18 ms·

Number of journalists in jail reaches global high

323 points by samizdis 5y ago

AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
Funnily enough, the proportion of journalists who deserve jailtime or worse is also at an all time high.
1cvmask 5y ago
So we don’t classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest news stories over the last 20 years. Or that the Trump administration planned on assasinating him. Or that Joe Biden is trying to extradite him on trumped up charges (pun not intended). Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that Obama tried to kill multiple times: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-officials-trump-discussed-assassinating-julian-assange https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-off... -
- bombcar 5y ago
  But we do classify others who wrote a few blog articles as “journalist” when they were/are much more obviously engaged in other activities.
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    We also classify people who are spies, publish fake news or lie all the time as journalists as well. During the Church Committee it got public that the publishers of Time Henry Luce, New York Times’ Sulzberger and so many journalists worked for the CIA: “Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune. By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.“ http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/ciasuseofjournal00unit.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hear... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/05/06/40-years-ago-church-committee-investigated-americans-spying-on-americans/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/05/06/40-y...
- deleted 5y ago
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- RansomStark 5y ago
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  - bvrmn 5y ago
    Russian and Belarus government don't protect their people in any way.
    - RansomStark 5y ago
      I'm sorry but that is a absolute statement, verging on propaganda. Of course they protect their people. For example there is significant crime in Russia, but the Russian government fields a police force that enforces the laws of Russia, jailing murderers, thieves, etc [0]. Of course there is corruption, of course some are above the law (but then is true the world over), and you need to play by the local rules, but that is not an absence of protection, although it may not be on par with what you might expect somewhere else. You also have to remember that the justification for the Russian invasion of Crimea was to protect the minority Russian population living in Crimea. So clearly the idea that the Russian government protects Russians is believed to be true within the state of Russia to the point where that idea can be exploited to justify military expansionism. We really need to get past the 'good guy' / 'bad guy' version of politics, the whole world is a shade of grey. [0] https://www.statista.com/topics/5509/crime-in-russia/#dossierKeyfigures https://www.statista.com/topics/5509/crime-in-russia/#dossie...
      - bvrmn 5y ago
        I'm russian by the way. And we can get arrested for single like in social media. Please don't tell me about propaganda.
        RansomStark 5y ago
        I've not see anyone in the UK arrested for a like, but there are enough examples of people arrested for a single tweet, or retweet [0][1][2]. [0] https://nypost.com/2021/02/08/man-arrested-for-offensive-sir-captain-tom-moore-tweet/ https://nypost.com/2021/02/08/man-arrested-for-offensive-sir... [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/euro-2020-arrests-police-racism-b1884549.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/euro-2020-arrest... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-offensive-facebook-and-twitter-posts-soar-in-london-a7064246.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-offensive-...
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Your right about Assange, and the really frustrating thing is that if he was a US citizen and did the exact same thing but published in a traditional media outlet then we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. US journalists have received all kinds of awful leaked information and not been subjected to this. Although discussion on assassination? Wow, wasn't aware of that. I'll grant that his organization might have stepped into a gray area (apparently the US witness has credibility issues) if they provided Manning with a bit of guidance on how to get more information (unsuccessfully I think) but I don't think that materially changes things all that much.
  - pydry 5y ago
    If Assange did precisely the same thing and exposed Russian or Chinese war crimes the idea that he was justly imprisoned for espionage because of the methods by which he did it would be universally mocked and condemned in the west. Conversely Roman Protasevich's airplane would be downed and he would already be in prison on charges of "fighting on the front line alongside neonazis" (evidence is that he did neonazi azov PR but probably did not fight), while the Russians condemned us for imprisoning a valiant journalist.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      >Roman Protasevich's airplane I don't know, Russia has a long tradition (with the USSR before it) to get creative with assassinations. Everything from poisoning tea with somewhat exotic isotopes to smearing the insides of underwear with neurotoxins, an icepick to the head, or simply gunning someone down in the street.
      - pydry 5y ago
        Not sure i see your point.
        ineedasername 5y ago
        I wasn't making a rebuttal to the GP, just noting that the Russian government doesn't always go through the trouble of a show trial before conviction. That point shouldn't be taken as me ignoring similar tactics by other world powers, I'm aware of those too. The US planned & tried some creative assassinations against Castro. Realpolitik is messy and cynical and hypocritical.
- pydry 5y ago
