K J  #4 6 :  M E D I A  I N  A S I A

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MEDIA IMMEDIACY: ASIA ONLINE

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Media Watchdogs

Reporteurs Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders)
http://www.rsf.fr/uk/home.html
Asia pages: http://www.rsf.fr/uk/html/asie/une_asie.html
Supports universal press freedom. Cutting-edge news on media suppression, with this home page reminder: "20 journalists have been killed since January 1st 2000, 76 are in jail." From its "Enemies of the Internet" report:

Forty-five countries restrict their citizens' access to the internet - usually by forcing them to subscribe to a state-run Internet Service Provider (ISP). Twenty of these countries may be described as real enemies of this new means of communication. On the pretext of protecting the public from "subversive ideas" or defending "national security and unity", some governments totally prevent their citizens from gaining access to the internet. Others control a single ISP or even several, installing filters blocking access to web sites regarded as unsuitable and sometimes forcing users to officially register with the authorities.

    Reporters Sans Frontieres has selected 20 countries that it regards as enemies of the internet because they control access totally or partially, have censored web sites or taken action against users. They are: the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam.

The right to a clean environment and sustainable development is fundamental and is closely connected to the right to life, good health and well-being. The environmental journalist should inform the public about the threats to their environment — whether it is at a global, regional, national or local level.

    —Excerpt from 'Code of Ethics for Environmental Journalists' ratified at the Sixth World Congress of Environmental Journalists, Colombo, Sri Lanka 1998

On January 4, 1996 the Mustache Brothers ["a Burmese version of the Marx Brothers"] accepted an invitation they might have been wiser to refuse: they agreed to put on a show at Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's compound in Rangoon, at a 2000-strong party to mark the 48th anniversary of Burma's independence from Britain.

    The show received rapturous applause from the party-goers. Many of the jokes made fun of the direness of the country's leadership: in one routine, the troupe sang a satire about Burma's generals; in another, government workers were portrayed as thieves. On January 7 the troupe had returned home to Mandalay, but shortly afterwards many of their number were arrested by officers from Military Intelligence Unit 16. Eight were released a month later, but U Pa Pa Lay and U Lu Zaw were charged under Section 5(e) of the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act with spreading "false news, knowing beforehand that it is untrue." The following March they were sentenced to the maximum seven-year prison term.

At best, journalism plays a catalytic role. Investigative reports enrich public debate and put on the news agenda issues that should be of concern to citizens. By probing, for example, the consequences of corruption in terms of the quality of government services taxpayers get or the magnitude of the waste of public resources, journalists help readers to understand the problems of governance and to make decisions about who they should vote for and what changes they should demand. At their best, expose's should make people angry rather than cynical, and move citizens to action. Outrage makes change possible.

„Sheila Coronel (Executive Director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and a founding Board Member of SEAPA)

In the ten years since its founding, PCIJ has published over 180 articles in major Philippine newspapers and magazines, produced five full-length documentaries, and launched over a dozen books. It has also won major awards, including six National Book Awards, a Catholic Mass Media Award, and more than two dozen awards and citations from the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Investigative Journalism.

    PCIJ stories make an impact. Well-researched and well-documented, these reports have contributed to a deeper understanding of issues from politics to the environment, health and business to women and the military. Some of these reports have prodded government action on issues like corruption, public accountability and environmental protection.

Most of the broadsheets show their support for the government of President Estrada in many, often obvious, ways. One newspaper's banner stories for nine consecutive days last summer were all on Estrada. Another has several columnists uniformly praising everything the government does daily, even as it concentrates on fashions and other trivia as the staples of its news, including its front page reporting. Still another has government officials for columnists, and makes it a point to publish government-issued press releases on the front page.

Just over a year ago, on September 21 [1999], 30-year-old free-lance reporter Sander Thoenes arrived at the airport in Dili, the capital of East Timor. That same afternoon, he was gunned down by men wearing Indonesian army uniforms. Four days later, on September 25, armed men executed nine civilians at a roadblock near Los Palos. Among the dead was Agus Muliawan, a Balinese reporter for the Tokyo-based news agency Asia Press International. He was 26 years old.

    In the past year, United Nations and Indonesian government investigators have accumulated substantial evidence indicating that soldiers from Indonesia's notorious Battalion 745 murdered Thoenes, a Dutch reporter who contributed to The Christian Science Monitor and The Financial Times. Equally strong evidence is said to link members of the Indonesia-backed East Timorese militia Tim Alfa to Muliawan's murder.

Berlin, 28 November 2000: Two [imprisoned] Burmese editors have been awarded the 2001 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers. Dissident writer San San Nweh, 56, was the first woman to train as a journalist in Burma. She was editor of two journals — Gita Ppade-tha and Einmet-hpu Ñ and is a novelist and poet. She was imprisoned for ten years in August 1994 for "anti-government reports" to French journalists and for "providing information about the human rights situation to the UN special rapporteur for Burma." U Win Tin is the former editor of the daily Hanthawati newspaper, vice-chair of the Burmese Writers Association and a founder of the National League of Democracy, Burma's main pro-democracy party whose landslide election victory in 1990 was not recognised by the military regime. U Win Tin was arrested in 1989, tried in a closed military court and sentenced to 14 years in prison for allegedly being a member of the banned Communist Party of Burma.

