FOCUS ON THE AMERICAS - International Press Institute

Notes from the Field: United States
Press Freedom in the U.S.
By Eugen Freund
If the publication of official documents
that are off limits to the public is a crime,
does reading them also constitute criminal
behavior? This may sound a tad ludicrous,
but who knows?
By the end of December it was not yet clear
if the government of the United States
would prosecute Julian Assange, the
founder of Wikileaks. But it had made
clear, in no uncertain terms, that it regarded
Mr. Assange as a criminal for publishing
diplomatic documents - a couple of
thousand pages, from a trove of about
250,000, by the end of 2010. While no official
indictment has yet been presented, Mr.
Assange could face charges of espionage
which, if he were convicted on them, could
send him to prison for at least ten years. In
letters to the U.S. government, freedom of
expression organizations assailed this intention.
President Obama and U.S. Attorney-General
Eric Holder were urged not to
prosecute Mr. Assange. This would inflict
“grave damage to the First Amendment's
protections of free speech and the press”,
CPJ argued.
In this context, the announcement, on the
day Mr. Assange was arrested in Britain on
charges unrelated to his profession, that the
U.S. would hold a “Press Freedom Day” on
May 3, 2011, was seen by some as an affront
to all who regard freedom of the press as an
indivisible right. It is not bereft of irony that
USA Today, in reporting on President
Obama’s signing of the Freedom of the Press
Act, quoted Obama as saying: “It puts us
clearly on the side of journalistic freedom.”
That was a cue for reporters in the room.
“Speaking of press freedoms,” began Chip
Reid of CBS before launching into a question
about the Gulf Coast oil spill.
Obama didn't bite. “You are free to ask
them,” Obama said. “I'm not doing a press
conference today."
But who could blame him. As no other
president before him, Barack Obama must
have been feeling the forces of the media
like an unending Hawaiian surf wave.
While as a presidential candidate he was
mostly pampered by the press, the onslaught
during his first two years as president,
in particular by the media owned by
Rupert Murdoch, the U.S.-Australian media
czar, became relentless. Glenn Beck of Fox
News went so far as to declare: “This president
... hates white people ... He is a racist!”
Other ‘ist’s’ – from “socialist” to “Communist”,
from “Stalinist” to “National Socialist”
- have all been uttered in the same context,
without any reprimand.
‘I’m not doing a press conference
today.’
But not everybody got off the hook so easily:
the most egregious case of a journalist meeting
the boundaries of press freedom involved
Octavia Nasr. The Lebanese-born journalist
encountered the wrath of her company, CNN,
after she made a brief comment over the
death of a Grand Ayatollah in Beirut.
Octavia Nasr was one of the most knowledgeable
experts on Middle East politics in
the U.S. media. She came to CNN via its
“World Report” program, a brainchild of
Ted Turner, who founded the news channel
in 1980. The concept of “World Report” was
to give international reporters a worldwide
audience, with reports that were aired
over CNN unedited and without editorial
comment by the U.S. broadcaster. Ms. Nasr
was one of the first contributors and, after
moving to the United States, she slowly
climbed through the ranks of CNN, eventually
becoming its Middle East editor.
Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah was
a Grand Ayatollah in Lebanon and closely
affiliated with Hezbollah, a movement that,
depending on one’s viewpoint, was either a
purveyor of hatred and violence or a
benevolent organization which builds and
runs hospitals, schools and kindergartens.
She wrote in her blog: "Sad to hear of the
passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein
Fadlallah. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect
a lot.” ‘Respect’ and ‘Hezbollah’ in the
same sentence cannot be accepted, not in
the U.S. Even though Nasr had not commented
on air, to a world-wide audience,
only twittered to her fans, CNN was merciless.
Right away, Octavia Nasr acknowledged
what she termed "her mistake", but
to no avail. CNN called her in to see her
bosses. According to an internal memo
which The New York Times had access to, one
senior manager was quoted as saying: "We
have decided that Nasr had to go." The
memo added: "At this point, we believe that
her credibility in her position as senior editor
for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised."
There is no doubt that members of
Hezbollah have committed atrocious crimes,
but for many Lebanese the group also serves
as an important provider of social services,
from ambulances to hospitals, from kindergartens
to schools. However, none of this was
taken into consideration. Instead, the matter
was apparently viewed in starkly 'black and
white' terms. In a statement, Nasr’s employer
did not confirm the wording of the internal
memo; it said only that her tweet "did not
meet CNN’s editorial standards". Nasr was
fired, finished - freedom of expression another
victim of powerful forces.
Another woman, or in Octavia Nasr’s term,
“another giant I respect a lot”, Helen
Thomas, the longest-serving White House
correspondent, also ended her career with
a bang. Ms. Thomas had covered every president
since John F. Kennedy and had won a
number of prestigious journalism awards.
She was as feisty as she was outspoken.
“Israel should get the hell out of Palestine,”
was the remark that cost her dearly. She did
not write it in one of her columns; she was
answering a question posed by Rabbi
David Nesenhoff, who happened to have a
camera with him. It was an innocent question
– “Any comments on Israel?” – that
triggered her outburst, which included the
more than questionable recommendation
that Jews “go home” to Germany, Poland or
America. Just like Octavia Nasr she apologized.
Mark Knoller, one of the longestserving
White House correspondents who
has known Thomas for many years, commented
afterwards that as a columnist Ms.
Thomas felt free of any objectivity and he
called some of what she said “embarrassing”.
Even though she gave up her coveted
front row seat in the White House press
room of her own volition, it became clear
that the anti-Israel stance she had vigorously
pursued in recent years had become
too much to bear.
In 2010 it became obvious, for two courageous
female journalists in the U.S., that
they were not breaking the glass ceiling,
but rather sinking as the ice under their
feet was cracking.
IPI Contributor
Eugen Freund has been a familiar face on Austrian
TV for more than 25 years, most prominently as bureau
chief in Washington D.C. (1995 to 2001). In recent
years, he has mainly served as Special Correspondent
and political analyst of international affairs.
Mr. Freund also was a long-time contributor to
CNN World Report and, more recently was a freelance
correspondent for America’s National Public
Radio (NPR). He has contributed op-eds to The
Washington Post, and articles by him have also appeared
in the German weekly Die Zeit, the Swiss
Weltwoche and The New York Times. His book
"Mein Amerika" (My America, 2001) made it to the
Austrian best-seller list. In November 2008, he
published “Präsident Obama - der lange Weg ins
Weisse Haus" (President Obama: The Long Road to
the White House), and in 2010 "Brennpunkte der
Weltpolitik" (Flashpoints of World Politicsz).
Above: U.S. President Barack Obama holds a news conference in the Brady Press Room of the White House in Washington, December 7, 2010. (REUTERS)
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