  The absence of assange et al is notable but it's not a bad thing to be campaigning for the release of journalists in other countries.
  - enriquto 5y ago
    The conspicuous absence of Assange is indeed very bad for the purported campaign for the release of journalists "in other countries". Such other countries can now rightfully point to the hypocrisy of this campaign. What the CPJ is doing (omitting Assange in its list) is effectively harmful for the journalists jailed in other countries.
    - pydry 5y ago
      Doesn't seem like they've forgotten him https://cpj.org/tags/julianassange/ https://cpj.org/tags/julianassange/ They seem to be fighting his corner, they're just not designating him specifically as a journalist. I think demanding too much moral purity from campaigners is damaging. The perfect is very much the enemy of the good.
- sleepysysadmin 5y ago
  >So we don’t classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest news stories over the last 20 years. I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in prison for multiple reasons. False and retracted sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Which technically had nothing to do with journalism and far more to do with Sweden's considerable problem with rape in their country. Sweden went to the extent that it's rape if you don't have written consent for sex. They also removed all the intent/threats/violence as being part of it as well. Effectively they made sex illegal. >Or that the Trump administration planned on assasinating him. Woah, never heard this before. Trump directly benefitted from assange and even praised him. Though never actually helped him in any way. I believe he kinda disavowed knowing anything about him. I do believe that was a big political mistake by Trump. If Trump gave Assange a pardon... that would have been huge. As for CIA making plans under Trump... clearly didnt happen. > Or that Joe Biden is trying to extradite him on trumped up charges (pun not intended). It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked. Biden's going all in for sure. >Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that Obama tried to kill multiple times: woah, thats another i never heard. nobel peace prize obama took his attention away from his 7 wars to try to kill some journalist from his home city? This seems more like the CIA isn't under control.
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    Glad you noticed the Chicago reference. There are many more such examples. My favorite doublespeak is the fancy name for killing Obama administration used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
  - pell 5y ago
    The following is not so much an attempt at arguing with the poster but to correct falsehoods and blatant misrepresentations in their post. > I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in prison for multiple reasons. Right now he’s only in prison due to the extradition trial. The reason he isn’t out on bail is because he skipped bail in the past. > Sweden went to the extent that it's rape if you don't have written consent for sex. They also removed all the intent/threats/violence as being part of it as well. Effectively they made sex illegal. This is an incredibly absurd recount of Swedish law. It’s evident you do not know much about it. Swedish law defines rape as sex without consent. This definition was passed in 2018. The accusations against Assange were made in 2010. The conviction rates do not reflect your assumption that sex itself is deemed illegal in Sweden. The charges against Assange were also dropped. By the way, one accusation against him was that he penetrated a woman without a condom while she was sleeping. That is considered rape in most countries around the world. So even if we were to take your incorrect description of Sweden’s rape laws seriously they wouldn’t fit the bill here. > It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked. Biden's going all in for sure. The US case against Assanges originated in the Obama era. However his administration decided to not go forward with it. It was Trump’s administration who decided to make the extradition request. Assange was forced out of the Ecuadorian embassy during Trump’s tenure. So this had nothing to do with DNC leaks, nor was this a Democrat endeavor. Whatever one thinks of Assange or his work with Wikileaks, the way he is being treated by the US and the UK is entirely absurd and does not show any signs of fair trial at this point. News outlets in the US have done a poor job at holding the government accountable here. If Assange does get extradited and convicted it will break journalism in the United States fundamentally.
- gadders 5y ago
  Project Veritas was recently raided by the FBI and had material taken as well.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    I think this is where the question of "what is a journalist?" comes into play. What legitimate journalism has Project Veritas done? Wikipedia makes them seem more like a political hit squad than legitimate journalists: == Project Veritas unsuccessfully attempted to mislead The Washington Post into publishing false information about the Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations in 2017; the Post won a Pulitzer Prize after uncovering the operation.== == In 2020, The New York Times published an exposé detailing Project Veritas' use of spies recruited by Erik Prince, to infiltrate "Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda".== - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-p...
    - gadders 5y ago
