On Day Three of the Senate Judiciary
Committee’s tete-a-tete with Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John
Roberts, Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont made a speech about the
American public’s access to information. He said, in part:
If we, the people, know what
our government’s doing, why it’s doing it, we can hold the government
accountable and should. … The courts are, if at all possible,
supposed to take (the people’s) side in making sure they know what’s
going on. Because our government should not be able to hide things
unnecessarily from the people. No matter who’s in power, the people
should know what’s going on.
As Judge Roberts waited patiently for a question to emerge, Senator Leahy continued:
Let me give you a few examples.
In the last couple of years, the administration fought to prevent the
media from covering coffins returning from Iraq. It fought to keep
disturbing images of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq from the media. And just
last weekend, actually after they lost the initial bout in court, it
abandoned its zero-access policy regarding scenes of devastation in New
Orleans.
Americans are deciding, with increasing frequency, that protecting a free, robust, skeptical, sometimes critical press is less important than a host of other concerns…After a bit more positioning, the Senator asked the nominee:
The media comes and says,
“Look, the government screwed up. We’re trying to get in there to take
pictures to show how they screwed up” and they say, “You can’t come
in.” How would you analyze a claim like that?
As I held my breath, Judge Roberts answered:
Well, you know, I do start with a general principle in this area. I
think it was Justice Brandeis who talked about, you know, sunlight
being the best disinfectant.And I think that’s a lot of what the framers had in mind in
guaranteeing freedom of speech and the other rights that go along with
it. They appreciated the benefits that would come from public
awareness. That’s an important principle.
Amen, Judge Roberts. But as Senator Leahy pointed out, not everyone
these days believes in the overriding importance of public awareness.
Face it: Americans are deciding, with increasing frequency, that
protecting a free, robust, skeptical, sometimes critical press is less
important than a host of other concerns: a media company’s
shareholders, a prosecutor’s case, an organization’s political agenda
— or our government’s, for that matter.
Consider these recent events:
- Judith Miller was in jail for three months after refusing a judge’s order that she break a promise to a source. She was released (after this piece was originally published) when her source cleared her to testify before the grand jury.
- John Carroll, one of America’s finest editors, became the latest
newsroom leader to walk away far too soon. Among his reasons? Ongoing
cuts to his award-winning newsroom’s budget. - The people of Bellingham, Wash.; Boise, Idaho; Detroit; Olympia,
Wash.; and Tallahassee, Fla.; got the message that their newspapers
are, first and foremost, businesses -– and that they can be bought,
sold and, yes, traded like so many shares of common stock when the
right offer is on the table.
Admittedly, none of these situations is new; governments have tried
to restrict media access and control the public’s understanding of
events since the dawn of the Republic. It’s been more than 30 years
since a previous New York Times reporter went to jail for
refusing to give up a source. It’s been a lot longer than that since
the first editor fought with the first owner over budgets. And media
companies have traded newspapers before; almost a decade has passed
since Scripps-Howard and Knight-Ridder traded papers in Boulder, Colo.;
Monterey, Calif.; and San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Dole: “I do understand that the purpose of a reporter’s privilege is not to somehow elevate journalists above other segments of society.”But for all of the sameness, something is different. In a recent New York Times column, Bob Dole worried about Judith Miller’s jailing and the threat to a reporter’s ability to work effectively.
“As someone with a long record of government service,” Dole wrote,
“I must admit that I did not always appreciate the inquisitive nature
of the press.
“But I do understand that the purpose of a reporter’s privilege is
not to somehow elevate journalists above other segments of society.
Instead, it is designed to help guarantee that the public continues to
be well-informed.”
To help guarantee that the public continues to be well-informed.
Have we come to take that guarantee for granted? Do we believe that
it can survive no matter how many injunctions, lawsuits, cutbacks and
layoffs we throw at it?
Could we really let that guarantee slip away?
This summer, I met eight journalists who came to Poynter from around the world. As recipients of the 2005 Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships, they were selected from a group of 99 applicants from 43 countries.
In many of those countries, there is no guarantee that the public will be well-informed.
And were it not for men and women such as these eight, the public would know only what its government wanted known.
