“World Press Freedom Index 2024”

22/09/2024 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

"World Press Freedom Index 2024"

In a summary of a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), “World Press Freedom Index 2024”, has stated that more than 50% of the global population resides in countries classified as having a “very serious” press freedom situation, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index. This alarming statistic highlights the dire circumstances faced by journalists, with individuals in these regions often risking their lives and freedoms to report the news. Presently, 36 countries—up from 31 in 2023—are marked in red on RSF’s press freedom map, indicating severe restrictions, including five of the world’s ten most populous nations: India (159th), China (172nd), Pakistan (152nd), Bangladesh (165th), and Russia (162nd).

Recent elections in these countries have underscored the extent of press freedom violations, with governments exerting control over information and resorting to violence against journalists. For instance, China remains the world’s largest jailer of journalists, while Russia has introduced laws to suppress dissent ahead of its own elections. In Bangladesh, journalist safety deteriorated amidst political turmoil, and Pakistan’s media censorship intensified during election campaigns. In India, disinformation campaigns and harassment of journalists have escalated as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a third term.

RSF emphasizes that the coming year poses risks for information freedom, as 76 countries with a combined population of 4.1 billion are set to hold elections, creating fertile ground for government manipulation of news. The situation is already tense in other populous nations like Mexico and Indonesia, highlighting a worrying trend for media freedom worldwide.

The report calls on the 36 countries categorized as having severe press freedom issues to address and rectify these obstructive practices.

Links:

What is a journalist?

29/05/2022 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

What is a journalist? To my mind, a journalist is someone interested in finding out about a story. A person who collects, gathers and sifts through the information and then formulates it into an article either for print, TV or radio – or these days social media channels.

So what started me down this rabbit hole? Over the last number of years, I have undertaken courses in journalism, and they were all good at teaching you the theory of journalism, and the law, but what was missing was talk about that spark that draws a journalist to put his or her life at risk for a story or fact.

Two separate articles, both from the Belfast Telegraph have made me take a step back and review what I have been doing.

The first was TV presenter Gavin Esker: “Botched Brexit has shattered the idea of a ‘United Kingdom'” and the second, “There’s an easy way for BBC NI to defend its broadcaster against toxic sectarian slurs”.

Northern Ireland adrift

Gavin rightly highlights what is a common thread for so many in Unionism, that yet again Unionists in N Ireland have been treated as not even 2nd class citizens in the United Kingdom. Yes, Boris (Johnson) and his like had a mandate to negotiate for the United Kingdon, but not to the extent of putting Northern Ireland under the ‘gravy train’.

…’ Unionists feel abandoned…NI came nowhere in Boris’s priorities. He just wanted to say that he could get Brexit done’…

Has the BBC got lost down the rabbit hole?

In the second article, Gail Walker writes about journalists having their reputations being maligned by 30-seconds of the tap-tap-tap keyboard. The article speaks about how the BBC is one of the great platforms for truth and justice, with exceptional journalists and reporters; however, it then leads to how the BBC needs to be more clear about how it chooses interviewees or topics. What is their bias, and as she says

…are shows biased, are they balanced, are sections of the community under-respected…

But though some would say we should make more demands of the BBC as we are paying for it with our licence fee, the question has to be asked, can you just leave it at the BBC’s doorstep; shou

ldn’t we be equally clear that all media including the ITV Hub, private radio stations, and social media have a duty of care as to be balanced with their reporting?

Links:

Amal Clooney Transcript of UN Speech on Trump and Journalism | Time

04/07/2020 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Source: Amal Clooney Transcript of UN Speech on Trump and Journalism | Time

I am writing as a community journalist, who in the past along with Sean McGoruan and others have tried to write and reflect about the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland. There were times when it felt an uphill struggle, as we fought censorship and bureaucracy, not to mention the establishment.

We wrote about murders, about police sting operations, about AIDS.

Even today we still have to write about homophobia, how the ‘lockdown’ has and is affecting people; but we are lucky now to not have people thrown into prison without trial. Though I must say that the government’s current stance on ‘gay cure’ therapy beggars belief – is the Prime Minister trying to go back to the days of Margaret Thatcher?

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney’s speech is thought-provoking, and also worrying, because only this morning I re-published on the NIGRA website about the film ‘

Welcome to Chechnya: The Gay Purge, review: a heart-stopping account of those fleeing persecution

which was shown on BBC TV this week

Take time to read the articles and watch the film, if you haven’t already. YOu won’t’ be disappointed.

