11 Apr 2018 | Awards, Fellowship 2018, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/fW_rl97IupM”][vc_column_text]MuckRock is a non-profit, collaborative news site used by journalists, activists and members of the public to request, receive and share government documents from any agency that is subject to transparency laws in the United States. Their aim is to make policies more open to the public, and democracies further informed.
“MuckRock has continued to double in size each year,” said MuckRock. “We hope to continue increasing our impact, putting cutting edge transparency tools in the hands of journalists, whistleblowers, researchers and ordinary people to have impact at the national, international, and local levels.”
The site, which has a user base of 10,000, hosts an archive filled with hundreds of thousands of pages of original government materials, as well as information about how to file requests, and tools to make the requesting process easier. MuckRock has filed over 40, 000 requests, shedding light on government surveillance, censorship and police militarisation among hundreds of other issues. The site’s staff and contributors use the documents received through the site to create original investigative reporting and analysis.
MuckRock filed and won a lawsuit against the CIA, which resulted in the release of 13 million pages of previously secret documents from the CREST Database – the CIA’s database of declassified information dating back through the Cold War. The foundation also fought off a lawsuit from multinationals seeking to hide security flaws in their smart metering technology.
Their work investigating the US government’s 1033 programme, which supplied local police and the private prison system with military equipment, helped lead to major reforms of these policies.
Stories that MuckRock have reported on over the past year include: gaps in gun violence data, surveillance footage from the top of the Smithsonian building on inauguration day – contributing to the debate of the true crowd size, and classified CIA documents that were left stashed in the Rockefellers barn.
After he had been in office for over a year, MuckRock investigated the effects of president Trump’s harsher immigration policies, and found that the number of deportations was actually decreasing, while the number of people held in detention centres was rising.
The site has had a particularly successful 2017, seeing its 10,000th public records request successfully completed. They also celebrated International Right To Know day by expanding their reach to Canada, which is ranked a lowly 49th out of 111 countries on the RTI Rating.
The site has also focused on expanding its education about requesting documents, and produced a Freedom of Information Act 4 Kidz lesson plan to help educators to start discussions about government transparency.
“It’s impossible to quantify the impact of this acknowledgement of our amazing transparency community,” said MuckRock. “This nomination recognizes the important work of all the MuckRock users who have fought to open up government on so many issues, often facing bureaucratic hurdles and legal threats to create a strong civic society for all.”
See the full shortlist for Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2018 here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content” equal_height=”yes” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1490258749071{background-color: #cb3000 !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Support the Index Fellowship.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsupport-the-freedom-of-expression-awards%2F|||”][vc_column_text]
By donating to the Freedom of Expression Awards you help us support
individuals and groups at the forefront of tackling censorship.
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9 Apr 2018 | Awards, Fellowship, Fellowship 2018, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Wendy Funes is an investigative journalist from Honduras who regularly risks her life for her right to report on what is going on in the country.
She is a courageous female voice, writing in a violent and corrupt society where two journalists have been killed this year and where women are regularly subjected to severe domestic violence and often killed.
Funes is an inventive and passionate human rights reporter. For one article she got her own death certificate issued so that she could show up the corruption in the civil registration office. For another she dressed as a beggar for an investigation into children being forced to beg on the streets of the country’s capital.
She writes about violence against women, a huge problem in Honduras where one woman is killed every 16 hours, and the number of women killed has increased by more than 260% between 2005 and 2013.
But Funes is also an activist for her profession, which led to her being expelled from the journalism trade union where she had been fighting for labour rights and freedom of expression.
“I have overcome many traumas, including the violent deaths of my father and several friends and fellow journalists, for which no one has been brought to justice,” said Funes. “I will not succumb to despair – every blow has made me a warrior, and every obstacle is a chance to prove that adversity must never stop us. Only those who has suffered dark will search for the light. My way to achieve my life’s purpose is the journalism I love, which quickens my heart in moments of greatest expectation, which brings joy and sorrow. Through independent, self-critical, methodical journalism – the kind that comes from the streets – combined with an academic grounding, I am convinced I can bring change to my country.”
Working for C-Libre, a freedom of expression organisation in Honduras, she highlighted the continued murder of journalists by organising a march which she called the Demonstration of Silence to protest the death of journalists. Protesters carried white cardboard coffins with the faces of each of the journalists on them to the prosecutors’ office in the capital Tegucigalpa.
In 2017 Wendy Funes was helped by PressStart, a global crowdfunding platform for reporters in countries where the press cannot report freely, to write an expose of gang rapes of indigenous Lenca women in the La Paz area of Honduras.
