Journalism is a dangerous profession- Voice of America under siege from Donald Trump

Independent Journalism Is Being Attacked

This opinion was published in the  Dallas, Texas newspaper Focus Daily News. 

Obviously, this sad threat to the Voice of America is anothe urgent reason to support the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

I have spent my entire working life of 40 years as what is now called a mainstream newspaper reporter, as distinguished from opinion mongers and talking heads on television, and I can honestly say that I was never told by anybody to put a particular spin on a story.

Sure, I’ve had my disputes with editors who thought the lead (we write “lede”) on the story should be different, or challenged the accuracy or description of some element. But those were journalistic disagreements, and in most cases I prevailed.

And although politicians, elected officials and bureaucrats have tried to influence coverage, they did not succeed either because of the backing of my newspaper and, of course, the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press.

I am now deeply concerned about the Voice of America, which currently is under siege by a newly installed overseer appointed by Donald Trump.

Basically, the situation is this: The VOA, though it is funded by the taxpayers, functions like our traditional independent free press. It delivers news world-wide in 47 different languages. 

To enable that, it employs a number of foreign-born journalists who report on news in the United States and in their home countries. The coverage is particularly important in places reached by the VOA that practice censorship forbidden in the U.S. and western democracies.
The overseer of the VOA, as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, is the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Its new chief executive is Michael Pack, a filmmaker and ally of Steven K. Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump. Pack appears bent on dismantling the independent journalism that is a hallmark of the VOA as well as U.S. newspapers and other news organizations.
Pack’s Actions Puts Journalists At Risk

Shortly after taking office, Pack fired the top editors of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The two top editors of Voice of America, Director Amanda Bennett and Deputy Director Sandy Sugawara, resigned before they suffered a similar fate.

Now Pack has “paused” the visa renewals of foreign-citizen reporters who cover news for their countries at Voice of America. In some cases, if the visas are not renewed, those journalists are in jeopardy of being sent back to their home countries, where they could be in danger from despotic authorities unhappy with their coverage.

Journalist safety

There have been reports that the VOA staff, including U.S. citizens, are demoralized over the action. One journalist there said, “I never understood how difficult journalism was in other parts of the world. 

In fact, I work with people who have been tortured and physically scarred. Seeing the sacrifices they’ve made to share truth with the public is inspiring.”

Now those foreign-citizen reporters are threatened, not only with the loss of their jobs but perhaps with harm to themselves and their families as well. Moreover, they provide a unique service for the Voice of America and their home countries that U.S. journalists could not do, so they are not taking jobs from Americans.
National Press Club and Journalism Institute Warn of Repercussions

The National Press Club and its Journalism Institute have protested the so-called “pause” of visa renewals for the reporters.

“We know of no sensible reason to deny VOA’s foreign journalists renewed visas,”said National Press Club President Michael Freedman. “These men and women provide an essential service to VOA by reporting from the U.S. and telling the American story to their audiences overseas. They have the language skills and cultural background to perform this work. They are not taking jobs away from American workers.”

Journalism Institute President Angela Greiling Keane said, “Failure to renew visas for Voice Of America’s foreign journalists could be tragic. Instead of fulfilling its mission of standing for press freedoms, USAGM would be chasing journalists out of the U.S. and putting them in harm’s way.”

Frank Aukofer is a retired reporter and a former president of the National Press Club.

White House must recognize the importance of the free press

"Donald Trump has taken that umbrage to a new level, launching a very public campaign to discredit....the media...." Editorial published in the MichiganLive newspaper.

In my opinion, Trump does not value independent journalism and has wrongly created the faux montra of "fake news".

America's free and independent press has a storied history.

Back 240-some years ago, it was printing presses and anonymous pamphlets that inspired the American Revolution. Freedom of the press was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Congress shall make no law....abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

Thomas Jefferson once wrote if he had to choose between "a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

To be sure, Jefferson and almost every U.S. president has his tussles with the media.

But  the entire institution. The cries of "fake news" about any less-than-flattering story. Leading jeers against journalists at his rallies. The many, many tweets.

Among his most recent broadsides: Journalists are "enemies of the people" who are "very sick & dangerous."*

And Trump isn't even subtle about his motives.

"You know why I do it?" Trump reportedly told CBS journalist Leslie Stahl about his "fake news" rhetoric. "I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you."

Every American should find this deeply, deeply troubling.

Do we really want a country where public institutions go unchecked? Where the press is cowed and intimidated?

Countries like that exist, of course. And they aren't democracies.

The fact is, we can't sustain a democracy without a free and independent press.

We aren't the enemy of the people. We are the people.

When we ask questions, we are the voice of a public wanting explanations. When we file a Freedom of Information Act , it's on behalf of our readers. It's everyday people we think about as we seek out the truth; track down both sides of the story; hold public officials accountable; and shed light on decisions made behind closed doors.

We represent those seeking to speak truth to power.

As the old saying says, power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. The press is an essential element in an informed public, which is a critical check on powerful individuals and institutions alike.

That's true whether it's covering a local school board meeting, reporting on the state Legislature or bird-dogging events in Washington.

Time and time again in Michigan, we've seen the power of the relationship between the press and the public.

Without that relationship, Flint might still be drinking water from the Flint River, with no one the wiser. Larry Nassar likely would still be seeing patients at Michigan State University. Nobody would know enough to care about Enbridge's Line 5 or PFAS contamination.

Our state has had its own experience with politicians demonizing the media to distract from their own shortcomings.

