Author: Marilyn Greene
Published: January 07, 1999
Last Updated: February 03, 2000
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Press freedom

Wise to the bad PR that outright murder of journalists and seizure of presses brings, governments are developing legislative 'solutions' that accomplish the same thing

Even as the coming millennium offers hope for a blossoming of the democratic seeds that sprouted across the globe late in the 20th century we are seeing instead the spread of a pernicious crop of censorship, cloaked in a lexicon of new - and recycled - code words and phrases.

The old, familiar ways of silencing the press will live on. Messengers will continue to be killed (two dozen last year). Officially sanctioned crackdowns will continue to shut down newspapers and silence broadcasters. But these crude tools of repression are giving way in a number of places to more subtle and sophisticated weapons.

To understand and to resist the new threats to freedom and the freedom to know, it's necessary to see through the good-sounding language in which they are shrouded, and to recognize how these phrases can be used to justify restrictions. Among the new code-concepts for censorship:

• Assigning "responsibilities" to the press. An attempt by outsiders to tell journalists how to do their job, endangering journalistic independence.
• Imposing codes of ethics for journalists. Codes of conduct for journalists, dictated by non-journalists, usually directed at what is written or broadcast, amount to barely camouflaged efforts to impose controls on the content of news
• Restricting news coverage to "protect privacy." This approach, which has a certain emotional appeal for many, in practice can seriously limit freedom of the press. It can be a way for lawmakers to dictate what they consider "legitimate" news for the press to cover.
• Requiring "self-regulation" by journalists. Self-regulation is often used as a code word for imposed self-censorship. A 1999 conference at UNESCO on "pedophilia on the Internet," for example, is expected to yield proposals for creation of an inter-agency "guidance" panel.
• Restricting data access and distribution. Restrictions on access to data, especially government material, could hobble investigative journalism. Presumably, this is exactly the public's business.
• Mandating licensing of journalists. Licensing means that someone, usually government-connected, would decide who can or cannot work as a journalist in a country. The idea often is masked within proposals to "protect" journalists, but someone would have to first decide who is a journalist. A license to work, once given, also could be revoked if the issuing official does not like what a journalist is doing.
• Calling for laws to "protect" journalists. This sometimes well-intentioned idea actually provides cover for proposals to license journalists, since the threshold question must be who is a journalist deserving the "protection." This has been used as a pretext to restrict journalists' movements in "dangerous" situations
• Legislating requirements for "truthful" news. Who is to determine what is accurate? Governments? Press councils? Freedom of the press implies a right to be wrong. There should be no "official" truth. Latin American leaders last year rejected a proposal by Venezuela's president to adopt a declaration asserting news must be "truthful."
• Attacking "concentration of ownership." Not to be confused with normal anti-trust laws, these efforts in many countries are attempts to shut out foreign news enterprises or restrict large media that resist controls because politicians feel threatened by the news they carry. There should be no specific legislation aimed at restricting the press.
• Restricting "new media" (Internet, direct broadcast satellite). Over-broad attempts to regulate new media - especially as such regulations target content - risk affecting standards for traditional news media and subjecting Internet news content to restrictions aimed at other objectives.
• Cloaking the propaganda of some state-run broadcasting stations as "public broadcasting." The right to speak freely is compromised when a state broadcaster pretends to be a public organization. The lines between public broadcasting and state broadcasting should not be blurred. State broadcasters should not air propaganda under the guise that it is in the "public interest".
• Claiming differences in Asian/European/American "values" justify news restrictions. Government officials frequently claim that regional or national cultural, social and community "values" justify restrictions on news and media. Every one has the right to information.
• Banning reporting and commentary as "hate speech." Banning statements alleged to represent "hate speech" can be a pretext to restrict freedom of the press and of expression. Thus, it is used to restrict reporting on ethnic conflicts.
• Advocating a "right to communicate." As usually proposed, a "right to communicate" would provide support for everyone - including governments - to insist that their version of the news be presented in media. Thus, it is not really a right to communicate that is at issue, but an asserted "right" to have one's own version of the news be used.
• Criminalizing proceedings against the press. Next to killing journalists, jailing journalists is the most potent way of silencing them. Just the threat promotes self-censorship. In a number of countries, lists of possible "criminal offenses" cover normal reporting about politics, national security, civil strife, economic news and other subjects.
• Restricting news through insult laws. Laws that criminalize publication or broadcast of news and opinion deemed by authorities to insult chiefs of state, officialdom, the parliament, the state, national symbols, etc., are regularly invoked as means of stifling reporting and fair comment.
• Imposing punitive damages on news media. Courts, especially those under governmental influence or control, often impose very large punitive fines on news media - out of all proportion to any actual damage inflicted. The purpose is to fine the press into submission and to tie it up in endless complicated and costly litigation.
• Mandating a "right of reply." While it is good journalistic practice to report the views of all sides of a matter, it violates journalistic independence to require news media to present statements or other material that someone else demands be used.