English leader: A rank rating for the yanks
How free is free - or perhaps, what makes freedom ring? Even more importantly - how do we know what is freedom, who do we believe, who do we heed, hear, read, watch, in order to come to an understanding of the concept?
Most would agree, that the basic definition of freedom is a state of exemption from the power and control of another. This state enables further qualities, for example the independence or facility to be frank, the ease of action without restriction. Westerners would certainly add the critical individual element - that the personal and private aspect is what fills out the definition.
We talk about freedom of speech, freedom of expression, the freedom to congregate as basic democratic rights. Forgetting all the while, that these are freedoms that we perceive as being always available, forgetting, that these are only recent accomplishments of western society. Most significantly perhaps, society really lacks a yard stick, a measuring system for these freedoms. While Kris Kristofferson may sing that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, there is indeed plenty to lose or, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell we’ll only know that it is lost when it is gone.
An early pioneer in the communications field was Paul Watzlawick, the first to ask the rhetorical question - how real is real? He was among the first to draw a connection between communication and reality, how disorientations, confusions and very different world views arise through communication. In this day and age it is the media that is the vanguard of viewpoint dissemination, as Marshall McLuhan foresaw, the medium is the message.
But what about those then, who are the messengers - are they free? Is it possible to gauge the freedoms of those who spread the news - are they free to write what they want, air the reports that they believe should be heard? Sure, we all sneer at the comments in our daily Star ’n’ Kleenex, but we believe that the Morning Clarion and the Evening Herald try to provide fair, balanced reporting, without governmental and ownership interference. At least in North America.
Well, think again. The first ever worldwide study of press freedom was released last week and Canadians need not raise an eyebrow. Our southern neighbours should, as the US place a startling 17th in the global survey.
The world has heard about Doctors Without Frontiers, an international organization dedicated to providing medical assistance to those most needing it, unable to rely on state help. Journalists took example, and now there is an influential Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres, or RSF) that took it upon itself to rank press freedom. RSF sent out questionnaires to journalists, foreign correspondents and legal experts across the globe. RSF used only information that they could verify to tabulate the rankings for 139 countries included in the survey. (Estonia was not on the list, one wonders why. While the Estonian press certainly is free - often licentiously, wantonly so, judging by the amount of tabloid type news, sensationalist material that makes it to newsprint, there is also a sober feeling of responsiblity among most Estonian journalists worthy of the name).
It was Estonia’s kin Finland who shared first place with Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands, with Canada rounding out the top five. North Korea was at the bottom of the list, along with other totalitarian countries like China, Burma, Turkmenistan, Bhutan and Cuba.
RSF attributes the low placement of the USA to state interference! “The poor ranking of the United States is mainly because of the number of journalists arrested or imprisoned there,” according to the survey. The arrests usually come because journalists refuse to reveal their sources in court. As well, some journalists have been arrested for crossing security lines - at the moment five US journalists are being detained for this reason, heightened security fears were given as the reason.
This space gave attention to the plight of Washington Post reporter John Randal ( “Trial - or error?” EL # 40, Oct. 9) who may yet be forced to testify at the Milosevic Hague tribunal. RSF is one of the groups supporting Randal’s right to refuse to testify. RSF is certainly not out to get the Americans.
Regis Bourgeat, who monitors press freedom in the Americas for RSF points out that recent restrictions (post 9-11) account for the US being so low on the list . Bourgeat notes that the ranking is based on the press’ relationship with the government. The United States simply had more detentions of journalists than the countries ranked above them. Most noteworthy among them? The case of author Vanessa Leggett, who was jailed for 168 days in Texas for refusing to relase the names of sources for a book she is writing about a murder case. Scary. Where is freedom of expression now?
Mind, the yanks shine compared to communist countries - in North Korea there is no press freedom, for the press is state-run. Ditto for Cuba, with only the fact that some independent journalists operate in Castro’s fiefdom to raise that island paradise above China and Bhutan.
Qualifying freedoms is admittedly difficult. And perhaps only through highlighting violations can such a ranking be given the weight it deserves, for certainly many journalists in the US have felt no restrictions - if they work for media conglomerates....
President Bush’s recent strong criticisms of some journalists, however, contribute to RSF’s ranking. Influential rights and free speech organizations, most of them right-wing, have also been alarmed at the level of clamp downs. Thus, the bastion of liberty needs to look inside at how it is treating its own messengers before assailing those from other countries.
Freedom is an indubitable, albeit inexplicable fact, that according to Kant is the fulcrum of our entire system of existence. Be interesting to see, after this week’s election results come in, how the American media responds to RSF’s startling report.
Arvamus
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