Captive Journalists' Cases Raise New Issues for OPC

Captive Journalists' Cases Raise New Issues for OPC

Journalists everywhere breathed easier in recent weeks after freelancer Roxana Saberi was released by the Iranian government, and former President Bill Clinton persuaded North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il to free TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. But the two cases raised broad new questions about the dangers facing a new generation of reporters, and about what actions are appropriate in such circumstances.

The OPC’s Freedom of the Press Committee was among the first of many international press watchdog groups to call for freedom for the three women, as we have protested the arrest of Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari  in Iran and countless other journalists held by other governments in recent years. In our view, some of the issues raised by press critics viewing these cases are clearly red herrings. But others are more troubling, reflecting the sea-change in international journalism in recent years and demanding a new consensus on the rules of journalistic conduct and even who is a journalist.

Let’s dispose of the red herrings:

Is it only attractive young women who win media attention, public sympathy, and eventual release?

In a word, no. Bahari’s arrest on charges of conspiring to undermine the Iranian regime has deservedly won considerable attention from watchdog groups, with at lease five major petitions circulating to demand his release — though Newsweek has tried to mute publicity about the case, even as it pulls every string at its disposal to pressure the Iranian government to turn him loose. Many other male journalists have found equally strong support. In perhaps the most recent high-profile case, when the BBC’s Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza in 2007, the network held rallies, organized petitions, arranged for a simulcast on competing networks, and placed ads in newspapers to pressure his captors and call for his release. Johnston was freed after nearly four months in custody.

What happens to journalists who, unlike Ling and Lee, don’t work for someone who can enlist Bill Clinton as an emissary?

True, U.S. citizens Ling and Lee were freelancing for Current TV, partly owned by former Vice President Al Gore, when they were arrested by North Korean border guards under murky circumstances near the Chinese border. Accused of “hostile acts,” they were secretly tried and sentenced to twelve years at hard labor. Also true, when diplomatic probing found that Kim would respond favorably to a visit by Clinton, Gore called his former boss and asked him to make the trip; after dining with Kim, Clinton brought the women home on August 4. But it’s equally true that Saberi, who held both U.S. and Iranian citizenship and was also freelancing (for the BBC and NPR, among others), had no prominent backers. She was arrested in January, 2009, on charges that escalated to espionage, was tried secretly, and was sentenced to eight years in prison. The BBC, ABC, Fox News and NPR came to her aid, issuing a joint statement and working behind the scenes through diplomatic contacts to secure her release. She was freed in May.

Journalists aren’t supposed to be part of the stories they cover. Have the families of these imprisoned reporters crossed ethical boundaries in drumming up sympathy for them?

Obviously, none of them wanted to be arrested. Once they were, they were part of the story, come what may. Their families and employers were entitled to do everything in their power to call attention to their plight.Newsweek’s Chris Dickey may have crossed bounds of journalistic taste when he wrote what can only be called a sob story about Bahari’s pregnant fiancée, but it was effective — and totally ethical.

The real problems raised by these and similar cases are more substantive.

As mainline journalism comes under rising pressure from the slumping economy and the changing media world, its retreat from international coverage invites smaller organizations to fill the vacuum. Fledgling outfits like Current TV and ambitious Web sites including GlobalPost.com and TehranBureau.com send freelancers, many of them relative newcomers without experience on the ground or a network of advice and support, to cover increasingly risky stories. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 45 of the 125 journalists arrested around the world in 2008 were freelancers.

Neither these reporters nor their occasional employers have the resources or political connections of major broadcast networks, wire services or established global news organizations.

How can the journalistic community support such neophytes when they get in trouble? Should there be a formal organization to make sure no future Ling, Lee or Saberi falls through the cracks? An even harder question remains: Who, these days, counts as a journalist?

Not just freelancers but bloggers everywhere are setting up shop to report, comment and bloviate on events and issues. Many of them are being jailed or otherwise harassed for their efforts. The OPC committee has taken the position that they are indeed journalists, under the definition long held by the United Nations Declaration of Universal Rights: “Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

We have always resisted efforts to define, recognize and license journalists, since that has so often been the camel’s nose of state control poking into the journalist’s tent.

Perhaps it’s time to reconsider.

What do you think? Please comment on these issues by e-mail to info@opcofamerica.org.