      Well Wikipedia and the NYT are hardly unbiassed sources, but for an independent left wing view I suggest you read what Glen Greenwald wrote: "This not-a-real-journalist tactic was and remains the primary theory used by those who justify the ongoing attempt to imprison Julian Assange. In demanding Assange's prosecution under the Espionage Act, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote in The Wall Street Journal that “Mr. Assange claims to be a journalist and would no doubt rely on the First Amendment to defend his actions.” Yet the five-term Senator insisted: "but he is no journalist: He is an agitator intent on damaging our government, whose policies he happens to disagree with, regardless of who gets hurt.” This not-a-real-journalist slogan was also the one used by both the CIA and the corporate media against myself and my colleagues in both the Snowden reporting we did in 2013, as well as the failed attempt to criminally prosecute me in 2020 for the year-long Brazil exposés we did: punishing them is not an attack on press freedom because they are not journalists and what they did is not journalism." https://greenwald.substack.com/p/kyle-rittenhouse-project-veritas https://greenwald.substack.com/p/kyle-rittenhouse-project-ve...
- koheripbal 5y ago
  It discredits the entire effort to omit journalists who don't support your agenda. It really speaks to the heavy handed bias of the western main stream journalism industry.
smackay 5y ago
Craig Murray, friend of Julian Assange, was just released from a Scottish prison for the crime of jigsaw identification of some of the accusers in the trial of former First Minister, Alex Salmond despite the fact that many journalists from mainstream media had published information that allowed their readers to identify some of the accusers explicitly. So it's not just a problem of dictatorships in second or third world countries. But then again, maybe it is. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
- pydry 5y ago
  What's crazy about his case is that he was sentenced to more time than somebody who just outright named an accuser on twitter. Leonna Dorrian should be disbarred. What she did was a blatant abuse of her power.
  - gadders 5y ago
    I'm English, and pretty far from Murray politically, but from what I've read in other places as well the Scottish Government, the SNP, and the Scottish judiciary seem very close - probably too close.
    - FridayoLeary 5y ago
      The Scottish Government is the most useless, unnecessary body imaginable. The only office less important then that of the First Minister must be the Vice President in the US. It's not surprising that petty officials will abuse their power as much as they can.
    - smackay 5y ago
      The fundamental problem is that there is no separation of powers between the government and the judiciary as you might find in most (all?) modern democracies. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) acts as the governments lawyers and the prosecution service. Most of the accusers in the trial of Alex Salmond, for which he was acquitted on all charges, are close associates of the leadership of the Scottish National Party which are currently in power in the devolved parliament. The risks are clear and obvious.
throwaway0070 5y ago
What if someone is working as both a criminal and a journalist? We should not be letting criminals free just because they are also journalist. Journalist can be spy, separatist etc.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  The same argument could be made about diplomats. Would you be in favor if abolishing diplomatic immunity? If anything journalists need better protection. Of course they can be criminals, in which case they should be prosecuted. In countries without rule of law authorities can already arrest and imprison journalists for no good reason, so it doesn't make a difference. But in more civilized places, it should be made more difficult for police to detain journalists without court order. And we need programs that encourage more independent journalism. News media is in a serious reliability crisis.
  - koheripbal 5y ago
    This is an apples to oranges comparison. Diplomats are specifically immune because they prevent war. They are certified by the nation sponsoring them. Journalists are usually members of the country they are covering (particularly the ones who are jailed).
    - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
      Diplomats prevent war apart from the cases where they helped start them of course. Some may argue that journalism is at least as important as diplomacy, if not more so.
- vnchr 5y ago
  Why should separatists be treated as criminals?
pjc50 5y ago
I think it's quite a serious problem that people only want to talk about one or two very specific journalists that fit into the pre-existing culture war, rather than look at this more broadly.
- thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  This is very intentional. Attacking specific journalists and broadly claiming that the entire space is corrupt and manipulated is what increases the tolerance for things like this.
  - koheripbal 5y ago
    There's also an issue with defining "journalist". Some people being described as "journalists" are really activists who are actively taking part in the movement that's being targeted by the government. It doesn't excuse imprisoning them, but it muddies the water when it comes to defending them, and bloats the numbers in a way that make the problem more easy to dismiss. On the other hand - certifying journalists is a non-trivial problem.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      The hard distinction between "journalist" and "activist" collapses if you look at, say, the UK government, where plenty of people have either been both or are married to a journalist.
tacobelllover99 5y ago
Happening in the US now. Certainly bleak times.
rodolphoarruda 5y ago
Dated number for Brazil, which counts 3 imprisoned journalists in 2021, not 1.
- frozenlettuce 5y ago
  And most people would be surprised to know that the jailed journalists (downgraded as "bloggers" by traditional media) are aligned with the right-wing government (but prosecuted by the supreme court members from the previous leftist government)
  - rodolphoarruda 5y ago
    A supreme court whose members are engaged political activists is "jaw dropping" by itself.
game_the0ry 5y ago
What I am wondering is - how much corruption would be uncovered if journalists investigating corruption did not fear going to prison or dying?
