2 Oct 2014 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, United Kingdom
Supporters of Scottish independence protested against alleged BBC bias ahead of the referendum on 18 September (Image: Mishka Burr/YouTube/Creative Commons)
Benito Mussolini wrote romantic fiction. Of course he did. Maudlin sentimentality is at the very heart of fascism, which is why we should be keeping a closer eye on Mrs Brown’s Boys.
The Cardinal’s Mistress (or to give it its typically grandiose full title: Claudia Particella, Lamante del Cardinale, Grande Romanzo dei Tempi del Cardinale Emanuel Madruzzo) was written in the first decade of the 20th century, when the future dictator was still playing with socialism before he came up with his big idea. It was originally published as a serial in La Vita Trentina, the weekly supplement of socialist newspaper Il Popolo.
Reviewing an English translation of the work in 1928, Dorothy Parker, who admits to er, struggling with the book, dreamed of a scene “in which I tell Mussolini ‘And what’s more, you can’t even write a book that anyone could read. You old Duce you,’” before deadpanning, “You can see for yourself how flat that would leave him.”
It’s unclear whether or not Mussolini was left flat, or even read Parker’s New Yorker magazine review. But it’s possible to imagine that the negative review haunted him to the very end, that Il Duce spent his last days still pondering whether to write an angry letter to the New Yorker, pointing out that since Parker had admitted that she HADN’T EVEN FINISHED THE BOOK, it was a SERIOUS LAPSE of journalistic and critical standards to even run the review, and a sign of how a ONCE GREAT publication had been given over to cheap jibes and sarcasm instead of proper discussion of literary works [and so on, ad lamppostium].
One can imagine his supporters on Twitter, furiously @-ing the poor Parker: “Call yourself a journalist? #NewYorkerBias”, “MSM once again Misreprasents #IlDuce. #NoSurprise (@medialens)”, “So apparently this ‘Parker’ woman is actually a ROTHSCHILD? #BoycottNewYorker”, and so on and on and on and on and wearily on.
You know the kind of thing, because we see it every week now. The dull, thudding obsession with the idea that the media, or a section of the media is involved in some enormous conspiracy against you and your views, and subsequently the belief that that is the only reason not everyone shares your views.
The Scottish independence referendum was a case in point. Yes supporters became curiously obsessed with the BBC’s Nick Robinson and his apparent conservative sympathies. Now, Robinson, like many BBC hacks before him, (Andrew Marr? Socialist Organiser; Paul Mason? Workers’ Power; Jennie Bond? Class War), was politically active in his youth, rising to be president of the equal parts hilarious and horrendous Oxford University Conservative Association. This, plus a terse exchange between Robinson and Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond over a media conference question Robinson felt Salmond had not answered properly, led to hundreds of nationalists converging on BBC Scotland’s headquarters claiming the BBC was biased against them and demanding, well, something.
This was bad enough, but they were egged on by Salmond himself, who said he thought there was “real public concern in terms of some of the nature and balance of the coverage”.
Calls for “balance” are almost always, in fact, calls for more-of-my-side and less-of-the-opposition. This was beautifully demonstrated by the number of complaints logged against the BBC in August about the most recent Israel-Palestine conflict. That month, 938 people complained that the BBC’s coverage was too favourable to the Palestinians, while 813 felt it the corporation was too favourable to the Israeli side. (Incidentally, in the same month over 350 people complained that the BBC had been too pro-independence in its broadcast of a Scottish referendum debate.)
The most embarrassing spectacle of the entire referendum came the days after the vote, when the nationalists had lost. The SNP sulkily decided they would bar right-wing, pro-union newspapers from the morning media conference. Salmond allegedly then tried to handpick which reporter from The Guardian would be allowed attend. The Guardian, doubly affronted by the ban on their press pack colleagues and Salmond’s demands upon it, rightly told Salmond they would skip the conference altogether.
The SNP are far from the only people to think they can demand good coverage and prevent dissent. Mark Ferguson, of the left-wing, trade-union-supported website Labour List, was recently informed that he would not be given a press pass for the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. It was only after other journalists raised their objections via Twitter that the Conservative party relented. It’s probably true to say that the Labour blogger’s coverage would not be the most pro-Tory, but that’s really not the point.
