Internet and plenty more

By: Timothy Pratt Reporter safety still tops summit issues

Bogot?, Colombia ? The summit kicked off with the compelling, oratorical reading voice of Colombian Nobel Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez ? recently returned to newsroom rank and file after decades dedicated to book-writing. Soon after, Mexican journalist Jesus Blancornelas ? this year's UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Freedom of the Press Award winner ? movingly narrated his narrow escape from death at the hands of drug traffickers as an investigative journalist on the Mexico-U.S. border.
Last week in this teeming Andean capital, journalists, press and human rights organizations, and UN officials from more than 20 countries met to take apart and then put back together the many issues surrounding freedom of the press in today's world. And if the dramatic, first-person accounts of the two veteran Latin journalists brought this intense gathering to a pin-drop hush, there was also energetic debate on everything from assuring safety for reporters in war zones to the Internet's potential for hopscotching around censors.
Besides being a direct victim of violence intended to silence his reporting, Blancornelas also lost a colleague to the mafia, in 1988. The crime remains unsolved. "Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists" occupied the first session of the two-day event, including what one panelist called "a tragic road trip around the world" ? case studies on journalists slain in the Philippines, Russia, Algeria, Tanzania, Brazil, and Colombia.
Regarding these crimes, Danilo Arbilla, of Uruguay's B?squeda, gave voice to the tenor of the gathering. "When a journalist is assassinated," he said, "we are not talking about a tragedy for the members of a certain trade. It is an issue that affects the entire society."
Later on in the same session, one young journalist from the host country was overheard commenting to another in the hallway during a break: "Dead journalists? We've got plenty! What else can we talk about here?"
The comment demonstrated both the defense mechanism that is black humor in a country now four decades into the Western hemisphere's longest-running internal conflict, which has also placed it tops on the global top ten of journalists assassinated, with 10 last year and 125 in the last 20 ? and the earnest desire to have the media be part of solutions to such conflicts.
The summit also included diverse efforts of all kinds to lead journalism forward in an
ture present in most media newsrooms with regular meetings between the editors, reporters, and administrative staff of Zeta, in which collective decisions are made on what to cover and how. The veteran journalist also believes the press should share certain information to a greater good and "be less interested in the spotlight."
As for the spotlight created by this award, Blancornelas ? who was chosen from candidates from 12 countries ? prefers to see this honor as something "God had pending for me when he decided not take me with him." He named the memory of Guillermo Cano as the inspiration behind the award and insisted that this inspiration is now his own.
Cano was an early casualty in an on-going internal conflict which has now placed Colombia at the top of the world list in journalists assassinated each year. Last year alone, 10 journalists were killed; 125 over the last two decades.
Christina Anyanwu of Nigeria was last year's UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Award winner. Gao Yu of China won the first award.
Both women were being held by their governments behind bars when they received news of their prizes. Both are now free. The awards helped draw world media attention to their cases, according to a spokeswoman from the Cano Foundation.
Anyanwu, who was in Colombia for the World Press Freedom Summit, says she is now writing a book about her experience during the dictatorship of Sani Abacha, the period during which she was imprisoned for three years and which came to a close with the death of Abacha last year. She has yet to return to the newsrooms of her country but plans to soon practice journalism "not only against corrupt governments, but in favor of people and society."

Pratt is a freelance journalist based
in Cali, Colombia.
Last year ? while Mexican reporters were risking their lives with the mafia, North American journalists were more interested in Monica Lewinsky and her
adventures with Clinton.
? Jesus Blancornelas