VictorPath 5y ago
A satellite dish salesman with a storefront in Brooklyn, New York, was jailed in 2009 because he turned on the ability to watch al-Manar, a station associated with a political party that has made up 10+% of Lebanon's parliament since 2005 (both associated with the Shia organizational group in Lebanon, Hezbollah). https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/nyregion/24cable.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/nyregion/24cable.html Germany, France and other European countries have banned the channel as well.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  I don't see how it is different from what Iran or China is doing! Wow
hansvm 5y ago
The article's framing of the problem (increased authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a lot to be desired without more evidence. The evidence is: - A small increase in total jailed journalists (roughly matching world population growth, and the delta is a small discrete count which would yield large error bounds) - Specific examples of horrific events (matching atrocities that governments have been more than willing to commit in 2020, 2019, 2018, ...) Without looking at longer time scales (e.g., over the last 10-20 years journalist jailings significantly outpace population growth) or providing some justification for why circumstances have changed and we would expect journalist jailings to not pace population growth (e.g., if there are significantly fewer journalists per capita (not sure if that's true, just hypothetically)), a story that matches the evidence better is that lots of countries were horrible to journalists in years past and they're repeating that bad behavior now. To be clear, that's not saying that the overall problem shouldn't be fixed or even that their framing isn't correct, but...it's not exactly hard to provide evidence that _actually_ backs up their claim; why wouldn't they?
- d23 5y ago
  The first sentence in the article compares 2021 to 2020 and reflects a 4% increase in jailed journalists. This is 4x larger than the typical 1% population growth. Sure, more numbers would help. I'm not sure what sort of mindset would make someone immediately jump to defending the jailing of journalists though. > The article's framing of the problem (increased authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a lot to be desired without more evidence. I think democratic backslide / the rise of authoritarianism globally is broadly recognized at this point. It's not my area of expertise though.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    >> > The article's framing of the problem (increased authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a lot to be desired without more evidence. > I think democratic backslide / the rise of authoritarianism globally is broadly recognized at this point. Assuming people agree on things like that is part of the problem. Different groups of people often have wildly different ideas about what the problems their countries are currently facing are, and if you make assumptions and statements that seem to align with one set of views more than another all you're doing is limiting your audience and pre-seeding a group that will discount your argument. The way around this is the same as it's ever been (even if people seem somewhat more resistant to it). Make well reasoned arguments backed by publicly available evidence, and reference that evidence so people can verify it. This is the bar. Not hitting it because of assumptions you're making which the bar is specifically meant to guard against is a shame. We should encourage people to do better, not excuse them when they fail.
Spivak 5y ago
My hot take is that is actually a good thing, not because I want to see journalists in jail but because it means that journalists are actually doing things that upset the established order enough for them to be thrown in jail. It’s a huge improvement from the typical corporate journalist writing listicles and rewording press releases off newswires. Investigative journalism isn’t a legally protected activity and the nature of the job involves running afoul of the law if you want to uncover anything worthwhile.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  this is in no way a good thing, the world is supposed to be moving forward towards greater freedoms
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Legal lawbreaking is still an oxymoron though. Any investigative journalist that operates completely within the law will uncover nothing the current powers don’t wish to allow them to know. The whole point of civil disobedience is to break the law for the greater good knowing full well you might suffer consequences for it.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      putting them in jail however means they are single-report journalists i'm not at all sure there's an increase in investigations, authoritarianism is on the rise around the world also, investigative journalism IS protected, however curious journalists will often cross lines
kakkan 5y ago
I think this is a misleading title. Journalism as a profession shot up the last couple of years due to internet and media so the count should be normalized. What ratio of journalists are persecuted compared to total number of journalists out there?
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  what's your data for that? If anything, with most 'journalists' being professional retweeters, there are fewer correspondents in dangerous places. How many journalists were in afghanistan? Reporters sans frontieres tracks journalism persecution worldwide: https://rsf.org/en/barometer https://rsf.org/en/barometer
- taneq 5y ago
  Yeah, I would expect the number of journalists in jail to be at an all time high if the number of journalists (and, in fact, the number of humans) is at an all time high. Not that it's good, of course.
mikotodomo 5y ago
I keep saying people should use Tor to help prevent things like this from happening. They never listen.

