Form of words:
TeaThirty-two years ago the next month, I was reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany, an event that was then declared as a victory for Western democratic liberalism and even “end of history“
But democracy is no longer doing so well around the world. No more underscores how far we have come from that moment of irrational excitement than the powerful warning the Nobel Prize committee felt compelled to issue its coveted peace prize to two journalists on October 8, 2021 Is.
“They are representatives of all journalists,” said Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Berit Rees-Andersen. announcing the award For Maria Russa and Dmitry Muratov, “in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adversity.”
Russia’s co-founder Muratov honored nova gazzetta, and Resa, CEO of the Philippine news site rapper, is crucial. In part it is because of the security that global attention can put two journalists in imminent and continuing danger from strongmen running their respective countries. “The world is watching,” said Rees-Anderson bluntly in an interview after the announcement.
The bigger the message the committee wanted to convey, the more important it is. “Without the media, you can’t have a strong democracy,” Rees-Anderson said.
global political threats
The cases of the two laureates highlight an emergency for civil society: Muratov, the editor of what has been described by the Nobel Prize committee as “the most independent paper in Russia today”, has been observed. six of his companions were killed For his work criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Former CNN reporter Resa, is under a real travel ban Since Rodrigo Duterte’s government has filed so many legal cases, in an apparent attempt to bankrupt the rapper It is against the website that whenever she wants to leave the country Resa should go from judge to judge asking for permission.
Inevitably, as Ressa told me recently, one of them says “no.” Maybe that changes now because she has a date in Oslo. But Resa probably knows better to hold her breath.
Last year, when I — a longtime journalist-turned-journalist professor — helped organize a group of Princeton alumni to sign letters of support for Resa, More than 400 replied. These included members of Congress and state legislatures and former diplomats who served as presidents of both parties. One of them was former Secretary of State George P. Schultz, who died several months later, showing solidarity with Maria Resa in one of his last public acts. This show of support is a sign of what is at stake.
Three decades after the fall of totalitarian rule in Eastern Europe, forces of darkness and intolerance are on the march. Journalists are canaries at the bottom of dangerous mine shafts. Attacks on them are becoming more shameless: is it terrible Saudi dissident and author Jamal Khashoggi denies, ns The grounding of a commercial airplane to snatch a Belarusian journalist or the infamous graffiti”media murder” was strewn on a doorway of the US Capitol during the January 6 uprising.
This irrational hatred of the advocates of facts knows no ideology. the former US President Donald Trump’s disdain for the press At least on par with the left-wing Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega, who has been well received by his critics in the media, shut them down.
Read also: Journalists Maria Russa, Dmitry Muratov win the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize
digital threat
The threats to freedom of expression today are particularly insidious in that they don’t come from the usual suspects – sluggish government censors.
They are amplified and armed by social media networks that claim the privilege of protecting free speech while allowing themselves to be hijacked by slanderers and preachers.
No one has done more to expose the complicity of these platforms in an attack on democracy, said Resa, a tech enthusiast who created the website of his publication to interface with Facebook and now Accused the company of endangering its independence With its laissez-faire approach to the slander that is promoted on your site.
“Freedom of expression is full of contradictions,” Rees-Andersen of the Nobel Committee said in an interview after the awarding of the Peace Prize. She clarified that the award to Rasa and Muratov was intended to deal with those contradictions as well.
When asked why the peace prize was awarded to two different journalists – rather than to one of press freedom organizations, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, which have represented Ressa, Muratov and many of their endangered colleagues – Rees-Anderson told the Nobel committee to deliberately chose journalists to act.
Resa and Muratov represent “a gold standard,” she said, “journalism of high quality.” In other words, they are fact-finders and truth-seekers, not clickbait advocates.
That golden standard is increasingly under threat, in large part due to the digital revolution that shattered the business model for public service journalism.
“Independent, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power,” Rees-Anderson said in the award announcement. But this is increasingly being underestimated and is called “content”, which is served algorithmically Sources that are not transparent Whatsoever way made for addicts And that drives partisanship, tribalism and division.
This poses a challenge to public policy makers and the democracies they represent. How to regulate digital media and still protect freedom of speech? How to support the painstaking work of journalism and still protect its freedom?
Answering those questions will not be easy. But democracy may be at its peak. With the recognition of two investigative journalists and the important – and dangerous – work they do to support democracy, the Nobel Committee invites us to begin the debate.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the exact location of Oslo, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded.
Editor’s note: Naomi Shalit, senior politics editor at The Conversation, signed the open letter “In Defense of Press Freedom” conducted by author Kathy Kiely in July 2020.
Kathy Kylie, Professor and President of Lee Hills Free Press Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia
This article is republished from Conversation Under Creative Commons license. read the original article.
Read also: Nobel Peace Prize winners open eyes of Indian journalists, and a ‘national honour’ for Babasaheb
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