On May 31, 2017 Funes retired from C-Libre to found her own research newspaper and promote investigative journalism in her country, using data with a gendered approach and promoting transparency and access to public information.
“This nomination is like an embrace of trust in the darkness of death and risk implied by the asphyxiating level of censorship that the press experiences in Honduras,” said Funes. “It’s like a hand reaching out to me to tell me it’s worth resisting this corrupt and unfair system.”
See the full shortlist for Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2018 here.
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Wendy Funes y su valiente defensa del periodismo de investigación en Honduras
Wendy Funes es una periodista de investigación hondureña que pone su vida en peligro con regularidad: es el precio que paga a cambio de su derecho a informar sobre lo que está pasando en el país.
Es la valerosa voz de una mujer escribiendo en una sociedad violenta y corrupta, en la que dos periodistas han sido asesinados en lo que va de año. Un país en el que las mujeres sufren violencia doméstica extrema a diario y son a menudo asesinadas.
Funes es una reportera pro derechos humanos ingeniosa y apasionada. Hizo que expidieran su propio certificado de defunción para desvelar en un artículo la corrupción del registro civil. Para otro reportaje, se disfrazó de pordiosera para investigar sobre los niños forzados a mendigar en las calles de la capital del país.
Escribe sobre la violencia contra las mujeres, un problema gravísimo en Honduras, donde matan a una mujer cada 16 horas y la cifra de asesinadas se incrementó más de un 260% entre 2005 y 2013.
Funes también es una activista dentro de su profesión, razón por la cual fue expulsada del sindicato de periodismo desde el que había estado luchando por los derechos laborales y la libertad de expresión.
«He superado muchos traumas, entre ellos, las muertes violentas de mi padre y de varios amigos y compañeros periodistas, por las cuales nadie ha sido llevado ante la justicia», declaró Funes. «No sucumbiré a la desesperación: cada golpe me ha hecho una guerrera, y cada obstáculo no es más que una oportunidad de demostrar que la adversidad nunca debe detenernos. Solo quienes han sufrido la oscuridad buscarán la luz. El modo que tengo para cumplir mi propósito en la vida es el periodismo al que amo, el que hace que se me acelere el corazón en momentos de inmensa esperanza, el que me trae alegrías y tristezas. Con periodismo independiente, autocrítico, metódico —el tipo de periodismo que viene de las calles—, combinado con conocimientos académicos, estoy convencida de que puedo traer el cambio a mi país».
Cuando trabajaba para C-Libre, una organización por la libertad de expresión en Honduras, organizó una marcha a la que llamó la Manifestación del Silencio en protesta contra los continuos asesinatos de periodistas. Los manifestantes cargaron con ataúdes de cartón blanco con retratos de cada uno de los periodistas asesinados hasta la fiscalía de la capital, Tegucigalpa.
En 2017 Wendy Funes recibió apoyo de PressStart, una plataforma de crowdfunding global para reporteros en países donde la prensa no puede informar libremente, con el cual escribió un reportaje destapando las violaciones grupales de mujeres indígenas lencas en la zona hondureña de La Paz.
El 31 de mayo de 2017, Funes se retiró de C-Libre para fundar su propio periódico de investigación y promover este tipo de periodismo en su país, promoviendo la utilización de los datos desde una perspectiva de género, la transparencia y el acceso a información pública.
«Esta nominación es como un abrazo de confianza en la oscuridad de la muerte y el peligro implícitos en el asfixiante nivel de censura que vive la prensa en Honduras», declaró Funes. «Es como si me hubieran extendido una mano para decirme que merece la pena resistir a este sistema corrupto e injusto».
Traducción de Arrate Hidalgo
Accede a la lista completa de nominados a los Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2018 aquí.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content” equal_height=”yes” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1490258749071{background-color: #cb3000 !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Support the Index Fellowship.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsupport-the-freedom-of-expression-awards%2F|||”][vc_column_text]
By donating to the Freedom of Expression Awards you help us support
individuals and groups at the forefront of tackling censorship.
Find out more
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8 Jan 2018 | Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, News and features, Venezuela
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Latin America is home to a growing number of independent publications, like Venezuela’s Efecto Cocuyo, that do not depend on government advertising
With general elections scheduled in six Latin American countries this year, and another six to follow in 2019, the relationship between the media and democracy could have a major impact on the future of the region. However, mounting financial pressures are robbing many media outlets of their objectivity and forcing them to toe pro-government lines.