Meanwhile, in the wide world of sport, Newcastle United’s controversial owner owner Mike Ashley has decided that the Daily Telegraph’s Luke Edwards (and anyone else from the Telegraph, for that matter) will not be allowed near the club’s ground again, after Edwards reported rumours that Ashley may be seeking to sell the club.
There is an argument that Ashley generates enough bad publicity for himself without the assistance of apparently hostile journalists (Ashley recently caused confusion after telling a reporter with The i newspaper that club manager Alan Pardew would be “finished” and “dead” if Newcastle lost their next game), but that doesn’t make the move any less thin-skinned and censorious.
Football has form on this. Sir Alex Ferguson may have been the greatest manager of the modern era, but he was also so petty as to refuse to talk to the BBC for seven years after he objected to a documentary about his son aired by the national broadcaster.
Perhaps this tetchiness is what’s needed to get ahead, but it feels increasingly like a retreat from argument, and a retreat from the idea of open debate and a robust public sphere. We won’t accept arguments counter to our own, and if those arguments prove more popular than ours, it is not because ours may need rethinking. No, it is because the world is biased against us. We’re either being silenced by the metropolitan liberals, or censored by the public school Tory elites. Our public conversation is in danger of becoming a public whinge.
Correction 15:40, 2 October: An earlier version of this article stated that Paul Mason was in Workers’ Hammer.
This article was published on Thursday 2 October at indexoncensorship.org
1 Oct 2014 | Campaigns, Statements
British Home Secretary Theresa May has proposed new laws that would ban extremists from TV and impose stricter controls on what can be said on the internet, in a speech at the annual Conservative Party conference. Index on Censorship is disturbed at these plans and their potential for stifling legitimate free speech.
It is unclear why further legislation is needed in this area: there are already laws on incitement to violence and hatred, and extremists can already be prosecuted under existing hate crime laws. The proposed banning orders would encompass a far wider group than at present and apply to any organisations deemed to be undertaking activities “for the purpose of overthrowing democracy”. That smacks of the McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s. Rather than focusing on terrorist or extremist groups who expressly incite violence, the new categories defined by May could include anyone who disagrees with the government.
Driving debate underground is not the answer in tackling extremism or terrorism. May’s proposals for additional powers to silence extremists are unworkable in their present form and will need serious vetting before they see the light of day. Index hopes that parliament will see the wisdom of using existing laws that May claims are already the toughest anti-terrorism legislation in the world, rather than introducing new laws that further erode our civil liberties.
1 Oct 2014 | Magazine, News and features, Volume 43.03 Autumn 2014
An Egyptian man takes a photo of a large anti-Morsi protest in Tahrir Square, Egypt (Photo: Phil Gribbon/Alamy)
Imagine this: a journalist with her own news drone camera that can be sent to any coordinates in the world to film what is going on. Imagine a world where you had the ability to programme a whole set of drone cameras to go and film a riot, a rally or a refugee camp.
Imagine being able to set off your smartphone down a dangerous river, encased in a plastic bottle, to take photos that might prove the water is carrying disease or is not safe to drink. How about drone cameras that you can leash to your GPS co-ordinates to follow and film you or someone else? Those worlds should not be hard to imagine as they exist already, and, in some cases, those facilities are already being used by journalists.
The future of journalism is going to build on technologies we already have. But we must remember it isn’t really about the technology, but about what it can help us deliver. When the subject of the future of journalism is discussed it often turns to whizzy gadgets but the debate about whether the public ends up being better informed and better equipped happens less often.
The information superhighway, as the internet was once called, was supposed to give individuals amazing access to knowledge that they couldn’t access before, from historical documents to live video footage. And it has.
But the thing that most of us didn’t bargain for was that it would mean we had so much stuff coming at us. We no longer knew where to turn, our eyes and ears were full, a welter of “news” snippets became impossible to absorb, and as for analysis, well, who had time for that?
The reality of exciting new technology is that it is coming to the market at a time when the public appears to value journalists less, and can turn to Twitter or Facebook or citizen journalists to find out what’s going on in the world. Journalists; who needs them when we can find out so much for ourselves? It’s a reasonable question, and of course good and determined researchers can find out plenty of information for themselves, if they have hours to spend. But then again journalists have a whole set of tools and training that should mean they are better than the average member of the public at finding out facts and analysing reports as well as presenting the end results.
Journalists are trained and practiced at interviewing, asking the right questions and drawing out relevant pieces of information. These are rarely acknowledged skills but you have only to switch on a phone-in programme or watch a set of parliamentarians try to quiz a witness at a committee to know asking a good question is not as easy as it might seem. Knowing where to look for evidence and sources is not always so simple as putting any old question into Google either. Then there is analysing charts, graphs and tables; this should be a particularly valued set of skills. When it comes to recognising a story, then the good old reporter’s nose comes in handy. And writing up and compiling a story so that it makes sense and tells the story well is perhaps the most underrated skill of all. Good writing is sadly underappreciated.
With a toolkit like that, it is not surprising that governments around the world would rather journalists weren’t at the scene of a demonstration, or sharpening up their introduction of a story about a government cover-up. Perhaps that’s why governments around the world from the USA to China make it especially difficult, or particularly expensive, for journalists to get a visa. And that’s why journalists are targeted, watched, held captive, and in some horrific cases, such as with US journalist James Foley, murdered. Increasingly journalists are working on a freelance basis from war zones and conflicts. As our writer Iona Craig reports from Yemen, this can leave you exposed on two levels – without the protection of being a staff member of a huge news organisation, and without any income if you can’t file stories. That exposure to pressure, and possible violence, also affects bloggers operating as reporters, and is something that worries OSCE’s Dunja Mijatovic (interviewed in our latest magazine), who brought journalists from different countries together in Vienna last month to discuss what needs to be done.
Journalists are still needed by societies, what they do can be very important (although sometimes very trivial too). At the same time that job is changing. In this issue Raymond Joseph’s fascinating article shows how African newsrooms with little money are able to use low-cost technology such as remote-controlled drone cameras to monitor oil spills, as well as less-sexy-sounding data analysis tools to help reporters find out what is going on. He also reports on how newsrooms are working closely with citizen reporters to bring news from regions that were previously unreported. Work being carried out by Naija Voices in Nigeria, and by our Index 2014 award winner Shu Choudhary in India, shows how technology can help augment old-fashioned reporting, getting news to and from remote areas.
News reporting is also taking different forms to reach different audiences, as was brought home to me at the Film Forward conference in Malmö, Sweden, this summer, when US journalist Nonny de la Peña and Danish journalist Steven Achiam showed the audience how interactive news “games” and cartoon-style films are new forms of reportage. Achiam’s Deadline Athen is a journalism game that allows the player to become a journalist in Athens, collecting information about a riot and shows the choices that are available; it gives the players options of where to find out and source the story. La Peña uses her journalistic skills to engage “players” in the experience of being imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, using real news sources to inform what the “player” experiences so that it is similar to what prisoners experienced. Both Achiam and La Peña argue that these type of approaches will engage and inform different audiences in finding out about the world, audiences that would not be minded to read a newspaper or watch the TV news.
There’s not yet a journalism ethics handbook that covers these approaches. Both La Peña and Achiam are award-winning journalists and have merged their existing set of research skills with a different style. Both talk about sourcing information for their news films, and La Peña offers links to evidence for her virtual-reality storytelling.
These pioneering approaches so far only have small audiences compared to TV news, but will undoubtedly challenge journalists of the future to learn new skills (video and animation look increasingly like core modules).
Interviewing, research and legal knowledge are always going to part of the mix; they are the skills that give journalists the tools to find out what others would rather they didn’t. And that skill package is always going to be vital.
Read the contents of our future of journalism special here. You can buy the print version magazine or subscribe for £32 per year here, or download the app for just £1.79.
You can also join our magazine debate at London’s Frontline Club on 22 October (free entry, but please book).
