The coverage of islam in France

How to cover islam? This assignment is one of the most controversial for journalists in Western countries. While many Muslims denounce a pattern of bias, sensationalism and insensitivity, others, mostly on the right, think the media are too protective and too politically correct.
A French political scientist Thomas Deltombe has just published a book on 30 years of the media coverage of Islam in France (L’islam imaginaire: la construction médiatique de l’islamophobie en France 1975-2005, Editions La Découverte, 392 p.). His conclusions leave a bitter taste. French television, he writes, has constructed a “fantasized vision of islam”, on the basis of dramatized events, from the 1979 Iranian revolution to the headscarf controversy to the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. “Suspicion is generalized”, he writes.
66% of French Muslims, according to a survey in Le Monde des religions, are convinced there is hostility towards them. They of course resent the negative coverage of their faith and community. But they also criticize the so-called “positive coverage”: they believe that this form of well-intentioned journalism often leads to anecdotical and outlandish articles and subliminally presume that if these “good Muslims have made it”, in fact a minority of them, the great majority have no excuse for exclusion or failure.
This book has been met with some criticism in journalistic circles but it provides an interesting contribution to the discussion of an important issue.

Framing the Tibet coverage

There was a strange unanimity a few weeks ago when many Western media announced the imminent radicalization of the pro-Tibet movement, or the “abandonment by the Dalai Lama of the dialogue with Beijing”. Suddenly the non-violence option that had characterized the Tibetan cause seemed to be on the verge of unravelling in favour of a more rebellious and intransigent faction.
In an op-ed published on November 28 in the Brussels liberal daily Le Soir, Vincent Metten, the European director of the International Campaign for Tibet, debunked these forecasts by highlighting the victory of moderation in the wake of the Tibetan diaspora assembly that took place in Dharamsala, in late November.
However, this example that shows a disconnect between media and NGO reporting makes one wonder how issues are framed in the media, what pushes most journalists to adopt together and at the same time a shared view of particular events.
This phenomenon of “groupthink” can be triggered by a “news wholesaler” (world news agencies) or a respected international newspaper. What Reuters, CNN or the New York Times report on and their “reading” of particular events have immediate repercussions on the rest of the world media. The responsibility of these “elite media” is therefore immense. Sometimes they have been wrong and have “misguided” world news coverage. Their reputation for general excellence does not completely protect them against mistakes or biases.
Why would allegedly independent and free thinking journalists massage a particular message? Sometimes it is just a question of circumstances : the reportage by a particular journalist that takes a particular line, a tribute to the journalist’s right to subjectivity.
Sometimes it is the result of “opinion framing”, the impact of opinion leaders in government, business or leading NGOs eager to frame an issue and inspire the angle of a story. For instance, selling the idea that at a time of a profound economic crisis the West needs all the help it can get from China has a corollary: any other irritant –read human rights, Tibet – should be evacuated from the serious public agora.
Global public relations agencies can also have an impact. Most authoritarian governments have hired the big guns in the communications agencies to polish their image and sell their message. Beijing in particular has secured the expertise of Hill & Knowlton or Ogilvy during the Olympic Games. And many journalists have been more than happy to take their cue from their press releases and other gimmicks.
A lesson should be drawn. Human rights are not only vulnerable to government manipulation but also to media framing. For human rights NGOs the need to analyse how and why the media report, select, interpret the news is as fundamental as the development of communications skills and tools.

Can we attack human rights icons?

Can journalists criticize human rights icons ? For years this question has been confronting many reporters and columnists covering such epic battles as the fight against apartheid or the struggle for democracy in Latin America or the former Soviet Union.
Can journalists take the risk of undermining campaigns for freedom and give comfort to the enemy (the authoritarian regimes) by revealing the “bad side” of human rights defenders’character or by exposing tensions or even corruption inside democratic opposition movements?
The London-based liberal daily The Guardian has been feeling the heat recently after the publication of an article on Aung San Suu Kyi, the symbol of Burmese opposition to military rule and the laureate of the Nobel Peace and Sakharov Prizes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/11/burma-aung-san-suu-kyi
The title of the article signed by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy on November 11 was not meant to be invisible nor uncontroversial : “Aung San Suu Kyi: Not such a hero after all”. Based on (mostly) anonymous sources and excluding opinions that contradict its main thesis, the article describes the “silence” of the world’s most famous political prisoner while Burma suffers from a context of increased repression and economic meltdown. Referring to her apparent drift into spirituality, highlighting her “arrogance” and elitism, the authors bluntly conclude : “Her failure to react to recent key crises means that many of her followers now question her ability to lead the fight against the military junta”. “Some in the party are asking whether it is time to move on from Aung San Suu Kyi”.
Reactions have been immediate, some “commending this unusual frank reporting”, others like famous progressive journalist John Pilger, slamming “this odious article that belongs to the gutter”.

The ethical dilemma
A reflection on journalism ethics is required. It must bring together, on the one hand, the commitment to truth-seeking, i.e. the seriousness of journalism in terms of accuracy, diversity of sources and balance in interpreting them, and on the other hand, the sense of responsibility, the awareness of the negative consequences of partial or reckless reporting on the Burmese people's aspiration for democracy.
Obviously, covering the fight for freedom and relaying human rights defenders’ battles should not be an excuse for suppressing inconvenient truths (Such concessions to “the cause” at the expense of the principles of journalism have often lead to disillusion or even worse). But it should inspire journalists to apply the highest standards of their profession, double check sources, widen the net of contradictory opinions and apply caution in drawing conclusions.