WITNESS strengthens local activists by giving them video cameras and field training, unleashing an arsenal of computers, imaging and editing software, satellite phones and email in the struggle for justice. WITNESS has worked with over 125  partner groups from 47 countries to use video to overcome political, economic, and physical barriers, and to expose human rights abuses to the world via television, grassroots advocacy, and internet broadcasting.

Unprecedented progress has been made in the Cambodian forestry sector over the past 18 months. However, in the last six months Global Witness has documented 129,841m3 of illegally felled timber either stockpiled or being transported. At the current royalty rate of $54 per m³ this represents a loss to the treasury of $7.01 million. Global Witness investigators documented more illegal activity by Hero Taiwan in its Ratanakiri concession after three days in the field than the six inspecting foresters had in the past year.

Zamira Sydykova [one of 4 recipients in 2000], editor-in-chief of Res Publica, an independent newspaper founded in Kyrgyzstan in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, is a leader in the independent media in Central Asia. One of the few women to head a newspaper in the region, she has faced a barrage of legal maneuverings designed to stifle her reporting, which has been critical of government officials. In 1995, she was charged with slandering the president, because she wrote about his foreign bank accounts, and banned from working as a journalist for 18 months. In 1997, she was charged with criminal libel for publishing articles alleging corruption in a state-run gold mining company. After a month in a labor camp, she was released, but banned from working for another 18 months.

Earlier this year [2000], Res Publica and Sydykova were found again found guilty of libel. The resulting fines equaled the annual budget of the paper and Res Publica was forced to close for several months. Sydykova appealed for early disbursement of the $2,000 prize which accompanies the Courage in Journalism Award. With the fines now paid, Res Publica is again publishing.

In general, reportage on children leaves much to be desired. News are largely based on bad things that happen to children. Children are, more often than not, seen as hapless victims of violence and abuses such as incest and rape. Children ages 0-17 constitute 48% of the Philippine population of 76 million. Yet, they remain an invisible majority - their voices are rarely heard, especially on matters directly affecting their lives. Many do not realize that human rights, such as freedom of speech and expression, apply to all including children.

     There is an urgent need to re-think many concepts when writing about children and their issues.
     For one, there's no such thing as a children's beat, unlike health, social welfare, defense and politics. Yet coverage of this sector is extremely important. The reality is, there is a "children's angle" in nearly every issue - be it poverty, foreign dept, or war. If children are not provided ample support and are excluded from participating in the socio-economic and political mainstream, the country's future is automatically put at risk.
                -www.pressasia.org/PFA/news/index4.html

It is one of those distinct ironies perhaps found only in Japan that the news media of a democratic society, rather than crusading for the rights of citizens, often campaigns to infringe upon them. Nothing better illustrates this than the case of Yoshiyuki Kouno. On June 27, 1994, the people of Matsumoto, a sleepy city some 200 kilometers west of Tokyo, awoke to the stunning news that seven residents had died and 144 others were hospitalized from what was later determined to be sarin, a lethal nerve gas developed by the Nazis in World War II. Within days, unattributed police sources accused Kouno, a soft-spoken salesman who, along with his wife and children, was injured in the attack. He was the first to report the incident to the authorities.

    Based on such tips, the Japanese press bivouacked en mass before his house and launched a barrage of negative articles in banner headlines. One newspaper claimed that Kouno had disclosed his "mistake" to a paramedic as he was being rushed to a hospital. A tabloid weekly went further, revealing the most intimate details of his family's life history; according to its "sources" Kouno had always been a "strange person." In no time, Kouno's quiet life in the countryside was shattered by an unrelenting stream of invective and harassment, almost of all of it anonymously.
    For months, Kouno tried to plead his innocence, but was largely ignored. It was not until two years later, when public prosecutors were bringing charges against members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, that the alleged assailants of the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack began to admit in court that they were also responsible for the Matsumoto incident. "I used to have unequivocal trust in what I read in the papers, and what was reported by the network news," Kouno recalls today. "I have since learned, however, that many of the reports they carry — not just those that concerned myself, but about other people — are utterly unfounded fabrications..."

08.17.00:  In spite of Cambodia's grim and grisly history under the Khmer Rouge, years of civil wars and various coups d'etat, the news media in the country are "lively and largely fearless," according to a detailed report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

     Noting the press in Cambodia "has suffered its share of traumas," the report states that "as part of their genocidal campaign, the Khmer Rouge killed most of the country's intellectuals between 1975 and 1979, including almost all journalists."
     In 1995, the president of the Khmer Journalists Association said that he knew of only 10 living journalists who had worked as journalists before 1975, leaving the media "starved for talent."
     The author of the report, A. Lin Neumann, who is based in Bangkok, Thailand, as a consultant on Asian issues to CPJ and also is an adviser to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, says that "the Cambodian press fearless." Neumann contends that "given the recent history of Cambodia, this is an achievement in itself."
     The report asserts that although broadcast media remain "under firm state control," newspapers "are unbridled to a degree rarely seen in most countries."
     However, the report notes that the Cambodian press is deeply politicized "because most newspapers depend on patronage for their survival."
     The report states that although there are 200 licensed publications in the country, and some 30 newspapers that publish regularly in the capital, Phnom Penh, "only a few papers raise significant sums from advertising."
    Open Forum Cambodia, a nongovernmental organization, or NGO, that monitors the local press, estimates that 99% of local advertising revenue goes to just 10 newspapers and that Rasmei Kampuchea alone accounts for 23% of the Cambodian newspaper industry's total ad sales.

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