Nickelodeon, Viacom, among many others. Disney owns ABC, A&E, ESPN, Lucas Films, Pixar, Marvel, etc. Time Warner owns CNN, Castle Rock, HBO, Hulu, Turner, Warner Brothers, Time, Life, to only name a few. Comcast owns CNBC, MSNBC, Universal, The Weather Channel, among others. Lastly, News Corp owns Fox, Fx, National Geographic, the New York Post, Harper Collins, and on and on.

The rest of the world is in a similar situation. For example, the Czech Republic’s (ranked 40th) wealthiest person recently bought Central European Media Enterprises, which controls many Eastern European TV networks. In Japan (ranked 66th), the “keiretsu” media conglomerates exercise strict control over content.

Therefore, journalists must comply with the standards and agendas set by these few, large corporations, who exercise their power to shape the narrative for their benefit. So how is a free press even possible?

How Do We Make the Free Press Free Again?

While there are no easy answers, a good first step is holding those that stand in the way of journalism accountable. UNESCO claims that “almost 90% percent of those responsible for the killing of 1,109 journalists around the world from 2006 to 2018 have not been convicted.” That is, hunting season for journalists has almost no restrictions. Likewise, when leaders like Trump try to silence journalists, namely though his use of logical fallacies, the public needs to have a zero tolerance policy. Whether it’s killing, imprisoning, silencing, or discrediting, perpetrators shouldn’t be allowed to get away with their crimes.

Holding perpetrators accountable is not easy either. If they are foreign governments, then this requires economic or military pressure from other governments and international organizations like the UN. Within a country, it requires the people to keep their own leaders in check through elections. Of course, both of these are easier said than done.

It’s also important to increase awareness. When journalists are stifled, the world needs to be notified. While there are organizations that help do this, such as the many mentioned above, the public is still largely unaware of what happens both abroad and in their own backyard. Therefore, give these organizations support and help spread their message of protecting the free press. A good example of this is the many videos taken by protesters of journalists being attacked by the police during the George Floyd protests in the US. World Press Freedom Day is May 3rd.

Another piece of the solution is to support independent journalism. Seek out media outlets that are not part of a conglomerate. This will help keep them in business and take some of the power away from the few that control the media.

Lastly, the public needs to hold journalists to a higher standard, which places some of the blame on journalists themselves. This includes doing more to remove bias, providing better evidence, having a more diverse range of opinions on staff, engaging more with opposing opinions, etc.

The above won’t fix the problem overnight, but it will certainly help. If people don’t fight to keep the press free, then democracy may give way to fascism, which seems to be on the rise these days.

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