323 points by samizdis 5y ago

Funnily enough, the proportion of journalists who deserve jailtime or worse is also at an all time high.

So we don’t classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest news stories over the last 20 years. Or that the Trump administration planned on assasinating him. Or that Joe Biden is trying to extradite him on trumped up charges (pun not intended). Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that Obama tried to kill multiple times: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-officials-trump-discussed-assassinating-julian-assange https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-off... -

bombcar 5y ago
But we do classify others who wrote a few blog articles as “journalist” when they were/are much more obviously engaged in other activities.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  We also classify people who are spies, publish fake news or lie all the time as journalists as well. During the Church Committee it got public that the publishers of Time Henry Luce, New York Times’ Sulzberger and so many journalists worked for the CIA: “Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune. By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.“ http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/ciasuseofjournal00unit.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hear... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/05/06/40-years-ago-church-committee-investigated-americans-spying-on-americans/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/05/06/40-y...
deleted 5y ago
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RansomStark 5y ago
[flagged]
- bvrmn 5y ago
  Russian and Belarus government don't protect their people in any way.
  - RansomStark 5y ago
    I'm sorry but that is a absolute statement, verging on propaganda. Of course they protect their people. For example there is significant crime in Russia, but the Russian government fields a police force that enforces the laws of Russia, jailing murderers, thieves, etc [0]. Of course there is corruption, of course some are above the law (but then is true the world over), and you need to play by the local rules, but that is not an absence of protection, although it may not be on par with what you might expect somewhere else. You also have to remember that the justification for the Russian invasion of Crimea was to protect the minority Russian population living in Crimea. So clearly the idea that the Russian government protects Russians is believed to be true within the state of Russia to the point where that idea can be exploited to justify military expansionism. We really need to get past the 'good guy' / 'bad guy' version of politics, the whole world is a shade of grey. [0] https://www.statista.com/topics/5509/crime-in-russia/#dossierKeyfigures https://www.statista.com/topics/5509/crime-in-russia/#dossie...
    - bvrmn 5y ago
      I'm russian by the way. And we can get arrested for single like in social media. Please don't tell me about propaganda.
      - RansomStark 5y ago
        I've not see anyone in the UK arrested for a like, but there are enough examples of people arrested for a single tweet, or retweet [0][1][2]. [0] https://nypost.com/2021/02/08/man-arrested-for-offensive-sir-captain-tom-moore-tweet/ https://nypost.com/2021/02/08/man-arrested-for-offensive-sir... [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/euro-2020-arrests-police-racism-b1884549.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/euro-2020-arrest... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-offensive-facebook-and-twitter-posts-soar-in-london-a7064246.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-offensive-...
ineedasername 5y ago
Your right about Assange, and the really frustrating thing is that if he was a US citizen and did the exact same thing but published in a traditional media outlet then we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. US journalists have received all kinds of awful leaked information and not been subjected to this. Although discussion on assassination? Wow, wasn't aware of that. I'll grant that his organization might have stepped into a gray area (apparently the US witness has credibility issues) if they provided Manning with a bit of guidance on how to get more information (unsuccessfully I think) but I don't think that materially changes things all that much.
- pydry 5y ago
  If Assange did precisely the same thing and exposed Russian or Chinese war crimes the idea that he was justly imprisoned for espionage because of the methods by which he did it would be universally mocked and condemned in the west. Conversely Roman Protasevich's airplane would be downed and he would already be in prison on charges of "fighting on the front line alongside neonazis" (evidence is that he did neonazi azov PR but probably did not fight), while the Russians condemned us for imprisoning a valiant journalist.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    >Roman Protasevich's airplane I don't know, Russia has a long tradition (with the USSR before it) to get creative with assassinations. Everything from poisoning tea with somewhat exotic isotopes to smearing the insides of underwear with neurotoxins, an icepick to the head, or simply gunning someone down in the street.
    - pydry 5y ago
      Not sure i see your point.
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        I wasn't making a rebuttal to the GP, just noting that the Russian government doesn't always go through the trouble of a show trial before conviction. That point shouldn't be taken as me ignoring similar tactics by other world powers, I'm aware of those too. The US planned & tried some creative assassinations against Castro. Realpolitik is messy and cynical and hypocritical.
pydry 5y ago
The absence of assange et al is notable but it's not a bad thing to be campaigning for the release of journalists in other countries.
- enriquto 5y ago
  The conspicuous absence of Assange is indeed very bad for the purported campaign for the release of journalists "in other countries". Such other countries can now rightfully point to the hypocrisy of this campaign. What the CPJ is doing (omitting Assange in its list) is effectively harmful for the journalists jailed in other countries.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Doesn't seem like they've forgotten him https://cpj.org/tags/julianassange/ https://cpj.org/tags/julianassange/ They seem to be fighting his corner, they're just not designating him specifically as a journalist. I think demanding too much moral purity from campaigners is damaging. The perfect is very much the enemy of the good.
