April, 2006
After 82 days of captivity at the hands of violent kidnappers,
freelance journalist Jill Carroll was suddenly and unexpectedly
set free. Immediately after she was released, videotapes began
to surface depicting Carroll making some unusual statements.
The young American woman described her kidnappers as “good
people fighting an honorable fight, a good fight.” She
said they never hurt her, even though earlier videos showed
her weeping on the ground while her captors surrounded her,
holding guns.
She also wore Islamic clothing and denounced the United States.
This from a reporter who never expressed political views to
her editors. Even a U.S. military spokesperson said “her
professionalism and objectivity were unparalleled within the
media community.”
Of course, she later retracted her statements, saying they were
coerced. Her captors demanded she say those things, promising
her freedom in exchange, and she complied. But her story underscores
two important issues in journalism today. One, reporters face
an unprecedented level of personal threats. Two, fear is a powerful
motivator. It will make people do – and say – almost
anything
The role of fear in reporting has been a hot topic in journalism
reviews and media magazines in recent weeks. Sherry Ricchiardi
writes in the American
Journalism Review that reporters in Iraq have to overcome
enormous fear on a regular basis, just to do their jobs.
“Every day, journalists in Iraq face a gut-wrenching decision,”
she writes. “Do they venture out in pursuit of stories
despite great danger or remain under self-imposed house arrest,
working the phones and depending on Iraqi stringers to act as
surrogates? A constant feeling of vulnerability heightens their
angst. They know once they leave heavily guarded hotels or walled
compounds they could end up in the hands of masked gunmen, pleading
for their lives in a grainy video posted on the Internet. Or
be within striking distance of an improvised explosive device
(IED), a major killer in Iraq.”
Even if journalists decide to risk venturing outside the heavily-guarded
“green zone” in central Baghdad, Ricchiardi says
there are some stories that just can’t be covered.
“Reporters simply cannot risk wandering into Baghdad’s
seething slums, a breeding ground for the resistance, or the
war-plagued villages,” she writes.
As a result, many news organizations rely on Iraqi stringers
– local people hired to gather information from areas
where foreigners won’t dare go, and bring the facts back
to reporters who then compose the stories. But even they must
put their lives on the line.
In the Columbia
Journalism Review, Paul McLeary describes the threats that
Iraqi stringers must face. One man, to whom McLeary only refers
to as Salih, had to flee from his hometown of Tikrit after gathering
facts for a story that accused local officials of looting. The
head of the Iraqi security force in Tikrit placed a $50,000
bounty on his head after the story was published. Salih had
already survived two earlier attempts on his life, so he decided
to play it safe and run away.
“Salih’s troubles, while extreme, are echoed in
the lives of many Iraqi stringers working for Western news outlets
across this unlucky country,” McLeary writes. “According
to the Committee to Protect Journalists, of the sixty-one journalists
killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war in March 2003 through
February 2006, forty-two were native Iraqis.”
The discussion of fear in journalism goes well beyond Iraq.
Many recent articles have examined why so many media outlets
chose not to publish those infamous cartoons of the prophet
Mohammed. In the Ryerson
Review of Journalism, Marlene Rego questions the motives
behind those decisions. Was it really a matter of religious
sensitivity? Maybe. But Rego says fear likely played a bigger
role.
She points to a recent poll which found “that many working
journalists believe fear is the real reason more Canadian outlets
haven’t reprinted the satirical works. According to the
survey of 221 Canadian journalists, seven out of ten think more
media should have carried the caricatures. And seventy-eight
per cent of those journalists think fear was why Canadian media
executives held back.”
While newspaper publishers probably weren’t scared of
being physically attacked for running the cartoons, the threat
of some kind of retaliation likely threatened their bottom lines.
At least that’s what Rego was told by National Post managing
editor Jonathan Kay.
“It is expensive and difficult to provide security for
an office building and printing presses,” Kay said. “I
think this was a bigger factor than most media outlets were
willing to admit.”
The cartoons and the role of fear are also discussed in an audio
podcast available from the Thunderbird Online
Journalism Review. The talk includes Ethan Faber, managing
editor of CTV Vancouver, Wayne Williams, a senior producer with
CBC Canada Now, Gary Hanney, a photographer for Global’s
BCTV, and award-winning photojournalist Nick Didlick.
But threats against journalists aren’t always of the blow-you-up
or take-you-hostage variety. Many American journalists feel
a different kind of fear, according to Elizabeth Fernandez of
the San
Francisco Chronicle, who reports that more and more journalists
are being threatened with jail time for refusing to identify
confidential sources.
Between the summer of 2004 and the summer of 2005, “more
than 70 journalists and news organizations around the country
– the highest number in at least 30 years – have
become snared in federal court disputes concerning access to
unpublished, confidential information,” Fernandez writes.
The fear of being hauled in front of a judge and possibly imprisoned
for nothing more than doing one’s job undoubtedly puts
a certain amount of fear into some journalists. Many would say
they can handle it, though, and some would consider it a badge
of honour to be imprisoned for sticking to journalistic principles.
But the fear extends beyond reporters. Confidential sources
are less likely to approach journalists if they know the courts
can legally demand their identities be revealed. As reporters
continue to be prosecuted for revealing secret information,
David Glenn is worried. He writes in the Columbia
Journalism Review that “when the dust settles, the
jurisprudential foundation of reporter-source confidentiality
might be weaker than it has been in decades.”
Threats and intimidation may put a chill on the information
reporters get from secret sources, but Washington Post reporter
Walter Pincus isn’t too worried. Pincus, himself, is involved
in two court cases at the moment involving confidential sources.
In an interview
with CJR, he says committed sources will always “find
a way” to get the information out, and committed journalists
will find a way to find them.
It’s that kind of commitment that keeps journalism alive
even where fear is regularly used to stifle dissent. In the
Ryerson
Review of Journalism, Aaron Leaf profiles a reporter from
Zimbabwe who refuses to be intimidated.
“The journalist laughs when talking about his stints in
jail,” Leaf writes. “Once, when some colleagues
had been arrested arbitrarily, he went to the police station
to find out why. He was promptly beaten and thrown in jail with
the rest of them. But, because he’d expected this treatment,
he warned some lawyer friends ahead of time, and they were able
to get him out within days.”
Leaf says there is a lesson in the example set by the Zimbabwean
reporter. To some extent, journalists will always face fear
and intimidation. Some will face more than others. But what
matters is how journalists react to that fear. Do they shy away
from their duty to report the truth? Or do they find a way to
overcome?
For the Zimbabwean reporter (whom Leaf does not name, just in
case the censors in his country are reading the web) the answer
is clear. He never considered fleeing to a place more hospitable
to journalists.
“Living in exile wasn't a possibility,” Leaf writes,
“not because of the risk involved in moving his family,
but because he felt his life’s mission was in Zimbabwe.
To leave would be giving up, something he refused to do.”