With traditional advertising revenue in decline, Latin American governments are using vast publicity budgets to keep cash-strapped publications afloat. In return, the media are expected to portray their benefactors in a favourable light.
According to the NGO Freedom House, much of the media in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Mexico is heavily dependent on government advertising, resulting in widespread self-censorship and collusion between public officials, media owners and journalists.
“The history of journalism in Latin America is a history of collusion between the press and powerful people,” said Rosental Alves, a Brazilian journalist and founder of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, in an interview with Index. Sections of the media have become subservient, he explained, as any critical coverage could be punished with audits or a loss of advertising revenue.
Financial pressures on the media are particularly pronounced in Venezuela. Alves observed that the Nicolás Maduro regime has applied “waves of censorship” to the media by first decrying it as “the enemy of the people” and then buying up media companies to “make them friendly.”
Freedom House notes that “although privately owned newspapers and broadcasters operate alongside state outlets, the overall balance has shifted considerably toward government-aligned voices in recent years. The government officially controls 13 television networks, dozens of radio outlets, a news agency, eight newspapers, and a magazine.”
This is compounded by Venezuela’s severe economic problems and the virtual government monopoly on newsprint supplies that have led to newspaper closures, staff cutbacks and reduced circulation of critical media.
Mexico’s government has taken the more subtle approach of co-opting swathes of the media through unprecedented expenditure on advertising. According to the transparency group Fundar, President Enrique Peña Nieto has spent almost £1.5 billion on advertising in the past five years, more than any president in Mexican history. On top of that, state and municipal administrations have also spent millions on publicity in local media.
Darwin Franco, a freelance journalist in Guadalajara, told Index that government spending has led to some publications telling reporters “who they can and cannot criticise in their work.”
Then there is the infamous chayote, a local term for bribes paid to journalists in return for favourable coverage. Franco said Mexican reporters are particularly vulnerable to economic pressures or under-the-table incentives because it’s so hard for them to make a living.
“Freelance journalists in Mexico don’t receive the benefits that employees are legally entitled to,” he said. “National media outlets — and even some international ones — pay us minimal fees for stories, which in some cases don’t even cover the costs of reporting.”
Franco, who also teaches journalism at a local university, added that many reporters take on second jobs to supplement their income. With Mexican journalists making less than £450 per month on average, he acknowledged that “there may be people who are tempted” to take money from the government.
Despite these financial pressures, Alves is encouraged by the technology-driven democratisation of the media across Latin America, with increased internet penetration and the affordability of smartphones allowing people who could not afford computers to access nontraditional media for the first time.
These include rudimentary blogs, social media accounts and more sophisticated media startups, Alves said, with countries like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and even Venezuela home to a growing number of independent publications that do not depend on government advertising.
“We are living a time of the decline of advertisements as the main source of revenue for news organisations. On the one hand you have this huge decline in traditional advertising because of Google and Facebook getting all this money, and on the other hand you see the virtual disappearance of the entry barriers for becoming a media outlet,” Alves noted.
“We’re moving from the mass media to a mass of media because there’s this proliferation of media outlets that don’t depend on a lot of money,” he added. “If you can gather some philanthropic support or membership, or you’re just doing it by yourself, like many courageous bloggers are doing in many parts of the region, you don’t make any money but you don’t spend any money either.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Survey: How free is our press?” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F12%2Fsurvey-free-press%2F|title:Take%20our%20survey||”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-pencil-square-o” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
This survey aims to take a snapshot of how financial pressures are affecting news reporting. The openMedia project will use this information to analyse how money shapes what gets reported – and what doesn’t – and to advocate for better protections and freedoms for journalists who have important stories to tell.
More information[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”97191″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/01/tracey-bagshaw-compromise-compromising-news/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Commercial interference pressures on the UK’s regional papers are growing. Some worry that jeopardises their independence.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”81193″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/12/jean-paul-marthoz-commercial-interference-european-media/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Commercial pressures on the media? Anti-establishment critics have a ready-made answer: of course, journalists are hostage to the whims of corporate owners, advertisers and sponsors. Of course, they cannot independently cover issues which these powers consider “inconvenient”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96949″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.opendemocracy.net/openmedia/mary-fitzgerald/welcome-to-openmedia”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Forget fake news. Money can distort media far more disturbingly – through advertorials, and through buying silence. Here’s what we’re going to do about it.
