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Ed Webb

RSF launches Tracker 19 to track Covid-19's impact on press freedom | RSF - 0 views

rsf.org/...covid-19s-impact-press-freedom

media censorship politics pandemics RSF

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is launching Tracker-19 to monitor and evaluate the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on journalism and to offer recommendations on how to defend the right to information.
  • Called “Tracker 19” in reference not only to Covid-19 but also article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this project aims to evaluate the pandemic’s impacts on journalism. It will document state censorship and deliberate disinformation, and their impact on the right to reliable news and information. It will also make recommendations on how to defend journalism.
  • without journalism, humankind could not address any of the major global challenges, including the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, discrimination against women and corruption.
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  • “Censorship cannot be regarded as a country’s internal matter. Information control in a given country can have consequences all over the planet and we are suffering the effects of this today. The same goes for disinformation and rumours. They make people take bad decisions, they limit free will and they sap intelligence.” 
  • RSF has taken measures to ensure that it remains as fully operational as possible while guaranteeing the safety of its personnel and partners. The data RSF collects comes from its network of bureaux and correspondents. Tracker-19 offers an interactive world map on the press freedom situation, constant coverage of developments and analyses of key issues. 
Ed Webb

RSF yearly round-up: "historically low" number of journalists killed in 2019 | RSF - 0 views

rsf.org/...number-journalists-killed-2019

journalists media RSF rights repression KSA Saudi China Turkey Mexico Syria Afghanistan Yemen

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Dec 19 - No Cached
  • With a combined total of 14 journalists killed, Latin America is now as deadly for journalists as the Middle East., with all of its wars.
  • more journalists (59%) are now being killed in countries at peace than in war zones. At the same time, there has been a 2% increase in journalists being deliberately murdered or targeted.
  • Worldwide, a total of 389 journalists are currently in prison in connection with their work, 12% more than last year. Nearly half of these journalists are being held by three countries: China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Ed Webb

America the Mediocre - Foreign Policy - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...america-the-mediocre

US USA exceptionalism comparative OECD policy analysis opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Sep 19 - Cached
  • A 2017 Pew Research Center poll found that most Americans disagree only whether the United States is the best country in the world (29 percent) or one of the best (56 percent). Only 14 percent of Americans agree instead that there are other, better countries.
  • U.S. reluctance, or inability, to learn from other countries is making life worse for its citizens than it has to be—not just in the big ways, such as the disasters of American health care and student debt, but in the little, everyday ones, too
  • On measures indicating the quality of life, the United States often ranks poorly. The U.N. Human Development Index, which counts not just economic performance but life expectancy and schooling, ranks the United States at 13th, lagging other industrialized democracies like Australia, Germany, and Canada. The United States ranks 45th in infant mortality, 46th in maternal mortality, and 36th in life expectancy.
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  • Reporters Without Borders places the United States at 48th for protecting press freedom. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the United States as only the 22nd least corrupt country in the world, behind Canada, Germany, and France. Freedom House’s experts score the United States 33rd for political freedom, while the Varieties of Democracy project puts the quality of U.S. democracy higher—at 27th.
  • The World Happiness Report places America at 19th, just below Belgium
  • outsiders—and Americans who’ve spent time abroad—see a lot of room for improvement in the United States.
  • Americans have an inflated view of their country’s greatness. What’s the harm?
  • the United States proves so resistant to learning from other countries. Using terms that officials since have echoed repeatedly, then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described the United States and its role by saying, “We are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future.”
  • Wholehearted rejection on the right and cherry-picking on the left may explain why international comparisons have had so little influence in shifting policymaking
  • Looking for policy lessons from other countries could therefore help break the mindset that attributes U.S. policy failures to nebulous concepts like “culture.”
  • Germany’s example suggests that U.S. policymakers have ample scope to move the United States away from its car culture
  • The United States could do away with the annual ritual of tax preparation for most of its citizens by adopting the globally widespread practice of having prefilled tax returns
  • None of this is to minimize the challenges any policy changes in the United States would face, from political polarization to the influence of special interest groups to anti-democratic institutions like the electoral college and the U.S. Senate.
  • A discourse that normalized the practice of learning from other countries would go a long way toward puncturing the myth that everything the United States does is the best. Saying it might be sacrilege, but making America better will probably mean making it more like everybody else.
  • Ed Webb on 08 Sep 19
     
    Former visiting professor at Dickinson Paul Musgrave on the case for policy better informed by comparative analysis.
Ed Webb

As populists hold on to power in Poland, press freedom fears rise | Media | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...ears-rise-191014183653018.html

Poland media democracy populism authoritarianism

shared by Ed Webb on 15 Oct 19 - Cached
  • The re-election of the conservative-nationalist group, founded and led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has heightened fears among the journalists and academics that freedom of the press will be further restricted in the party's pursuit of a proposed "new media order".  PiS announced in its 232-page election manifesto that it wanted to regulate the status of journalists
  • The deputy culture minister, Pawel Lewandowski, has said: "[The media] is a type of state power. "We must have 100 percent certainty that everything that happens in Poland is overseen by the Polish authorities."
  • Since 2015, PiS has taken control of public companies, the courts and state-run broadcasting in its remoulding of society.  Press freedom in Poland has fallen from 18th to 58th place out of 180 countries in an annual index conducted by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
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  • A turning point for the media came in January 2016 when Polish President Andrzej Duda signed controversial laws enabling the government to appoint the heads of public TV and radio, as well as civil service directors. 
  • More than 200 people were fired as a result, and their roles were taken over by people who support the government
  • the EU said it jeopardised the bloc's values.
  • There is greater trust in private independent media compared with public service broadcasters; only 20 percent of Poles believe the media is free from political influence, according to a study published last year.
  • Private media groups that have supported the opposition complain that they are losing advertising contracts from state-owned companies, which are increasing their spending to pro-government outlets
  • Since Gazeta Wyborcza published a series of stories that revealed corruption at the Financial Supervision Authority, forcing its chairman Marek Chrzanowski to resign, the ruling party and other state bodies have filed some 50 legal challenges against the newspaper and the lead reporter, Wojciech Czuchnowski.
  • Another major outlet that has come under pressure is TVN, a private television station owned by Discovery, Inc., a US media company.  In 2018, the government accused a TVN of promoting fascism, referring to photos taken during an undercover assignment that infiltrated Polish neo-Nazis and broadcast footage of its members holding a birthday party for Adolf Hitler.
  • Poland's media regulator issued a 1.5 million zloty ($389,000) fine to TVN for its coverage of anti-government protests outside Parliament, on the basis that it "propagated illegal activities and encouraged behaviour threatening security."
  • State media described the July anti-government protests as a "street revolt" that aimed to "bring Islamic immigrants to Poland".
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