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President Uribe's attacks against Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

On September 18, after the expulsion from Caracas of Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson of Human Rights Watch, a commentator on Radio Mundial, an official voice of the Venezuelan Bolivarian government, promised that “he would believe HRW if the organization would slam the murderous squad that governs Colombia”.
Well if this commentator was not aware at the time of the work that has been done for years by HRW to documents human rights abuses by all sides in the Colombian conflict he might have been surprised by the sharp attacks launched by Colombian president Alvaro Uribe against José Miguel Vivanco a month later. According to an article published by the Bogota daily El Espectador, president Uribe used the same derogatory words as Chavez’ supporters to disqualify the respected New York-based human rights organization. "Vivanco, Uribe said, is not our human rights professor...At the international level everyone is concerned with the human rights of criminals disguised as trade unionists but no one has a thought for the policemen and soldiers that are mutilated by terrorist actions".
Attacks by governments against human rights defenders are increasing around the world, even in countries that pretend to belong to the “community of democracies”. And some local media relay these attacks instead of calling upon their government to stop issuing threatening and defamatory statements.
These attacks linking human rights organizations to either "a CIA conspiracy" (the official Venezuelan theme) or to "guerilla’s disinformation strategies" (the Colombian government’spin) are a direct threat to the capacity of human rights organization to carry out their work and, in the case of Colombia, in particular, a license to kill.
The risk is such that on November 19, in a joint statement, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch asked President Uribe to “stop making false and dangerous accusations against human rights groups that criticize his government". The two organizations were responding to crude attacks by the Colombian head of state, accusing AI of “blindness”, “fanaticism” and “dogmaticism” and Jose Miguel Vivanco, of “being a supporter” and an “accomplice” of the FARC guerrillas.
“These statements belittle the President’s office and give a green light to those who wish to harm human rights activists in Colombia”, the two organizations said.
These accusations have a chilling effect on journalism as well. Journalists that cover human rights know that these remarks by their own governments are also directed against them. And they know that the threats are real and very very close.

Old technologies for democracy

Promoting democracy and free speech inside authoritarian societies or “getting out” the news on forgotten conflicts have often been identified with the use of new technologies, and in particular email and Internet. On Sunday September 16 at a conference on media and development held during the European Development Days in Strasbourg James Deane, head of policy at the BBC World Trust and former director of Panos London, mentioned that rebel groups in Darfur were filming their own news and uploading it on YouTube. Quite smart !

Old media however never die. CNN reports today (http://cnn.com) that South Korean activists are sending leaflets over the border into North Korea, where rumours are growing that the leader Kim Jong Il might have suffered a stroke or even might be dead. As CNN describes it these pro-democracy activists are using huge helium balloons, each stuffed with some 10,000 flyers printed on vinyl paper, that they send from a spot near the highly fortified border.
North Korean authorities have condemned these actions as “confrontational” and threaten to sever relations. But the South Korean government cannot do much since any ban would break national freedom of expression laws.
Are these old methods effective? They allow at least to get around the firewall that the regime has set up around its Internet system. And according to North Korean defectors they reach some ordinary people. The risk of being seen picking up these leaflets and reading them however is real. The secret police are all around watching any sign of “betrayal” and dissent.

When the media are against press freedom

There is a missing link in the work of most press freedom organizations. They tend to denounce attacks against the press but very rarely highlight and expose the media and the journalists that attack press freedom and human rights.
Most of the time their criticism of pro-authoritarian journalism has been limited to denouncing so-called “hate media” or to indirectly delegitimizing the dictators’ megaphones by endorsing independent and combative media.

Of course from the perspective of free speech such criticism of non-democratic media might seen to undermine the very principle of freedom of expression. From the standpoint of journalists’ unions or publishers’ associations it would lead to selecting good and bad journalists and proprietors, whereas the mandate of these corporatist organizations is mostly to organize everyone according to professional - and not political or ethical - criteria.
However is not it shocking from a human rights and press freedom perspective to allow pro-authoritarian media to get off scot-free? Or to avoid denouncing journalists that take pro-dictatorship positions?
I have to admit that I was surprised in 2002 to see at the tribune of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Congress in Bruges the owner of the Chilean daily newspaper El Mercurio in congenial discussion with editors in chief or columnists of such decent liberal newspapers like Haaretz or the New York Times? El Mercurio was not only complicit in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende (1973) but it continuously supported the Pinochet regime…A military regime that killed, jailed, censored and exiled journalists. It was all the more surprising since in 1987 the WAN had awarded its prestigious Freedom Pen to Juan-Pablo Cardenas, former editor in chief of the anti-Pinochet weekly Analisis and a fierce critic of El Mercurio’s role in supporting military rule and censorship.

The same question can be raised today in relation to the media in many countries, from Tunisia to Russia, or from Iran to Venezuela. In these countries scores of journalists, editors and proprietors have taken the decision to accept the diktats of semi-or fully authoritarian power.
In democratic countries some media, of the extreme left and of the extreme right, defend ideas that attack the very principle of the press freedom that they enjoy to aggress democracy. It is the honour of democracy of allowing them to speak against democracy.
Milder forms of pro-authoritarian journalism are sometimes practised in some mainstream media that, pleading for realism, endorse, however reluctantly, “friendly regimes” that suppress media freedoms.

Our International Project on human rights and the media takes it as a corollary that the defence of press freedom entails a sustained criticism of those media and journalists that wilfully side with authoritarian governments or groups and support the harassment of independent journalists. And this website will try to regularly report on such media, without resorting to witch-hunting or grandstanding, but with the assumption that by exposing pro-censorship or pro-authoritarian media it will undermine their pretension to be seen as something better than propaganda instruments and will reinforce the legitimacy of really independent and free media.