Could greater control over Bollywood help reverse a culture of female objectification in India? No, argues Mahima Kaul, but the roles of women in Bollywood films could still do with a makeover
EDITOR – Online and News: Job Description – Index on Censorship
Overview: The Editor (online and news) (EON) leads and manages Index’s editorial coverage online and the Index website as a whole (including publishing advocacy, events and communications outputs). The Editor (online and news) reports to the CEO. This is a vital senior management post, and will play an important role in the implementation of Index’s new strategic framework, including the development of our key themes, increasing the international range of Index’s work and the integration of our editorial and advocacy
work.
This senior post combines strategic and management ability with hands-on news, analysis, editorial and writing ability.
The Editor (online and news) will lead Index’s editorial coverage of free speech issues at national, regional and international levels, from daily news to features, debates, analysis and interviews on a weekly and monthly basis. He or she coordinates Index writers, editors, regional correspondents and translators. The editor must be able to provide clear leadership, and to manage, commission and plan for editorial output that is wide-ranging, diverse, fresh, and exclusive and that reflects and contributes to the overarching Index
strategy. He or she will also contribute his/her own high quality writing and analysis.
The job involves taking a strategic overview of all our editorial output, and working closely with other colleagues on the effective integration of web editorial output and our longer form magazine coverage and on the strategic integration of editorial and advocacy. He or she will ensure excellent editorial coverage, with the CEO and campaigns and advocacy colleagues, of our five priority themes covering the following free expression challenges: digital; authoritarian regimes; democracies; access; and religion and culture. He/she will
have the editorial and strategic ability to target and increase audiences and play a leading role in our audience strategy.
Main Responsibilities
To plan and to implement a strategic, integrated editorial strategy as a core part of Index’s overall strategy.
To coordinate, lead and manage Index writers, editors, regional correspondents to produce news coverage, analysis, features and debates on free speech issues at national (UK), regional and international levels and to develop audio-visual content for
the site.
To work with, and as appropriate lead, advocacy, policy, events and communications colleagues in planning and creating high quality content for the site that covers our themes and priority countries. To prepare web pages, editing, writing and updating, adding links, and appropriate audio and visual material. To ensure our web site, blogs and digital work cover all of Index activities in a hard-hitting, strategic, high impact, innovative and expert manner.
To contribute to Index funding proposals both for editorial work and for cross-Index
projects and programmes.
To work with the Magazine Editor on increasing the integration of magazine output (within the constraints of its pay wall) with our other web output and repackaging it for social media audiences, including creating related and interactive web content.
To commission and edit, consistent with the Index style rules, guidelines and strategy (and to lead on these with the Magazine Editor), to transmit edited stories in a timely manner, managing contributors to ensure assignments are completed on time and of the highest quality.
To provide and discuss with Index writers story ideas related to Index’s themes.
To lead on Index’s social media strategy;To represent Index at Index events and at external events, to contribute to broadcast, web, print and social media.
To write high quality, well sourced analyses and stories that contribute to Index campaigns and to contribute to Index’s policy analysis;
To identify and build audiences for Index as part of our overall audience strategy and to play a leading role in the development of that strategy, including giving feedback on website design and content, keeping a “big picture” perspective on audience perceptions of Index, identifying trends and tools that could be used for sites/feeds, social networks and new innovations, etc.
To act as liaison between the IT support staff and the rest of the organisation
The Editor (online and news) reports to the CEO.
Competences – Essential:
Demonstrable and substantial leadership and management experience, including in strategy, planning and delivery and in motivating, coordinating and developing teams and individuals, and managing complex projects.
Strategic vision, ability and skills to plan ahead and coordinate coverage strategically in order to fulfil Index´s goals of reporting, informing, promoting debate – and so creating awareness of free speech issues – and influencing decisions by those in power to support free expression around the world.
Excellent editing and writing skills, and substantial experience writing, editing and publishing online and in print.
Extensive experience of commissioning high quality, original output internationally and within an overarching strategic framework, and of integrating editorial and advocacy outputs.
Excellent understanding of, and experience in, building large, sustained audiences internationally including in an editorial and advocacy context and of how to communicate serious political and policy debates to a range of audiences.
Excellent knowledge of international politics and current affairs and debates (political, human rights, international human rights law etc), especially those related to free expression.
English at mother tongue level.
Excellent web and web content production. Technical skills:
Good at HTML: how a document is structured (doctype declaration, the head, the body, the tags and recognising external script and why it’s there); how HTML relates to CSS, and how markup affects appearance; and how to look at raw HTML code and remove or tweak elements without breaking the whole document.
CSS: how CSS syntax alters markup to change the look of a web page; how designers organise screen layout using wrappers, blocks, and floating elements, and that the appearance of content can be altered using custom tags.
Knowledge and experience supervising and managing servers.
Desirable:
Experience of working on human rights and understanding of international human rights law
Experience of working in and with NGOs and campaigners internationally including in the global South. Field experience – whether editorial or advocacy related.
