A deadly year for journalists
On Monday, spare a thought for Julio Valdivia, Malalai Maiwand and Jobert Bercasio and the some 30 other journalists killed in 2020, many murdered in reprisals for their reporting.
Monday marks World Press Freedom Day to highlight the value of information, the important role of journalism and to remember the journalists who have lost their freedoms, even their lives, for their work.
The theme proclaimed by UNESCO — “information as a public good” — is timely and one of “urgent relevance to all countries,” the UN agency declared.
Trusted information and journalism have been under assault. Twenty-one of the journalists were killed in targeted attacks, up from 10 the previous year in an especially worrisome trend, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Many more were detained for simply doing their job — 274 journalists were behind bars as of Dec. 1, the highest number since the CPJ began tracking data in the 1990s.
“We’ve seldom seen a more dangerous time for someone to be a journalist,” Kerry Paterson, deputy director of advocacy for the CPJ, told me.
The intimidation of journalists extends beyond the obvious danger zones.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has chronicled scores of incidents across America when journalists were assaulted, arrested or detained and their equipment damaged. In many cases, journalists covering Black Lives Matter demonstrations were in the crosshairs of law enforcement, detained and hit with pepper spray and less-lethal munitions.
Online harassment of journalists, notably women and people of colour, is a serious problem. The pandemic has heightened that abuse. Reporting on the science of COVID-19, public health restrictions, vaccine rollouts and debunking false claims have made journalists the target of virulent harassment. Social media providers like Twitter need to do more to protect journalists.
All this is happening in an environment where journalists have been derided as the “enemy of the people,” where fake news has become an epithet and where false information is easily spread.
One of the dangers of sustained anti-press rhetoric is the risk of “people kind of forgetting the role that journalism and journalists play in sort of safeguarding democracy. The idea of holding power to account or challenging narratives,” Paterson said.
And yet, the pandemic has underscored that trusted information is critical to the functioning of society and our individual well-being. Trusted information has literally been life-saving this year.
Monday is a day to reflect on all that, and remember that journalism and trusted information needs its defenders.
Photo choice stirs anti-Semitic trope
A photo choice for an online column was condemned by readers this week. A column by contributor Judith Taylor about wealth accumulation and societal divides carried the headline, “COVID-19 has exposed Canada as a country where our shiny well-heeled innovators take our money and fail us.”
The column made mention of pharmaceutical giant Apotex, its wealthy founder, the late Barry Sherman and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s attendance at the funeral for Sherman and wife Honey.
That column reference prompted an editor to pick an accompanying photo that depicted Trudeau and Toronto Mayor John Tory, each wearing a kippah, at the funeral.
The headline “take our money” and photo of elected officials at a Jewish funeral was a “disturbing combination that evokes all the wrong messages,” said Adir Krafman, associate director of communications and analytics at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
“It’s an image of the prime minister at a Jewish funeral but the context in which it’s situated lends validity to the impression that Jews control or are manipulating the government. It’s the myth about a Jewish world conspiracy,” Krafman told me.
News outlets have a special responsibility to guard against portrayals that feed religious or racial stereotypes and put marginalized groups even more at risk. Krafman noted that the Jewish community is the most frequently targeted group. The 2020 Toronto hate crime report cites 63 occurrences against the community, more than other groups. As the most visible members, Orthodox Jews are often a target.
“What concerns me is our collective sensitivity to antiSemitism is so low ... it’s something we have to tackle,” Krafman said.
The photo was replaced and a note added for readers apologizing for the previous selection, recognizing it was offensive.
This incident underscores the caution required when editors comb the archives for an image to illustrate a column or article. Care that must be taken to consider the message the entire editorial package — article, headline and photo — sends to readers.
In this case, it was the wrong message, one that stirred up an anti-Semitic trope about Jews, money and influence. Readers were right to be upset.