Free and fair journalism

The UN marked on November 2, 2014, the first International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI) since the General Assembly passed a resolution to recognise the Day last year. The IDEI is mean to highlight how the culture of impunity around violent crimes against journalists affects not only the journalist community but the societies they live and work in. The resolution urges member states to prevent violence against journalists and media workers and prosecute those responsible. Over 700 journalists have been killed in the course of their duty over the last decade and only one in ten of those cases have resulted in convictions for the alleged offenders. The UN reports that 593 journalists were killed between 2006 and 2013 and less than six percent of those murders have been solved. The reported cases of journalists killed do not include those tortured, kidnapped, detained without charge, or violently attacked and assaulted.

Those numbers remain almost impossible to calculate. In over 60 percent of cases related to murders of journalists the UN has been denied access to trial documents or judicial proceedings. In Pakistan at least 82 journalists and media workers have been killed since 1992 while dozens have been harassed, assaulted, or captured and tortured by terrorist or criminal groups. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says that 56 of those murders were committed with the confirmed motives of possible suspects known. Recently only the murder of reporter Wali Babar has led to convictions of the people involved, though the case remains covered in uncertainty as the main accused was killed in a police ‘encounter’ before the trial. Pakistan remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.
The focus of the IDEI is important to note. Journalists inherently understand the risks associated with their profession but the fact remains that they are targets for state and non-state actors alike. The job of journalists providing precise information on the activities and policies of powerbrokers and decision makers often puts them on the wrong side of people and groups with a vested interest in controlling information, whether they are associated with government or not. The IDEI aims not just to end violence against journalists per se but to ensure that those who do kill, threaten or assault journalists in order to control information are not allowed to get away with their crime. Often in countries where law enforcement is a chronic problem, the status quo favours powerful institutions, groups and individuals who have extraordinary power beyond their constitutional or legal remit and are able thereby to not only control the flow of information but to prevent information that is contrary to their interests from being disseminated. This can go to the extent of labelling free and fair information as seditious or contrary to the national interest. This trend is not limited to developing countries. In Europe, journalists protest that increasing government scrutiny of editorial content and demands rather than requests that it be confined within the ‘national interest’ are undermining the idea of free and fair journalism. Just this year the offices of The Guardian, one of the UK’s largest media groups, were raided and computer hard drives destroyed that contained leaked information about the US National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) internet surveillance activities in the UK. Journalists cited a lack of parliamentary and judicial oversight as reasons the NSA programme was allowed to continue despite posing human rights and privacy concerns. As the statistics show, in developing countries the methods used to silence journalists are cruder and more final. The UN noted that when killers of journalists go unpunished, “Society loses confidence in its own judiciary system which is meant to protect everyone from attacks on their rights. Perpetrators of crimes against journalists are thus emboldened.” The power of the media and of journalists to shape the national discourse comes with the challenge of ensuring that they do not become abettors of the status quo and continue to act within the ethical boundaries of journalism. To do so they must be able to work in an environment without fear and the possibility of death. *
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/03-Nov-2014/free-and-fair-journalism