This article is also available in Dutch | French | German | Hungarian | Italian |
Serbian | Spanish| Russian[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1515148254502-253f3767-99a5-8″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
18 Dec 2017 | Belgium, France, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81193″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Commercial pressures on the media? Anti-establishment critics have a ready-made answer: of course, journalists are hostage to the whims of corporate owners, advertisers and sponsors. Of course, they cannot independently cover issues which these powers consider “inconvenient”. Actually such suspicion is widely shared: In France, according to the 2017 La Croix barometer on media credibility, 58% of public opinion consider that journalists “are not really able to resist pressures from financial interests”.
The issue is not new. In 1944 when he founded the French “newspaper of record”, Le Monde, Hubert Beuve-Méry fought to guarantee its independence from political parties but also from what he called “the wall of money”. “Freedom of the press belongs to the one who owns one”, New Yorker media critic A.J. Liebling famously said. However, “while media academics have long looked at the question of commercial pressure, ownership (…) in shaping coverage”, writes Anya Schiffrin in a 2017 CIMA report on “captured media” press freedom groups’ focus had been mostly on the governments’ responsibilities and on criminal non-state actors.
In June 2016 Reporters Without Boarders made a splash with its report on oligarchs in the media. Proprietors’ interventions may have indeed a very negative impact on journalism’s proclaimed commitment to report the news without fear or favour. Pressures are particularly acute when the media are owned by conglomerates who dabble in other economic sectors. In France, for instance, a military aircraft manufacturer (Dassault), the luxury industry leader (LVMH), telecoms giants (SFR, Free), a powerful public works and telecoms company (Bouygues) directly own key media companies.
Ownership provides a powerful lever to influence media contents. Cases of direct intervention or of journalists’ self-censorship are not exceptional, even if they are often difficult to prove. In France, Vincent Bolloré, owner, among others, of TV channel Canal+, has been regularly accused of using his powers to determine content. It led the French Senate’s culture commission to invite him to a hearing in June 2016, but he firmly denied all allegations of censorship.
In other European countries, the landscape is much clearer. In Turkey, during the June 2013 Gezi Park events, major TV stations failed to report police repression live. They chose instead to broadcast animal documentaries, for which they were rewarded with the nickname of “penguin media”. In fact, they turned into “proxy censors” for Erdogan’s government who had the power to determine their economic fate by rewarding them -or not- with public works contracts or financial favors. The worst of the worst flourishes in some former communist eastern European countries where major media outlets have been snatched by oligarchs allied with political parties or even, allegedly, with criminal organisations.
Big companies may be ruthless. Advertising budgets can be cut when a media covers “inconvenient news”. In November 2017, according to satirical weekly Le Canard enchainé, Bernard Arnault, the boss of LVMH (luxury products, owner of Le Parisien and Les Echos), canceled his advertising budget in Le Monde until the end of the year after his name appeared in the Paradise Papers global investigation, which named people who had offshore accounts in tax havens. LVMH denied it was cutting all advertising in the paper, adding that it was currently “reflecting on its advertisement policy in classical media”.
The unraveling of the legacy media’s business model has increased their vulnerability to outside pressures. Advertising money is shrinking, therefore increasing the temptation to dismantle what was presented as an impassable wall between “church and state”. Differences between advertising and the news are also being diluted into ambiguous advertorials, sponsored content and “native advertising”.
Such pressures however are not automatic. “Suffering pressures does not mean ceding to them”, says Hervé Béroud, director general of leading all-news TV channel BFMTV. Due to the way journalism actually works, the freedom to report, even against the owners’ interests, cannot be systematically crushed. In fact, as a former editor in chief of Belgian newspapers and magazines I was confronted with radically different forms of “advice” from my successive owners. While some were very protective of editorial independence others were blunter and ready to compromise with advertisers’ “wishes”. The existence of journalists’ societies, co-owners of the so-called “ethical capital” of the paper, provided some protection, but much was left to individual wrestling between the editor and the proprietor.
At the end, this issue comes down to defining who “owns freedom of information”. In 1993 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that “the owner of the right is the citizen, who also has the related right to demand that the information supplied by journalists be conveyed truthfully, in the case of news, and honestly, in the case of opinions, without outside interference by either the public authorities or the private sector”. A far cry from A.J. Liebling’s sentence…[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Survey: How free is our press?” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F12%2Fsurvey-free-press%2F|title:Take%20our%20survey||”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-pencil-square-o” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
This survey aims to take a snapshot of how financial pressures are affecting news reporting. The openMedia project will use this information to analyse how money shapes what gets reported – and what doesn’t – and to advocate for better protections and freedoms for journalists who have important stories to tell.
More information[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1513691969537-ee852610-8cb0-8″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
