Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by an alleged Saudi “hit squad” whose members have close ties to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. I believe that despite massive amounts of press attention, two important and related elements of Khashoggi’s murder remain underexamined. First is the fact that his murder allegedly took place within a consulate or embassy, a global borderland. Second is the fact that his alleged murderers included people traveling on diplomatic passports, who were not entirely subject to the laws of the state – Turkey – they were visiting.
At a time when we notice increasing and alarming threats to media freedom around the world, World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) is more pertinent today than ever before. We therefore can’t afford to celebrate this important day without both considering the damage done to the free press over the past year and intensifying our efforts to protect journalists and the future of journalism around the world.
A series of memoirs are appearing for Christmas – by Mike Carlton, Kerry O’Brien and the like – as the baby boomer generation of journalists gets some quality time to reflect, laugh, and reveal some new secrets. As the receiver of a cheapo massive cardboard screed in 1972 for “investigative journalism” from my colleagues in the ABC’s This Day Tonight, my recollection was that “investigative journalism” was a cool, new genre any young journo wanted to be associated with.
As mainstream media increasingly turn their gaze from places far away toward internal issues, it is freelancers who take up the mantle of “guardians” of the truth. Without them, our view of the world dims.
The vast majority of the $469.5 million that 60 digital nonprofit news media websites raised between 2009 and 2015 supported the 20 biggest outlets as the 20 smallest eked by on just $8.6 million.
Here is a look at just some of the gatherings from around the world for today's journalists to know about and consider attending themselves whether in person or online.
Late one evening in March, I was sat in the JFK Forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School, surrounded by dozens of journalists and academics. We were watching Nina Martin and Renee Montagne, from NPR and ProPublica, collect their Goldsmith investigative reporting award for “Lost Mothers,” a harrowing and important piece of work exploring the shocking number of American women who die in childbirth every year. As they were being given a standing ovation, I finally formulated the question I’ve been struggling with lately: With this kind of brilliant and high-quality journalism being pursued around the world every day, why is it that the news industry is steadily shrinking?
In Italy, the government control of speech under the guide of "fake news" deterrence is being done in the worst way possible. It's not being handed to a regulatory body with instructions to sort of keep an eye on things. Instead, as Poynter reports, it's rolling out as a heckler's veto backed by armed officers.