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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (5466)	10/16/2001 5:25:00 AM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 281500

Press Freedom Under Attack in the U.S.A. (Lots of news worthy stuff in the MT today btw..PB) By Alexei Pankin The founding fathers of the United States considered that the three greatest foes of freedom were the state, war and natural disasters." This was what my tutor Marat Baglai, now chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, taught me, way back in the years of stagnation. The terrorist acts of Sept. 11 -- if you will, a man-made natural disaster -- have, paradoxically, conflated all three. It immediately became clear that the war on terrorism would require a new equilibrium between freedom and security. The key question is: What kind of equilibrium will this be? Will we lose more in freedom than we gain in security? Some people in the liberal American press as well as foreign observers have of late been talking more and more frequently and with greater concern about the threat to freedom of speech in the United States. On Oct. 11 the international organization Reporters Sans Frontieres distributed a report titled "U.S. Media Caught Between Pull of Patriotism and Self-Censorship" ( www.ifex.org). The report states that a large section of the U.S. media has begun to act pretty much like a propaganda machine for the state and details the many instances of self-censorship and censorship by media owners. The report lists attempts by the state to limit the free circulation of information via the Internet; intimidate journalists whose opinions differ from the White House's (recalling the famous phrase of White House spokesman Ari Fleischer: "The reminder is to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."); subject state media to censorship (attempts were made to ban the broadcast of an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Omar Mohammed on the Voice of America), as well as to put pressure on foreign media (the appeals of the U.S. State Department to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, requesting that he interfere with the editorial line of the al-Jazeera television channel which he founded -- the only television station to broadcast pictures from the Taliban-controlled side of Afghanistan). The authors of the report identify three viewpoints in the American media community. The majority believe that in such moments of adversity, the unified position of the authorities, the people and the press is a natural and normal phenomenon. "Most star television reporters have said that they were Americans before being journalists," the report says. Certain media professionals, including rights protection groups (such as the heads of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press and of the Committee to Protect Journalists), say that restrictions on freedom of speech in America have increased, but that they are of a temporary nature. Everything will fall back into place once the dust has settled. And after all -- things are much worse in other countries, such as Russia (Russia, meanwhile, points to Belarus, while Belarus points to Turkmenistan). Finally, there is the category which includes Internet-providers and bastions of American liberalism such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, that believe the predominant uniformity of opinion poses a threat to America's very way of life. So who's right? In a complicated situation such as this, everyone is entitled to their point of view. I have my own. I don't like what is going on in America between the press and the government, because here in Russia the authorities are always most eager to borrow from the worst elements of western experience. This is what I'd like to say to my American colleagues: Heed the words of your president when he bids you not to give in to the panic that the terrorists sow, and to live just as you always have done. As a Moscow-based journalist next to whose home and office there recently occurred terrible explosions I feel I have the moral right to offer such advice. Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals themoscowtimes.com