Burma’s journalists battle censorship — and inexperience

Sunday’s vote the nation’s first to be held with relative press freedom since 1960

RANGOON, BURMA— Their predecessors suffered torture, imprisonment and death at the hands of a diehard military regime for more than half a century. Now, Burma’s journalists — newly fledged, muscle-flexing but also still apprehensive — are challenged with the first general election since1960 to be covered with relative freedom.

The independent press for months has been preparing with training and strategy sessions, figuring out how to breach barriers to polling access and expose cheating and other irregularities — both widely anticipated during what is heralded as a historic showdown Sunday between the ruling party, backed by the still-powerful military, and one headed by prodemocracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“It’s a milestone in my career and that of everyone here,” said Kyaw Zwa Moe, editor of The Irrawaddy, earlier imprisoned for eight years for publishing a political journal and participating in the pro-democracy movement. “I told my reporters, ‘You have to have passion to cover these elections. You are not only doing your duty as journalists but serving your country. You are opening people’s eyes.’ ”

An explosion in the number of cell- phone users — now about 20 million out of a population of 52 million — has allowed public access to news through the Internet. Facebook is the overwhelming social media vehicle.

Censorship was lifted in 2012, a year after a military junta gave way to a nominally elected government. Though broadcast media continues under firm government control, other independent outlets have mushroomed; some feature outstanding journalists who push the restrictive envelope the regime still maintains.

Some journalists, however, engage in partisan politics, filling columns with virulent, racist attacks against the country’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims and other minorities. Some are simply untutored in their profession.

“Some reporters are just giving the reader raw meat because they don’t know how to cook it,” said Aye Mya Kyaw, senior editor of the mass-circulation 7Day News Journal. “Their enthusiasm is high but their experience isn’t.”

Kyaw Zwa Moe pointed out that many newly minted reporters have never even voted in an election, let alone covered one. The last nationwide election, in 2010, was boycotted by Suu Kyi’s party and widely viewed as unfair.

Journalists who push too hard still risk imprisonment, or worse. Under the 2014 media law, journalists can be charged and jailed for reports “likely to cause fear or alarm to the public,” “inflame conflicts regarding nationality, religion and race” or that delve into sensitive military matters.

Last year 11 journalists were jailed, including five sentenced to seven years’ hard labour for reporting on an alleged chemical weapons factory. Some have received death threats for reporting on the Rohingya issue.

Journalists have reported that surveillance and interrogation by military intelligence operatives continues as it did in the days of the junta. In a report this year, Amnesty International described Burma’s treatment of media as “repression dressed up as progress.”

Still, the media climate is significantly better than during the halfcentury in which the military ruled. Burma was ranked near the bottom of Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index in 2010, but was 114th out of 180 countries this year.