In the conflict zone

One hundred and fifty-three members of Reporters Sans Fronti?res pose with portraits of famous French journalists on March 16 in Paris. The banner reads: "Iraq: 153 journalists killed in four years. What if it was in France?"-AFP /BERTRAND GUAY One hundred and fifty-three members of Reporters Sans Fronti�res pose with portraits of famous French journalists on March 16 in Paris. The banner reads: "Iraq: 153 journalists killed in four years. What if it was in France?"

Interview with Vincent Brossel, Asia-Pacific Desk, RSF.

Reporters Sans Frontires (RSF) has been fighting for press freedom ever since it was formed in 1985 by a group of French journalists. An international organisation, it defends journalists and media assistants who have been imprisoned or persecuted. Each year, the RSF supports journalists or media outlets in difficulty (to pay for lawyers, medical care and equipment) as well as the families of imprisoned journalists. It also works to improve the safety of journalists, especially those reporting from war zones.

In France itself, journalism is in a crisis today, given the popular opinion that journalists have lost credibility with the people. In a crisis, it is said, one must connect. And that is what French journalists did when they came together, along with common people, at their first national conference, Assises Internationales du Journalisme, in Lille and Arras in northern France from March 7 to 9. It was organised by Jerome Bouvier, president of the Association for Journalism and Citizenship, with a focus on interaction with the public to understand their concerns and come up with solutions.

Many people in France think the news media are part of the establishment and are not voicing their concerns. Journalists, on their part, believe that commercialisation of the media has undermined journalism, making it more trivial and less hard-hitting. Many French media groups are facing a financial crisis and falling advertising revenues means that media companies rely more on corporate investors. Moreover, in trying to economise, news media rely on news fed by public relations departments of companies rather than on real journalism. Independent, critical voices are apparently being silenced.

With just a few weeks to go for the French presidential elections, the role of the media in propping up candidates seen as close to owners of media houses was also a cause of concern. The conference hosted a debate by leading political journalists on the role of the media in covering the presidential election. The more experienced political commentators felt that television was dumbing down political debates by merely interviewing candidates or reporting their campaigns and debates, without placing in a context what they were saying.

The international touch to the conference was added by the Indian and Polish delegations, which made presentations about the media in their countries. The Indian media team highlighted the role of the regional press and its rapid growth, the threats from corporatisation of the media, the need for the growth of independent radio and the challenges in crisis situations. The Polish delegation spoke about the growth of the media after the fall of communism. Faced with new challenges, the traditional print media in Poland was branching out into new media such as the Internet and becoming more interactive and responsive to public concerns.

In the French context, falling revenues have meant lesser coverage of international news. It was expensive to send foreign correspondents into the field and conflict zones have become more dangerous for journalists. The RSF, also called Reporters Without Borders, said the number of journalists killed in 2006 was the highest in the last 13 years. Vincent Brossel of the Asia-Pacific Desk of RSF was one of the participants who raised concerns about the safety and freedom of local journalists in conflict zones under authoritarian regimes, besides providing a new perspective on covering conflicts and wars by the international media.

During the conference Frontline spoke to Vincent Brossel on the challenges to freedom of expression in the new contexts. Excerpts from the interview:

Are journalists more under threat today than they were in the past?

If you look at the last 20 years, the world is freer than before. The Berlin Wall fell, most of the African countries became democratic, and South America saw a huge transformation. From 1990 to 2001, things were improving. But after September 11, 2001, it was a big shock for all of us, not only for the United States, because we had to face a new reality.

Governments started focussing more on safety, security, the fight against terrorism, and started curtailing our liberties. This is also a reality for press freedom and freedom of expression on the Internet. There was a deterioration because even democratic countries were restraining our freedom. Authoritarian countries were using this to control the freedom of citizens even further. New conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan emerged.

In Iraq, 150 journalists have been killed - double the number killed in Vietnam. The American invasion has created a new, dangerous situation for journalists. There is more media coverage, but, at the same time, the situation is so chaotic that they are under fire from every side.

The paradox is that the choice in terms of information is better, but the problems journalists have to face are greater. In China, there is a new generation of journalists who want to push the limits of censorship. But the government is cracking down. So the fight has become more intense than before.

Are those being killed local journalists or foreign correspondents?

The number of journalists killed in 2006, mainly because of the Iraq war, is double that of 2003. It's the first time that we have such high figures in the last 13 years. The number of arrests and cases of censorship are much higher than before. It's mainly Iraqi journalists who are in trouble. The problem is that we are only talking about the foreign journalists in Iraq. But the people who are killed, or arrested, or under threat are Iraqis because they are on the streets.

It has become so dangerous in Iraq that foreign journalists who go to Baghdad stay in a house protected by dozens of armed people, and only their Iraqi colleagues go out to the field. They call it bunker journalism. They are stuck in their house. Sometimes they go to the Green Area for a press conference or they are embedded for a few hours in a U.S. convoy. But many stay in their hotel, send Iraqi journalists to the field and write the story from their hotel. If you look at AP (Associated Press) or AFP (Agence France-Presse), all their images of Iraq are taken by Iraqis. They put their lives in danger to get these pictures.

The New York Times is spending $3 million every year to keep a bureau in Baghdad. They have 35 or 40 armed bodyguards just for their building. The problem is so violent that it is becoming very costly to collect news. So only the big media can be there. For a freelancer, it is almost impossible. There is only one French journalist in all of Iraq.

We think we are well-informed about Iraq but we don't know what is really happening in Iraq. The journalists there just report bombings but they cannot report everything. It's all under cover. We just know about massacres, but there are other political and social problems. And we are underinformed about them. When attacks on journalists are high, public opinion is deprived of information.