Recall Kwame Kilpatrick, the former Detroit mayor with a fervently loyal fan base. It was the media that uncovered Kilpatrick's lies, his corruption, his abuse of power and taxpayer dollars, his perjury in a court case that cost Detroit millions of dollars.

Remember how Kilpatrick said the media was out to get him? 

It's the favorite refrain of politicians when the facts were not on their side.

*Not True!* The press as enemy of the people? Hardly.

If you value democracy, you can't muzzle the watchdogs.

MLive Media Group is joining newspapers across the country to address attacks against a free and independent press. 

The effort was started by the Boston Globe to reiterate the importance of the press as the watchdogs for the American people.

*Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) website

Jamal Khashoggi is an tragic example of "First They Came"

This opinion echo was published in The Dallas Morning News, by Robert Mahoney.  In fact, the tragic murder of Jamal Khasoggi, now confirmed by the Saudi government, was finally disclosed in the face of evidence about the cause of his death at the hands of assassins. Yet, he was one journalist among many who are living in harms way because "the pen appears mightier than the sword".  International media have covered this story and, in so doing, the reporting reminds me of the poem "First They Came" by  German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). He wrote about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group.  Journalists did not let Mr. Khashoggi's death go without "speaking out". Thank you to the international media and hopefully all journalists who are targeted and killed will receive equal coverage.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Maybe you saw the security footage of a man walking into a nondescript building in Turkey, and you shrugged. Maybe you were intrigued and watched or read a little more.

Opinion:  Whatever your reaction, there's a reason the story of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi leaving his fiancée in an Istanbul street and disappearing into his country's consulate has been all over the news. And there's a reason we should all care about it.

Independent journalism is under attack globally. More journalists are behind bars for their work than ever — 262 last year according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Just this year 44 journalists have been killed, 27 of them deliberately murdered just like, we assume, Jamal Khashoggi.

Hollywood often portrays reporters dodging bullets to bring us news from the front lines of conflict. Many do cover war, and some pay with their lives. But the majority of the 1,323 journalists killed since 1992, when CPJ began compiling these figures, were murdered. They were deliberately sought out and killed because of their reporting.

Many were digging into political and financial corruption, fraud, smuggling, money laundering or organized crime. They probed too deep, touched a nerve, and paid with their lives. In Mexico, at least four journalists have been murdered so far this year, adding to the tally of 47 murders — most of which have occurred in the past 15 years since the drug cartels expanded. Covering crime in Mexico can be a death sentence.

Even in Europe, reporters are no longer safe. Daphne Caruana Galizia, who worked on the Panama Papers with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, was probing the links between politicians and criminals in her native Malta. She angered powerful people. Someone ordered a bomb placed in her car a year ago this month, hoping her reporting would die along with her. 

A few months later in Slovakia, a gunman broke into the apartment of investigative reporter Ján Kuciak and shot him to death along with his fiancée. Kuciak, 27, was uncovering dirt on the central European country's top political and business leaders, including alleged links to a branch of the Italian mafia.

These high-profile murders caused outrage and a backlash. But despite all that, the people who ordered and paid for the assassinations have still not been brought to justice. That is the sad pattern when it comes to journalist killings. In nearly nine out of 10 journalist murders the masterminds are never punished.

This impunity eats away at the foundations of democracy. It breeds fear and self-censorship. If police and judges are in the pockets of criminals, what reporters from a poorly resourced news outlet are going to stick their necks out when they see what has happened to colleagues who did so?

A democracy cannot function without transparency and accountability. Citizens need independent journalists to inform them of what the government is doing in their name and how it is spending their tax money.

Control of information is power, and there are many ways to choke the flow of news. In countries like Hungary, politicians and their business allies buy up major media companies and shrink the space for critical journalism. Others like Turkey and China throw troublesome reporters in prison, usually on sham charges and with no due process, as a warning to others. In the United States, there are no journalists in jail and relatively few have been killed for their work (11 since 1992, according to CPJ).

But that should not be a cause for complacency. Donald Trump has consistently belittled individual journalists, undermined the legitimacy of the press' role in a democracy, branded journalists the enemy of the people, and waved away awkward truths as fake news. The hatred toward journalists in some quarters is palpable and the atmosphere for the press generally is toxic.

Now Trump stands accused of failing to insist that his Saudi allies and erstwhile business partners explain what exactly has happened to Khashoggi.

Khashoggi angered Saudi royals with his critical insights into power and corruption in the kingdom in his columns for The Washington Post. That Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, could lure him to its diplomatic mission and butcher him with impunity, as Turkish officials report, sends a chilling message not only to would-be critical Saudi journalists but to journalists everywhere. It emboldens autocrats and says that journalists' lives are cheap.

That's why the Khashoggi case matters to Americans and why the president can't carry on with business as usual.

Robert Mahoney is a journalist and advocate for press freedom and the deputy executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Jamal Khashoggi was last seen October 2, 2018, entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul

Apple watch worn by Saudi journalist may have transmitted evidence of his death, Turkish paper reports-Turkish government told US officials that it was in possession of audio and video recordings proving that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, citing unnamed US and Turkish sources.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has sadly posted the news about another violent death caused by enemies of a free press. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has not taken a harsh position against the Saudi government or the national leader Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud 

Committee to Protect Journalists- Mission: Promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. CPJ ensures the free flow of news and commentary by taking action wherever journalists are attacked, imprisoned, killed, kidnapped, threatened, censored, or harassed.

Saudi leader Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

CPJ report: The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was last seen October 2, 2018, entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, his fiancée told his employer, The Washington Post.

A former editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, