{"id":51859,"date":"2013-10-11T10:03:02","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T09:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=51859"},"modified":"2017-03-28T09:51:46","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T08:51:46","slug":"committee-protect-journalists-report-gauges-press-freedom-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=51859","title":{"rendered":"Committee to Protect Journalists report gauges the press freedom crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:

Photo: Flickr user Secretary of Defense<\/p><\/div>\n

A threat to press freedom is an assault on our right to know.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists<\/a>\u00a0tries to capture the invisible impact of the Obama administration\u2019s troubled relationship with the press. The report, authored by Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of the\u00a0Washington Post, and CPJ\u2019s Sara Rafsky, is the most comprehensive look at how the Obama administration\u2019s actions have deeply damaged press freedom and the public\u2019s access to information.<\/p>\n

For those who have followed the administration\u2019s policies, court cases and actions related to leaks and the press, the report doesn\u2019t contain a lot of new information. What it does is weave together each of the cases and strategies the administration has pursued, surfacing key themes and illustrating that these examples are not aberrations, but part of a coordinated strategy. Presenting this bigger picture reframes the debate over press freedom in America and reminds us that it\u2019s not enough to tinker around the edges; we need to demand a major course correction.<\/p>\n

The report covers the administration\u2019s leak investigations and policies, its surveillance programs, its secrecy and the use of its own media channels to evade \u201cscrutiny by the press.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of this is punctuated by the interviews Downie conducted with journalists. Hearing from journalists in their own words, about the challenges they\u2019ve faced and the concerns they have, brings home the seriousness of the crisis in press freedom.<\/p>\n

New York Times\u00a0<\/em>National Security Reporter Scott Shane captured it best when he told Downie that sources are now \u201cscared to death\u201d to even talk about unclassified, everyday issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a gray zone between classified and unclassified information, and most sources were in that gray zone. Sources are now afraid to enter that gray zone,\u201d Shane said. \u201cIt\u2019s having a deterrent effect. If we consider aggressive press coverage of government activities being at the core of American democracy, this tips the balance heavily in favor of the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

That shifting balance of power is one of the critical takeaways from the CPJ report. Through efforts like NSA surveillance, the Justice Department\u2019s seizure of phone and email records, and the \u201cInsider Threat Program,\u201d which encourages federal employees to monitor the behavior of their colleagues, the Obama administration has marshaled institutional resources toward efforts that erode press freedom and challenge newsgathering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration\u2019s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I\u2019ve seen since the Nixon administration,\u201d Downie writes. \u201cThe 30 experienced Washington journalists at a variety of news organizations whom I interviewed for this report could not remember any precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report is an important addition to the debate about press freedom, but the scope of its inquiry is limiting. In focusing on the Obama administration, Downie examines in depth the various cases of journalists who have been caught up in federal investigations and the actions of federal agencies only.<\/p>\n

As such, the report is not a full accounting of the state of press freedom today. A more comprehensive analysis of troubling state bills, worrisome court cases and the alarming spike in journalist arrests and harassment by local police would give a fuller picture.<\/p>\n

In addition, the journalists implicated in the cases Downie reports on are all from mainstream media organizations like the Associated Press, Fox News and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, and most of his interviews are with Washington editors and reporters from major newsrooms. But the Obama administration\u2019s adversarial relationship with the press has also impacted smaller newsrooms, freelance journalists, independent bloggers and citizen journalists.<\/p>\n

The Committee to Protect Journalists has led the way in looking at the impact of threats to press freedom and freedom of expression on digital journalists and citizen reporters abroad. This report should be a starting place for the CPJ to assess the threats and challenges facing all kinds of journalists in the U.S.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s notable that, in its recommendations at the end of the report, CPJ calls on the Obama administration to \u201cadvocate for the broadest possible definition of \u2018journalist\u2019 or \u2018journalism\u2019 in any federal shield law.\u201d The law, the CPJ says, must \u201cprotect the newsgathering process, rather than professional credentials, experience, or status, so that it cannot be used as a means of de facto government licensing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the CPJ focuses here on the need for a shield law, this recommendation should apply to any law or guideline the administration implements. The shield law is important not only for how it defines a journalist but also for the precedent it could set for future press freedom decisions.<\/p>\n

The CPJ also advocates for ensuring that journalists won\u2019t be prosecuted for receiving or reporting on leaks, ending the use of the Espionage Act to prosecute those who leak information to the press, improving transparency about NSA surveillance, enforcing revised Justice Department guidelines, ending the use of overly broad secret subpoenas, and strengthening the administration\u2019s adherence to the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s remarkable that we have to ask for these basic protections and reassurances from our government, but the CPJ report makes it clear that we can\u2019t take press freedom for granted. This report should be a starting point for a much larger discussion that brings together journalists of all kinds, policymakers and everyday Americans to talk through the challenges, questions and concerns about press freedom.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re facing a fundamental and coordinated shift in how our government and press interact \u2014 and it\u2019s not enough to respond to each attack in isolation. We need to launch a proactive effort to reassert the centrality of a free press in our democracy.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published at FreePress.net and is republished here by permission<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s nearly impossible to gauge the full impact of harassment of the press. How do you measure the stories that go untold because a journalist felt intimidated? How do you quantify the corruption that won\u2019t be exposed because sources are afraid to talk? When the impact of threats is silence there\u2019s no way to assess what we\u2019re missing, Josh Stearns of Free Press writes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":51860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4883,581,5644],"tags":[5864,727],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51859"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88305,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51859\/revisions\/88305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}