Press freedom is not just a problem of journalists, it's our problem as well. Citizens want to be informed. For example, we don't know what is happening in North Korea and it is our right to know because it is a nuclear country, potentially dangerous. For North Korean people, it is almost impossible to access foreign news. Press freedom is important because it is the right to information. The right of the journalist to work and inform. And the right of citizens to get access to news.

Are certain conflicts, such as the one in Chechnya, more difficult to access and therefore under-reported?

Some conflicts, such as Israel and Palestine, are over-reported because in some ways it is easier to go on the field. You take a flight to Jerusalem, and you have access. But it is difficult to access most conflicts. And the authorities fear that the place will be crowded with journalists because they know that human rights violations will be covered, that if there is a journalist arrested or killed, it will attract more attention to the situation.

And [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is making Chechnya a closed area where reporters cannot go. If they go, they have to be embedded in the Russian Army. Or, they have to sneak in and risk their lives. How many journalists are willing to risk their lives over a report about Chechnya? Very few. Freelancers are badly paid and they risk their lives to get a report, which they are not even sure they can sell to the press.

Anna Politkovskaya was a very brave journalist. She covered Chechnya from the beginning of the crisis. She was killed for that. The Russian police have linked it to the Chechen police. So if you close a territory, you can do whatever you want. You can torture, kill people, and commit massacres. There are no eyes, no TVs, no photographers. When some people take the risk to go inside, they are killed.

It's very frustrating - there are over-covered conflicts and some under-covered or not at all. Who knows about the situation in Chechnya or Darfur [Sudan] or some parts of Columbia or China or Kashmir? We have to push to open the gates.

Is most of the news about these conflicts from the Western perspective?

Yes, because it's a problem of money. The American media are the richest so they can afford to send journalists. But, now things are changing with Al Jazeera, Al Arabia, Indian TV channels, and Japanese TV channels. They are also interested in the global perspective. Al Jazeera is everywhere. They changed the way we understand the news. It is more south-oriented news. And I hope the TV news channels in India will understand this challenge and know that they can challenge the big media.

It's very interesting to see the emergence of the new global media. An Al Jazeera journalist going to Palestine or Afghanistan or Chechnya will be received very differently from the way an American is received. Al Jazeera has an access, and gets stories that American journalists cannot get. That's very exciting. It will give a voice to people who are supposed to be the bad guys of the story. I don't have any sympathy for the Taliban [in Afghanistan] and so on, but you have to see the conflict from different perspectives. It is a good challenge to the U.S. media.

Besides physical danger, are there other threats to the freedom of the press?

The spectrum of violation is very large. It can go from verbal threat, which happens every day all over the world, to physical violence, censorship by law, by pressure, self-censorship and also a problem of economic pressure. Media is a business, so editors need advertisements. It's not citizens who are advertising but big companies and the state. So there are many ways to put pressure on the news media.

In some countries like Malaysia or Singapore, they don't have violence, they just have self-censorship. The media [organisations] are owned by friends of the government. Journalists know that if they write against the government they will be in trouble. That is more efficient than any type of violence or putting journalists in jail.

Is there more media attention when a Western journalist like Daniel Pearl is killed, as compared with journalists who are living in a conflict zone and reporting on it every day?

There's a tremendous gap between what can happen to a foreign journalist and a local journalist. Daniel Pearl was a brave journalist, he took risks. What happened to him was horrible. He was kidnapped and slaughtered in a very brutal way.

But, in Pakistan, we did a study that showed that in the last 10 years, 29 journalists were killed. And just one case was really investigated. The police put in a lot of effort to find the culprits; they were arrested, and some were sentenced. And this was the case of Daniel Pearl.

In the other cases, there was lazy investigation. They may arrest one guy, but afterwards justice is delayed. There are double standards in justice and in media attention. That is something we try to fight. The life of a Pakistani journalist is as important as the life of Daniel Pearl. And maybe soon there will be a movie about Pearl, but the life of any of these Pakistani journalists also deserves a movie because they have been as brave. They did not work for The Wall Street Journal, but they lost their lives because of a story. These double standards are one of the main problems we face.

What are the solutions RSF finds to protect journalists?

We do mainly lobbying, campaigns. We give helmets or bulletproof jackets to freelance journalists because they take risks, even though they don't know when they will be paid. They get their money after the report. The solutions are a problem of political will. It has to come from the government.

First, they have to change the laws in terms of defamation, where it is a crime; laws that prevent the development of free TV or radio. Second, in a conflict, all the parties have to understand that journalists are civilians. They are not part of the fight. So, they should not be targeted.

Third, the U.N. or regional bodies should take action and pull up their members if they are violating press freedom by imposing sanctions. There are so many mechanisms to impose sanctions but they are not implemented when human rights are violated. If you never use sanctions, why spend time in plenty of meetings in creating such a mechanism? Once you put pressure, you can negotiate.

India is considered a place where press freedom thrives. How far is that true?

It is true. But India is very late for radio, compared with Nepal or even Afghanistan. It has been so hard for the government to open the radio waves to private groups, for independent news. Even now, it is impossible to get independent news on the radio. Why is the government so afraid? They can have a good legal framework to make sure it doesn't get chaotic. The Indian news media and even NGOs [non-governmental organisations] are ready for radio.

Why are they afraid of radio? It seems like India is being like China. It has such a strong independent media, but is being so archaic about radio. This new law about community radio is good, but it is more NGO than community radio. You have to open up. You have so many TV channels, so why not radio? It will make people more aware.