Don't Ignore World Press Freedom Day This Year

By: Mark Fitzgerald May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. Or, as its known among U.S. news organizations, Saturday. Just another weekend day off.

The annual snubbing of World Press Freedom Day by U.S. newspapers and other media is yet another indication of our insularity. This is a big deal in the rest of the world. There will be demonstrations in Paris and London. In Mozambique, Unesco, the UN agency that created the day 15 years ago, will present the 2008 Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to the courageous Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, who was arrested and sued for criminal libel by state authorities covering up for the ring of powerful pedophiles she exposed in her reporting.

Meanwhile in the U.S., we'll be deeply analyzing the fallout of Miley Cyrus' cancelled Disney World appearance, and seeing if we can squeeze one more story out of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But this year blowing off World Press Freedom Day seems to be particularly egregious behavior on the part of the U.S. media. Because this year international press freedom groups such as the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF for its initials in French) are focusing their May 3 attention on the world's biggest jailer of journalists, the host of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Those are the ad-rich Summer Games that newspaper publishers who also operate television stations, such as Gannett Co. and Media General, are counting on to help them weather the industry recession.

It's unseemly, indeed, for news organizations to rake in profits from the Games while ignoring China's ongoing persecution of its own press -- and the foreign press.

When it won the Games, the government-controlled Chinese Olympics organizing committee promised to allow complete press liberty to foreign correspondents. And it even passed a law last year that eased many of its stringent restrictions on news coverage.

But on the ground, the intimidation, harassment, and restrictions of the foreign press is not only continuing -- it appears to be worsening with fewer than 100 days remaining until the opening ceremony.

WAN sums it up this way: "Telephone connections to reporters sources
have either been disconnected or the sources have been intimidated. There have been restrictions on travel and movement, as well as physical harassment."

Just this Thursday, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) said at least 10 foreign journalists based in China have received death threats.

In a poll several months ago, club members reported 180 violations of the "liberalized" media restrictions, including arrests and surveillance of journalists. The poll also included the question, "Has China kept the promise made by Olympics Games organizer Wang Wei in Beijing in 2001, that, 'We will give foreign media complete freedom of reporting.'"

Just 8.6% of members said yes it had.

Of course, China is toughest on its own citizens who dare to act like independent journalists.

In 1997, RSF estimates, Chinese authorities imprisoned about 100 journalists and so-called "cyber-dissidents," who are often bloggers, but also simply Internet users trying to access information the government does not want its people to have.

At least 33 journalists remained behind bars as 2008 began, RSF says.

China continues the Cold War practice of jamming foreign radio stations, and it maintains an active propaganda and censorship agency, renamed the "Publicity Department." It maintains what could be called a Great Firewall that blocks Web sites the government finds inconvenient.

China's continuing crackdown on journalists extends even into Hong Kong, despite the Basic Law guarantees of liberty (until 2047, of course).

On Wednesday, for instance, the Hong Kong government denied entry to Zhang Yu, a Swedish-based editor and coordinator of the Writers in
Prison Committee of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, who was coming to the city for an international conference on freedom of expression in China.

WAN reports that this is the third time Zhang, who holds a valid Chinese passport, has turned away from his homeland in just the last year. The reason given is that his work for PEN, the free expression group, somehow endangers national security.

"To close Hong Kong's borders to people who were invited to participate in an international conference is further evidence that freedom of expression is under attack and discussion about China's policies is unwelcome," WAN CEO Timothy Balding said in a statement. "It also serves notice to those who believe that Hong Kong's freedoms will have a positive influence on China, or that 'engagement' with China will magically convince the authorities to change their practices."

In a little while, the pages and airwaves of U.S. news media will be filled with the myriad stories any Olympics generates. We'll get our fill of the athletes whose stories are tear jerkers and the athletes who are just jerks.

But while they cashing in on the Games, let's hope the U.S. news media gets around to telling the story of what the Chinese government does to those who tell stories.