Preserving rights of the press
ANOTHER day, another mass shooting in the US.
This time, the offices of a Maryland newspaper, the Capital Gazette, were targeted and five journalists were killed, three others injured.
While I could write about how tragically familiar reports of mass shootings in the US are becoming, how the President’s words, “our thoughts and prayers are with all that are affected” have become little more than white noise, I won’t.
Reasons for this particular shooting are still coming to light.
Jarrod Warren Ramos – the alleged shooter – is believed to have had an ongoing series of defamation suits and other legal problems with the newspaper before the courts.
It appears Ramos, unhappy with the outcome and how he was represented in print by reporters doing their job relating specifics, took matters into his own violent hands.
But surely, it’s no accident members of the press were victims.
In light of the divisiveness and growing suspicion in Trump’s America between the general public and the Fourth Estate and the continuous bleating of “fake news” when criticism, calls for accountability are made, or even indisputable facts are reported, it’s hard not to draw what some might think a long bow, but in reality is an obvious one.
Add to this the incendiary comments made by former senior editor of the right-wing Breitbart News, Milo Yiannopoulos, in a message to a couple of reporters two days before the shooting that he “can’t wait for vigilante squads to start gunning down journalists” (he later posted the published quote on Instagram) and it’s hard not to see a relationship between his words and the murders, if not inspiration.
Threats – whether written, spoken or terrifyingly real – don’t only come from people like Ramos, Yiannopoulos, Trump and his supporters, but also from those from whom we expect more: those responsible for funding, forming policies to protect press free- doms and those who should guarantee these as well.
Where once there was support, there’s now gutless griping and aligning with disconsolate elements – interestingly, this is mostly from those who are called to account – presidents, politicians and powerful members of the public.
Yet, it’s the responsibility of the free press to do just that: challenge boundaries; to keep civic leaders, corporations, governments, politicians and citizens accountable.
To keep us informed, even if what they’re informing us about conflicts with what we think we know and even value. Even if, sometimes, the press gets it wrong.
In those rare instances, the professional press always makes a retraction and seeks to amend the record.
Nowadays, all one has to do is cry “fake”, and a simple word does what reasoned debate and civic discussion used to do. Now, it renders an issue impotent and invites disregard if not scorn for the story, the reporter filing and the agency publishing it.
If past behaviour is the greatest predictor of future ones, then the ongoing dismantling of the free press’s credibility and maligning of the duties the overwhelming majority of journalists take very seriously needs to halt before it’s too late.
Back in the mid-late 1600s, during Charles II’s regime, when newspapers and reporting was “born”, there were attempts to both control and shut down the growing free press which, as education and literacy grew, sought to hold the government and court to account. Corporal and capital punishment for writing against the powers that be was swift.
Leap forward to last century and Cambodia during Pol Pot’s regime, where journalists and members of the intelligentsia, artists, teachers etc, those whose livelihoods were built on words and their ability to instigate change were murdered and the free press permanently silenced.
From these examples and, sadly, many others we can draw a salient lesson in what can occur when the rights of an ethical and professional press are curbed – when reporters are not merely discredited with the word “fake” but actually killed for doing their duty. Their duty by us.
Where the corpse of a free press lies, a despot stands over the grave.
When a despot stands, we’re all crushed beneath his boots.