Covid-19 and its challenges for journalists (Monocle)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship Head of Content explained the problems the Covid-19 pandemic has placed on journalists for the French magazine Monocole.

In the podcast “The Stack“, run by Monocle, Steinfeld said that the pandemic creates noise that distracts people, ensuring increases in media restrictions go unnoticed.

“Dictators love noise,” she said. “They love distractions. So, while we have been completely justifiably focussed on Covid and refreshing our news feeds. There been so many stories at Index we have heard about, but they just have not been big news stories. In other years they would be.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

How Covid-19 has provided cover for the silencing of journalists (The Times)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The global Covid-19 pandemic has been the root cause of some of the most concerning and frightening attacks on journalists worldwide.

For The Times’ Red Box, Index’s Head of Content Jemimah Steinfeld laid out why the attacks were so concerning:

“Even we have been shocked by the scale of the attacks,” she said. “Journalists have been detained in Serbia; they’ve been called ‘wimps’ by Brazil’s leader Jair Bolsonaro; they’ve been expelled from China; banned from asking questions at lobby briefings in the UK; assaulted by police in South Africa; cowed by legislative change in Hungary.”

“The attacks have been relentless.”

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Stop deleting our media shows – what we watch shouldn’t be heavily restricted (Independent)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Head of content for Index on Censorship Jemimah Steinfeld writes in the Independent on the trend of policing TV shows, and the debate at the BBC on biases in comedy.

“Great comedy needs free expression. It’s its lifeline. And some of the best comedy offends those on both the left and the right. That doesn’t mean it has to be completely unfiltered; comedy should not incite hatred and violence (which some are definitely guilty of). But there is a gap between this and the more subjective charge of causing offence or being biased.”

Read full article here[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

How big tech is enabling Chinese censorship around the world (The Telegraph)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Deputy editor of Index on Censorship magazine Jemimah Steinfeld talks to The Telegraph’s James Cook and Sophie Yan about the impact of technology on China’s tendency towards censorship beyond its borders.

“China exports its censorship. This is something that will become more common if companies like Zoom don’t take a stand now. I say this because we have already seen it happening. This is not the first example.”

Read the full article here[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]