During my time with this year’s fellows, we spoke about the
potential of great journalism to make a difference in the lives of the
people they serve. The journalists — who came to America from
countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America —
recalled stories they had reported and published, sometimes at
significant personal risk.
Here are three of them.
Publishing Political Criticism in the Middle East
Walid Al-Saqaf is an editor at the Yemen Times in
Yemen. He recalled a time when Jarallah Omar, a leader of the country’s
Socialist opposition party, was urging him repeatedly to run an
interview with Omar about the practices of the government. For a time,
Al-Saqaf declined.
“We were hesitant to print the first article,” Al-Saqaf said,
“because it contained a lot of criticism and strong language opposing
the extension of the president’s term in office, as he had been in
power for a quarter of a century. We felt that the information in his
interview was quite sensitive.”
Eventually, however, Al-Saqaf did publish the interview -– and
proceeded to publish additional articles that contained reporting that
was critical of the ruling regime. The government was not happy.
Al-Saqaf: “I even remember a day security chiefs came over for a ‘visit,’ expressing the need to be a ‘good’ newspaper.”“After we published the interview
with Omar, and continued to write about him and his activities
extensively,” Al-Saqaf said, “we received more criticism from the
government and we were accused of supporting the opposition.
“I even remember a day security chiefs came over for a ‘visit,’ expressing the need to be a ‘good’ newspaper.”
Over time, Omar’s popularity grew, particularly among the international community.
“His outspoken personality and courage was admired by many,”
Al-Saqaf said. “He wrote himself and was interviewed by newspapers and
usually would talk so openly against the President and the more
powerful figures.”
Omar, as you would expect, also made enemies.
On December 28, 2002, as he finished a speech before a convention of
his party, Islah, Jarallah Omar was assassinated. A court convicted a
radical extremist of the crime.
“But,” Al-Saqaf said, “involvement of (government) security
apparatus in the plot was never ruled out, as Omar was a powerful
opposition figure who criticized the state and the president
ruthlessly.”
In a signed column that appeared in the Yemen Times following Omar’s death, Al-Saqaf wrote:
“Whenever he would come to visit me at the Yemen Times
premises in Sanaa, [Omar] would say: ‘Walid, I know that there are PSO
[intelligence] men following me all the way to your place. But I have
nothing to hide. I have nothing to fear, and the most that they would
do is murder me, like they did to many others … What they don’t know
is that they may take my soul, but they will never take away my
dignity.’ “
Covering Religious Refugees in Cambodia
Samean Yun, a reporter for The Cambodia Daily, recalled the
day his editor assigned him to travel to a remote area of Cambodia and
find a group of refugees who had fled religious persecution in their
native Vietnam.
The refugees, ethnic minorities known as the Montagnards of
Vietnam’s Central Highlands, practice Christianity and allied with the
United States during the Vietnam War. Since the war, many Montagnards
have joined in a movement known as “Dega Protestantism,” which
advocates the return of ancestral lands, religious freedom, and
self-rule.
Yun: “[If] they found reporters inside the jungle, the police officers could do whatever they wanted to the reporters because of the remote area.”Since 2001, according to Human Rights Watch,
close to 200 Montagnard Christians — not just Dega church activists,
but pastors, house church leaders and Bible teachers as well — have
been sentenced to prison terms of up to 13 years. Many have been
imprisoned on charges that they are violent separatists using their
religion to “sow divisions among the people” and “undermine state and
party unity.” According to Human Rights Watch, there is no evidence
that the Dega church movement has ever advocated violence.
Yun said that the Cambodian government always had denied that Montagnard asylum seekers had fled from Vietnam to Cambodia.
“Local human rights sources,” Yun said, “told reporters about the
Montagnards who were hiding in Ratanakkiri province. Because the
Cambodian government has received pressure from the Vietnamese
government, they did not want the international communities and media
to know about that.”
“So when the news came, my editor sent me and an American reporter to cover the story.”
The assignment was dangerous.
“Police officers were placed at the Ratanakkiri airport,” Yun said,
“to [spot] reporters who [came to] cover the stories. If [the police]
found out that reporters came from Phnom Penh to Ratanakkiri, they
stopped the reporters and sent them back to Phnom Penh.