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
>So we don’t classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest news stories over the last 20 years. I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in prison for multiple reasons. False and retracted sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Which technically had nothing to do with journalism and far more to do with Sweden's considerable problem with rape in their country. Sweden went to the extent that it's rape if you don't have written consent for sex. They also removed all the intent/threats/violence as being part of it as well. Effectively they made sex illegal. >Or that the Trump administration planned on assasinating him. Woah, never heard this before. Trump directly benefitted from assange and even praised him. Though never actually helped him in any way. I believe he kinda disavowed knowing anything about him. I do believe that was a big political mistake by Trump. If Trump gave Assange a pardon... that would have been huge. As for CIA making plans under Trump... clearly didnt happen. > Or that Joe Biden is trying to extradite him on trumped up charges (pun not intended). It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked. Biden's going all in for sure. >Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that Obama tried to kill multiple times: woah, thats another i never heard. nobel peace prize obama took his attention away from his 7 wars to try to kill some journalist from his home city? This seems more like the CIA isn't under control.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  Glad you noticed the Chicago reference. There are many more such examples. My favorite doublespeak is the fancy name for killing Obama administration used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
- pell 5y ago
  The following is not so much an attempt at arguing with the poster but to correct falsehoods and blatant misrepresentations in their post. > I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in prison for multiple reasons. Right now he’s only in prison due to the extradition trial. The reason he isn’t out on bail is because he skipped bail in the past. > Sweden went to the extent that it's rape if you don't have written consent for sex. They also removed all the intent/threats/violence as being part of it as well. Effectively they made sex illegal. This is an incredibly absurd recount of Swedish law. It’s evident you do not know much about it. Swedish law defines rape as sex without consent. This definition was passed in 2018. The accusations against Assange were made in 2010. The conviction rates do not reflect your assumption that sex itself is deemed illegal in Sweden. The charges against Assange were also dropped. By the way, one accusation against him was that he penetrated a woman without a condom while she was sleeping. That is considered rape in most countries around the world. So even if we were to take your incorrect description of Sweden’s rape laws seriously they wouldn’t fit the bill here. > It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked. Biden's going all in for sure. The US case against Assanges originated in the Obama era. However his administration decided to not go forward with it. It was Trump’s administration who decided to make the extradition request. Assange was forced out of the Ecuadorian embassy during Trump’s tenure. So this had nothing to do with DNC leaks, nor was this a Democrat endeavor. Whatever one thinks of Assange or his work with Wikileaks, the way he is being treated by the US and the UK is entirely absurd and does not show any signs of fair trial at this point. News outlets in the US have done a poor job at holding the government accountable here. If Assange does get extradited and convicted it will break journalism in the United States fundamentally.
gadders 5y ago
Project Veritas was recently raided by the FBI and had material taken as well.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  I think this is where the question of "what is a journalist?" comes into play. What legitimate journalism has Project Veritas done? Wikipedia makes them seem more like a political hit squad than legitimate journalists: == Project Veritas unsuccessfully attempted to mislead The Washington Post into publishing false information about the Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations in 2017; the Post won a Pulitzer Prize after uncovering the operation.== == In 2020, The New York Times published an exposé detailing Project Veritas' use of spies recruited by Erik Prince, to infiltrate "Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda".== - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-p...
  - gadders 5y ago
    Well Wikipedia and the NYT are hardly unbiassed sources, but for an independent left wing view I suggest you read what Glen Greenwald wrote: "This not-a-real-journalist tactic was and remains the primary theory used by those who justify the ongoing attempt to imprison Julian Assange. In demanding Assange's prosecution under the Espionage Act, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote in The Wall Street Journal that “Mr. Assange claims to be a journalist and would no doubt rely on the First Amendment to defend his actions.” Yet the five-term Senator insisted: "but he is no journalist: He is an agitator intent on damaging our government, whose policies he happens to disagree with, regardless of who gets hurt.” This not-a-real-journalist slogan was also the one used by both the CIA and the corporate media against myself and my colleagues in both the Snowden reporting we did in 2013, as well as the failed attempt to criminally prosecute me in 2020 for the year-long Brazil exposés we did: punishing them is not an attack on press freedom because they are not journalists and what they did is not journalism." https://greenwald.substack.com/p/kyle-rittenhouse-project-veritas https://greenwald.substack.com/p/kyle-rittenhouse-project-ve...
koheripbal 5y ago
It discredits the entire effort to omit journalists who don't support your agenda. It really speaks to the heavy handed bias of the western main stream journalism industry.