This article was published on Wednesday 1 October at indexoncensorship.org
1 Oct 2014 | Magazine, Volume 43.03 Autumn 2014
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”The explosion of social media, the rise of citizen reporters, the dangers of freelancing in a war zone, the invention of new technology: journalism is clearly going through its biggest changes in history. But will the public know more or less as a result?”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
This is the question we explore in great depth in the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Contributors include Iona Craig (2014 winner of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for her reporting in Yemen); Index award nominee Dina Meza and the BBC’s Samira Ahmed. We also have an exclusive, new short story by acclaimed novelist, playwright and author Ariel Dorfman.
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And Australia’s race commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, speaks out on how the right to be a bigot should not override the right to be free from the effects of bigotry.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SPECIAL REPORT: THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM” css=”.vc_custom_1483551011369{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Back to the future: Iona Craig on journalists trying to stay safe in war zones
Digital detectives: Ray Joseph on the new technology helping Africa’s journalists investigate
Re-writing the future: Five young journalists talk on their hopes and fears for the profession – from Yemen, India, South Africa, Germany and the Czech Republic
Attack on ambition: Dina Meza on a Honduran generation ground down by fear
Stripsearch cartoon: Martin Rowson envisages an investigative reporter meeting Deep Throat
Generation why: Ian Hargreaves asks on how the powerful may or may not be held to account in the future
Making waves: Helen Womack reports from Russia on the radio station standing up for free media
Switched on and off: US journalist Debora Halpern Wenger on TV’s power shift from news producers to news consumers
TV news will reinvent itself (again): Taylor Walker interviews a veteran TV reporter on the changes ahead
Right to reply: Samira Ahmed on how the BBC tackles viewers’ criticism
Readers as editors: Stephen Pritchard on how news ombundsmen create transparency
Lobby matters: Political reporter Ian Dunt on the push/pull of journalists and politicians inside Britain’s corridors of power
Funding news freedom: Glenda Nevill looks at innovative ways to pay for reporting
Print running: Will Gore on how newspapers innovate for new audiences
Paper chase: Luis Carlos Díaz on overcoming Venezuela’s newsprint shortage
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”IN FOCUS” css=”.vc_custom_1481731813613{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Free thinking? Australia’s race commissioner Tim Soutphommasane on bigotry
Guarding the guards: Jemimiah Steinfeld on China’s human rights lawyers becoming targets
Taking down the critics: Irene Caselli investigates allegations that Ecuador’s government is silencing social media users
Maid equal in Brazil: Claire Rigby on the Twitter feed giving voice to abuse of domestic workers in Brazil
Home truths in the Gulf: Georgia Lewis on how UAE maids fear speaking out on maltreatment
Text messaging: Indian school books are getting “Hinduised”, reports Siddarth Narrain from India
We have to fight for what we want: our editor, Rachael Jolley, interviews the OSCE’s Dunja Mijatovic on 20 years championing free speech
Decoding defamation: Lesley Phippen’s need-to-know guide for journalists
A hard act to follow: Tamsin Allen gives a lawyer’s take on Britain’s libel reforms
Walls divide: Jemimah Steinfeld speaks to Chinese author Xiaolu Guo about a life of censorship
Taking a pop: Steven Borowiec profiles controversial South Korean artist Lee Ha
Mapping media threats: Melody Patry and Milana Knezevic look at rising attacks on journalists in the Balkans
Holed up in Harare: Index’s contributing editor Natasha Joseph reports from southern Africa on the dangers of reporting in Zimbabwe
Burma’s “new” media face threats and attack: Burma-born author Wendy Law-Yone looks at news in the run up to the impending elections
Head to head: Sascha Feuchert and Charlotte Knobloch debate whether Mein Kampf should be published
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”CULTURE” css=”.vc_custom_1481731777861{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Political framing: Kaya Genç interviews radical Turkish artist, Kutlug Ataman
Action drama: Julia Farrington on Belarus Free Theatre and the upcoming Belarus election
Casting away: Ariel Dorfman, a new short story by the acclaimed human rights writer
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”COLUMNS” css=”.vc_custom_1481732124093{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Index around the world: Alice Kirkland gives a news update on Index’s global projects
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”END NOTE” css=”.vc_custom_1481880278935{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
From the factory floor: Vicky Baker on listening to the world’s garment workers via new technology
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.
Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
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