‘The love letter to my neighbourhood that helped me flee my country’ – BBC News

04/07/2020 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Source: ‘The love letter to my neighbourhood that helped me flee my country’ – BBC News

This is a wonderful insightful letter from the journalist José Gregorio Márquez, who is writing about his believed Venezuela. It flows with love and wonder, but also heartache when he references the killings and disappearances in his country, and why he had to finally leave for Buenos Aires and start a new life.

A photo on his wall

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT? – LGSO

12/08/2016 By ACOMSDave 1 Comment

Hiding in Plain Sight – Queer people in NornIrl are used to (locally) powerful elements, namely the now-largest political party, the DUP DUP

(Democratic Unionist Party) and the Free Presbyterian Church, both constructed by the late Dr. Ian Paisley, being resolutely opposed to, in essence, any rights for LGBTs. The situation in other places, particularly other parts of the ‘Anglosphere’ can can appear wreathed in a pinko-lavender glow. We are cosily slotting into British, especially London society, it seems.

How odd, then, was it to read and hear of the puzzlement on the foot of the BBC Proms recent ‘outreach’ to amateur LGSO

orchestras. (Most such bands are not ‘amateur’ in the strict sense of the word, being made up partly of professional musicians who teach or are ‘session’ musicians in recording studios,or are simply retired or bringing up families).

The puzzlement was caused by the LGSO (London Gay Symphony Orchestra), even liberal[ish] blatts were, on the face if things, taken aback. The blatts seemed not to have been aware of the LGSO’s existence, including the journos who should HAVE KNOWN – LIKE THE ONES WHO DIDN’T TURN OUT WHEN IT was working with the USA choirs. Even the local blatts, and the (two) in Islington are professional and consceintiously ‘local’ – and have Lefty histories, they were started by Communist Party people who left after Prague in 1968. A substantial number of them didn’t want to simply dissolve into their surroundings. That was by an organisation founded on May 1996, that has 150+ members, and gives a minimum of four concerts per annum, usually given in the C of E church Saint Sepulcre, Holborn Viaduct- the up-coming autumn one is billed for St. S’s.usually in a church on the border of Islington and the City of London. It first rehearsed and gave concerts in the Drill Hall a Gay-oriented arts centre, since closed down due to ‘austerity’.

With a bit o’luck the LGSO (there’s a similar band in Birmingham) will get ‘picked on’ by the Beeb and show their stuff. They really ought to make records, some major bands in London, and similar large cities sell recordings of the concerts audiences have just sat through. The LGSO filled the Royal Festival Hallsome years ago accompanying LGBT choirs from Europe and the USA. Thus it isn’t unused to critical audiences – though the critics in the ‘straight’ press ignored the event, even though it was given on behalf of two charities.

Further links:

Hiding in Plain Sight - LGSO

When should journalists take on the role of activists?

22/06/2015 By ACOMSDave

Are journalists who are silent on issues of privacy and net neutrality doing their jobs correctly, asks Dan Gillmor of the First Amendment Coalition

Posted: 19 June 2015 By: Catalina Albeanu

Credit: Thinkstock

Objectivity is one of the pillars of journalism, ingrained into a newsroom’s editorial processes and taught to trainee journalists from the very first day.

But there is also space for journalists to take a stand on what they believe in, said Dan Gillmor, board member of the First Amendment Coalition and Guardian columnist.

“I don’t believe objectivity really exists,” he said at the GEN Summit today. “It’s kind of a unicorn, it’s a nice idea…”

“But even as we are worshipping at this altar of objectivity or neutrality, there’s some issues where, as journalists, we simply cannot be neutral, cannot be objective and should not try to be.”

He highlighted the freedoms which are under threat in the digital world, freedoms that are essential to journalists and citizens: freedom to associate, collaborate and innovate, all intertwined with the freedom of the press.

He said there is “an attack on the decentralised fundamental nature of the internet” from governments and corporations, as well as mass-surveillance, as revealed by the NSA leaks of Edward Snowden.

“If we’re ok with that, are we doing our jobs correctly as journalists?” he asked delegates.

“We journalists should be using encryption all the time, but we shouldn’t stop there.

“We should be teaching encryption to our audiences, helping them use it themselves.”

He pointed to more issues journalists have failed to deal with “in a fundamental way” while discussing how to fit in with “the world of Facebook”, such as the threat to net neutrality in Europe, for example.

The media industry should recognise the idea of “activism as journalism”, a connection that makes many uncomfortable – some of the finest reporting can be done by advocacy groups and NGOs like Human Rights Watch, he said.

There are however many activists who are pushing out propaganda, but “there is a great role for activism in journalism”.

“Please be activists for those core freedoms… Please campaign against control and please campaign for more open systems and technologies than the ones that are being created around us,” he told delegates