smackay 5y ago

Craig Murray, friend of Julian Assange, was just released from a Scottish prison for the crime of jigsaw identification of some of the accusers in the trial of former First Minister, Alex Salmond despite the fact that many journalists from mainstream media had published information that allowed their readers to identify some of the accusers explicitly. So it's not just a problem of dictatorships in second or third world countries. But then again, maybe it is. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

pydry 5y ago
What's crazy about his case is that he was sentenced to more time than somebody who just outright named an accuser on twitter. Leonna Dorrian should be disbarred. What she did was a blatant abuse of her power.
- gadders 5y ago
  I'm English, and pretty far from Murray politically, but from what I've read in other places as well the Scottish Government, the SNP, and the Scottish judiciary seem very close - probably too close.
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    The Scottish Government is the most useless, unnecessary body imaginable. The only office less important then that of the First Minister must be the Vice President in the US. It's not surprising that petty officials will abuse their power as much as they can.
  - smackay 5y ago
    The fundamental problem is that there is no separation of powers between the government and the judiciary as you might find in most (all?) modern democracies. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) acts as the governments lawyers and the prosecution service. Most of the accusers in the trial of Alex Salmond, for which he was acquitted on all charges, are close associates of the leadership of the Scottish National Party which are currently in power in the devolved parliament. The risks are clear and obvious.

throwaway0070 5y ago

What if someone is working as both a criminal and a journalist? We should not be letting criminals free just because they are also journalist. Journalist can be spy, separatist etc.

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
The same argument could be made about diplomats. Would you be in favor if abolishing diplomatic immunity? If anything journalists need better protection. Of course they can be criminals, in which case they should be prosecuted. In countries without rule of law authorities can already arrest and imprison journalists for no good reason, so it doesn't make a difference. But in more civilized places, it should be made more difficult for police to detain journalists without court order. And we need programs that encourage more independent journalism. News media is in a serious reliability crisis.
- koheripbal 5y ago
  This is an apples to oranges comparison. Diplomats are specifically immune because they prevent war. They are certified by the nation sponsoring them. Journalists are usually members of the country they are covering (particularly the ones who are jailed).
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    Diplomats prevent war apart from the cases where they helped start them of course. Some may argue that journalism is at least as important as diplomacy, if not more so.
vnchr 5y ago
Why should separatists be treated as criminals?

pjc50 5y ago

I think it's quite a serious problem that people only want to talk about one or two very specific journalists that fit into the pre-existing culture war, rather than look at this more broadly.

thr0wawayf00 5y ago
This is very intentional. Attacking specific journalists and broadly claiming that the entire space is corrupt and manipulated is what increases the tolerance for things like this.
- koheripbal 5y ago
  There's also an issue with defining "journalist". Some people being described as "journalists" are really activists who are actively taking part in the movement that's being targeted by the government. It doesn't excuse imprisoning them, but it muddies the water when it comes to defending them, and bloats the numbers in a way that make the problem more easy to dismiss. On the other hand - certifying journalists is a non-trivial problem.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    The hard distinction between "journalist" and "activist" collapses if you look at, say, the UK government, where plenty of people have either been both or are married to a journalist.

tacobelllover99 5y ago

Happening in the US now. Certainly bleak times.

rodolphoarruda 5y ago

Dated number for Brazil, which counts 3 imprisoned journalists in 2021, not 1.

frozenlettuce 5y ago
And most people would be surprised to know that the jailed journalists (downgraded as "bloggers" by traditional media) are aligned with the right-wing government (but prosecuted by the supreme court members from the previous leftist government)
- rodolphoarruda 5y ago
  A supreme court whose members are engaged political activists is "jaw dropping" by itself.

game_the0ry 5y ago

What I am wondering is - how much corruption would be uncovered if journalists investigating corruption did not fear going to prison or dying?