“But if they found reporters inside the jungle, the police officers
could do whatever they wanted to the reporters because of the remote
area.”
Yun made it to the refugee site.
“I disguised [myself] as a local villager and contacted people who
knew where the Montagnards were to [take me there]. I succeeded in
meeting them and interviewed them.”
According to The Cambodia Daily,
Yun and other members of the staff interviewed and photographed 37
Montagnard asylum-seekers in Ratanakkiri in June 2004. The refugees had
scant amounts of food, water and medicine.
Yun: “I disguised [myself] as a local villager and contacted people who knew where the Montagnards were to [take me there].”After the article was published, Yun
told the seminar, Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk ordered the Cambodian
Red Cross to provide emergency aid to the Montagnards. And the UN’s
refugee agency (the office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees) also asked the government to go to Ratanakkiri to
help bring the refugees from the jungle.
“Some of them were offered asylum,” Yun said, “and they were brought to the United States.”
The king’s actions notwithstanding, the Cambodian government was not happy with The Cambodia Daily.
Officials accused the paper, its editor and groups that had assisted
the refugees of “exploiting the Montagnards for ‘political
motivations.’ “
“Since it is not their job to assist refugees,” the official said,
“they must be getting some benefit from ‘luring’ the Montagnard
asylum-seekers across the border.”
On Sept. 24, 2004, The Cambodia Daily reported that the
last group of 61 Montagnard refugees was escorted under UN protection
to safety. In all, the article reported, the number of Montagnards
taken under UNHCR protection since Yun entered the jungle was 348.
AIDS Among Orphans in Africa
Pricel Seleman, a senior reporter for The African in Tanzania, recalled the day his story on the AIDS epidemic led him to four orphans.
The oldest child, a girl, was 16; the youngest, also a girl, was 5.
The sisters and their two brothers had lost both parents in the
epidemic.
When Seleman met them, the children were living alone, taking care
of each other. The reporter had asked children in similar situations
what they needed. Some said money; others said food. These children,
however, answered differently.
Please give us education, they said. We need an education.
After Seleman’s story was published, a Tanzanian non-governmental
organization (NGO) took in the children and gave them housing and food.
All are in good schools.
Seleman said he continues to check on the children; he is concerned
because some NGOs accept money to care for children but don’t spend all
of it on them. These orphans, for instance, are living in one room that
has only enough space for one bed. Seleman said he is concerned about
the oldest sister, and her need for privacy. Many girls in her
circumstance, Seleman said, are lured into prostitution.
A Crumbling Cornerstone?
Back in the mid-1990s, when I was working on a Knight-Ridder project
in Miami, I was visiting with the company’s general counsel, Cristina
Mendoza.
The subject turned to press freedoms, and Mendoza was becoming
animated. As a refugee from Castro’s Cuba, she was well-acquainted with
the absence of a free, robust, skeptical, sometimes critical press.
“Americans take the free press for granted,” I recall her saying. “We should never take it for granted. Never.”
[I]magine confronting this natural nightmare and its aftermath without a free press.Yes, media of all stripes make
mistakes, exhibit bias, respond arrogantly to criticism and sometimes
even plagiarize or fabricate. Even the coverage of Hurricane Katrina -–
positively heroic on so many levels -– has been guilty in some quarters
of racial stereotyping and other shortcomings. But imagine confronting
this natural nightmare and its aftermath without a free press. Imagine
relying totally on any of the governments involved for our only
understanding of the situation. For that matter, imagine how different
life in this country would be without a media that reveals wrongdoings,
provides a forum for community discussion and allows citizens to hold
their elected officials accountable.
The press’s role helps make the idea of America work. And in the
years to come, the Supreme Court, perhaps led by Justice John Roberts,
might well be asked to preserve it.
Recently, I exchanged e-mails with Mendoza, who is now general
counsel at Florida International University in Miami. She continues to
worry about the future of the press.
“I feel this even more strongly,” she wrote to me, “as I see the
cuts in newsrooms and, therefore, the reduced amount of investigative
work that newspapers can do at the local level.
“I truly think that a free press is the cornerstone of any true democracy.
“And we do not realize how we are losing it.”