Experience of advocacy and lobbying
Good oral communication skills, demonstrated experience of public speaking,
media commentary etcKnowledge of: PHP and SQL; XML; Flash; Photoshop; Macros in Microsoft Office; Javascript.
Other languages desirable
Mike Harris explains how modern authoritarian regimes censor their citizens
Software engineer Bassel Khartabil has been held in detention since his arrest in Damascus on 15 March 2012. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights believes his arrest is related to his work as a computer engineer, specialising in the development of open source software.
Khartabil, a Palestinian-born Syrian, spent his career advancing open source and related technologies to ensure a freer internet. Internationally, he is known for his voluntary work with open source projects such as Creative Commons and Mozilla Firefox. In 2012, Foreign Policy magazine named him in its list of the top 100 global thinkers.
As yet, authorities have failed to provide an official statement about his arrest, the charges he is facing or his whereabouts. Just weeks before he was jailed, Khartabil tweeted: “The people who are in real danger never leave their countries. They are in danger for a reason and for that they don’t leave.” Khartabil’s arrest was part of the Syrian government’s crackdown against the popular uprising, which has resulted in at least 60,000 deaths since March 2011.
Since his arrest, Khartabil has been shuttled back and forth between a civilian and military prison. The GCHR reported that in October 2012, he was moved to a military facility thereby stripping him of his right to a lawyer and the right of appeal.
Furthermore, military trials can take place in secret and those found guilty can face the death penalty. FreeBassel.org, a website set up by a coalition of friends and supporters, has since reported that Bassel has returned to a civilian prison and been granted visitation rights.
Claims have emerged from a local source that Bassel has been tortured. In December 2012, netizens went on chain-fast as part of a campaign for Khartabil’s release, in which each pledged to fast for one day until he was freed.
Photo: Flickr / Joi Ito
Since taking over as the head of the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) in February 2011, Moez Chakchouk has campaigned for greater internet freedom, winning the admiration of bloggers and digital activists along the way.
Under his leadership, the ATI has moved from its previous incarnation as a censorship and surveillance machine to an agency that champions free speech, net neutrality and online privacy.
On taking office shortly after the January 14th revolution in Tunisia, Chakchouk immediately cancelled commitments to filtering and monitoring, turning off one of the Arab World’s most efficient online surveillance and blocking systems. He has since had to resist a bid to force the ATI to reinstate web blocking, starting with online pornography.
In an article for Index on Censorship, he explained his thinking: “In post-revolutionary Tunisia, we are determined to break with the former regime’s censorship practices.”
He believes that Tunisia can, and should, serve as an example for the rest of the region where attempts at promoting internet freedom are foundering. Though Chakchouk feels constrained by the law – in May 2012 he says he was forced to block four Facebook pages run by critics of the military on a legal order from the country’s main military court – he has won plaudits for his line on freedom of expression and information.
October he told the 3rd Annual Arab Bloggers Conference in Tunis that Western IT companies had tested surveillance software in Tunisia, connecting them with the detention and mistreatment of hundreds of citizens under the old regime. “His intervention was historic,” said Riadh Guerfali, a professor and lawyer who co-founded the collective blog Nawaat.org, a partner of Index in Tunisia.
“For me, the revolution started in the street, and finished when we can hear such a speech from the CEO of the Tunisian Internet Agency,” Guerfali told Tunisia Live.
Indian MP and businessman Rajeev Chandrasekhar has battled tirelessly against growing internet censorship in India, using his position in the upper house of parliament to challenge legislation that chokes digital freedom. Through numerous articles and speeches he has urged the government to revise the 2011 Information Technology Rules and repeal part of the 2008 act on which it is based. He has described both as a “serious risk” to democracy.
Under the rules, internet companies, including providers, websites and search engines, are required to remove within 36 hours, any content deemed “grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous”, “ethnically objectionable”, or “disparaging”, by any Internet user who submits a formal objection letter to that intermediary.
Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal has even suggested that companies pre-screen content for removal before it is flagged – an impossible task given the volume of content posted online in any single day. The legislation has been used to force companies, especially social-networking websites, to censor content. Also this year Google, Facebook and others have been summoned to court to answer a case brought by the editor of an Urdu weekly, who claims the websites encouraged defamation, obscenity, and promotion of enmity among different religious and race groups.
India has an important role to play in the future of internet governance. Currently, it has deferred a decision on whether to back calls from Russia and China to increasingly bring aspects of internet regulation under the ambit of UN body, the International Telecommunications Union, a call Index believes could lead to content regulation and censorship. While it is encouraging that India hasn’t backed these calls to date, it is yet to make clear it supports an open multi-stakeholder approach to the internet rather than top-down state-led regulation.
Writing in the Times of India in 2011, Chandrasekhar, who previously worked on the Intel’s design team for the Pentium processor, said he was mystified by the government’s approach to the internet: “It defies logic and does not adhere to the values of our republic and democracy.” Chandrasekhar has called on the government to launch a multi-stakeholder consultation on internet regulation, to allow voices from civil society, academia and the general public to be heard.