VictorPath 5y ago

A satellite dish salesman with a storefront in Brooklyn, New York, was jailed in 2009 because he turned on the ability to watch al-Manar, a station associated with a political party that has made up 10+% of Lebanon's parliament since 2005 (both associated with the Shia organizational group in Lebanon, Hezbollah). https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/nyregion/24cable.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/nyregion/24cable.html Germany, France and other European countries have banned the channel as well.

thriftwy 5y ago
I don't see how it is different from what Iran or China is doing! Wow

hansvm 5y ago

The article's framing of the problem (increased authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a lot to be desired without more evidence. The evidence is: - A small increase in total jailed journalists (roughly matching world population growth, and the delta is a small discrete count which would yield large error bounds) - Specific examples of horrific events (matching atrocities that governments have been more than willing to commit in 2020, 2019, 2018, ...) Without looking at longer time scales (e.g., over the last 10-20 years journalist jailings significantly outpace population growth) or providing some justification for why circumstances have changed and we would expect journalist jailings to not pace population growth (e.g., if there are significantly fewer journalists per capita (not sure if that's true, just hypothetically)), a story that matches the evidence better is that lots of countries were horrible to journalists in years past and they're repeating that bad behavior now. To be clear, that's not saying that the overall problem shouldn't be fixed or even that their framing isn't correct, but...it's not exactly hard to provide evidence that _actually_ backs up their claim; why wouldn't they?

d23 5y ago
The first sentence in the article compares 2021 to 2020 and reflects a 4% increase in jailed journalists. This is 4x larger than the typical 1% population growth. Sure, more numbers would help. I'm not sure what sort of mindset would make someone immediately jump to defending the jailing of journalists though. > The article's framing of the problem (increased authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a lot to be desired without more evidence. I think democratic backslide / the rise of authoritarianism globally is broadly recognized at this point. It's not my area of expertise though.
- kbenson 5y ago
  >> > The article's framing of the problem (increased authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a lot to be desired without more evidence. > I think democratic backslide / the rise of authoritarianism globally is broadly recognized at this point. Assuming people agree on things like that is part of the problem. Different groups of people often have wildly different ideas about what the problems their countries are currently facing are, and if you make assumptions and statements that seem to align with one set of views more than another all you're doing is limiting your audience and pre-seeding a group that will discount your argument. The way around this is the same as it's ever been (even if people seem somewhat more resistant to it). Make well reasoned arguments backed by publicly available evidence, and reference that evidence so people can verify it. This is the bar. Not hitting it because of assumptions you're making which the bar is specifically meant to guard against is a shame. We should encourage people to do better, not excuse them when they fail.

Spivak 5y ago

My hot take is that is actually a good thing, not because I want to see journalists in jail but because it means that journalists are actually doing things that upset the established order enough for them to be thrown in jail. It’s a huge improvement from the typical corporate journalist writing listicles and rewording press releases off newswires. Investigative journalism isn’t a legally protected activity and the nature of the job involves running afoul of the law if you want to uncover anything worthwhile.

cblconfederate 5y ago
this is in no way a good thing, the world is supposed to be moving forward towards greater freedoms
- Spivak 5y ago
  Legal lawbreaking is still an oxymoron though. Any investigative journalist that operates completely within the law will uncover nothing the current powers don’t wish to allow them to know. The whole point of civil disobedience is to break the law for the greater good knowing full well you might suffer consequences for it.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    putting them in jail however means they are single-report journalists i'm not at all sure there's an increase in investigations, authoritarianism is on the rise around the world also, investigative journalism IS protected, however curious journalists will often cross lines

kakkan 5y ago

I think this is a misleading title. Journalism as a profession shot up the last couple of years due to internet and media so the count should be normalized. What ratio of journalists are persecuted compared to total number of journalists out there?

cblconfederate 5y ago
what's your data for that? If anything, with most 'journalists' being professional retweeters, there are fewer correspondents in dangerous places. How many journalists were in afghanistan? Reporters sans frontieres tracks journalism persecution worldwide: https://rsf.org/en/barometer https://rsf.org/en/barometer
taneq 5y ago
Yeah, I would expect the number of journalists in jail to be at an all time high if the number of journalists (and, in fact, the number of humans) is at an all time high. Not that it's good, of course.

mikotodomo 5y ago

I keep saying people should use Tor to help prevent things like this from happening. They never listen.