The fragile guarantee of free expression
OPC’s press-freedom committee doesn’t often have cause to address itself to issues in the United States, though it’s far from unprecedented. The most recent example, involving a Florida public official, is significant because it illustrates the potential effect of what the Committee does, which is often obscured by distance.
These effects include the impact on our colleagues of having OPC as an ally, the irritation this may cause local authorities who do not wish to be irritated, and the value of an aggressive press to a community.
In mid November deputies in the Lee County sheriff’s department voted not to unionize. It was a routine story, of interest locally but far from earth-shattering. Reporters gathered after the vote to ask for comment from Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott. After taking one question from a local television reporter Sheriff Scott halted the news conference and announced that he would take questions from anyone but The News-Press.
“I have the right to pick and choose who I want to speak to,” said the sheriff, a startling statement captured on video.
Of course, Sheriff Scott has a history with the paper, specifically his objections to its coverage of three shootings involving his deputies and an allegation of a close relationship between himself and a convicted felon. We made clear that the OPC was not vouching for the accuracy of this reporting. But we had no trouble taking sides with The News-Press in objecting to his refusal to grant interviews to the paper’s reporters.
Our letter was picked up by local media in Ft. Myers. The News-Press ran it as an op-ed alongside a frosty rebuttal from the sheriff. It led the evening newscast of the local Fox affiliate, which included an interview with Sheriff Scott dismissively asking who the OPC is to be interfering in the running of his office.
The job of a journalist is to make public officials accountable for what they do. Even when they get it wrong the work of a reporter is fundamental to the untidy process of democracy. We live and work in a country where free expression and free inquiry are central pillars of democracy, and that gives our lectures to tyrants—petty and not so petty—the weight of credibility. The Committee tells some version of that to public officials somewhere in the world several times a month. It makes our job harder, we told Sheriff Scott, when officials in America behave as if the claims of journalists to hold them to account are without legitimacy.
What effect did all this have? The controversy generated pages of letters and comment on the News-Press website, indicating that it resonated locally. But Sheriff Scott still refuses to speak to the paper. He takes eMailed questions trough his PR guy, but that’s as far as he’ll go. The News-Press, meanwhile, is mulling its legal options, noting a 2002 Florida precedent holding that “a ll representatives of news organizations must given “equal access” with “equal convenience…to official sources.”
The Committee will be watching developments in Lee County, of course. For now, the experience has been a bracing reminder of why what we do has value.
In the same week that we making a nuisance of ourselves in Lee County, for example, we received a thank you from journalists in Ghana for speaking out on behalf of James Donkor, a reporter with Radio Progress in Wa. Donkor was arrested on October 24th when, following a reporter’s instincts, he went to investigate whatever it was that had the attention of a large crowd. He entered the crowd and saw a man tied to an electric pole. On inquiring, he was told that the police had tied the man there for “disrespecting” them. Like the journalist he is, Donkor took a photograph. For this he was hit, subjected to a body search, handcuffed and held in jail for several hours.
What added to our concern was that Ghana has been something of an exemplar of a modern African democracy. But we know from experience that in even stable democracies the rights of free speech free expression and free inquiry can be surprisingly fragile. There’s no better current example than the Philippines, which in a short time has made itself one of the most dangerous places to be a reporter.
The world was stunned on November 24th when the first reports were received that 12 journalists had been massacred along with an unknown number of other people while on a reporting trip to cover a governorship election in Mangudadatu Province on Mindanao Island. The reporters and supporters of the candidate were among a party of 40 taken hostage at a police checkpoint by a militia of 100 gunmen. The National Union of Journalists stated that bodies of the 12 reporters were among 21 found murdered near the village of Masalay.
At the same time an ominous report emerged that two men visited a hotel in Tacurong City, where some of the journalists were staying, and demanded a list of the reporters’ names. To their lasting credit, the hotel staff refused.
The killings brought to 15 the number of journalists killed this year in the Philippines—a country presumed to be an established democracy. That this remains the case is evident from the response of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who ordered her defense secretary to personally take charge of the investigation into the Mindanao massacre. The Philippines ambassador to the United States, Willy C. Gaa, wrote personally to update the Committee on the progress of the investigation.
These actions by the Committee—together with our action on behalf of colleagues in Gabon, Morocco, Russia and Sri Lanka—were just the work of November. It can be hard sometimes for Committee members not to feel at times like we’re shouting into the wind. But our work does have its effect, nowhere more so than in countries that aspire to be open societies.
But the vigilance doesn’t stop. In the week that this report is written we’ve been in contact with President Rafael Correa Delgado of Ecuador, a sound Latin American democracy whose National Assembly is considering creation of a National Communications and Information Council to enforce new laws such as requiring the media to publish within forty-eight hours a reply by anyone who feels their honor has been impugned and prohibiting use of information acquired from confidential sources.
Submitted by: Kevin McDermott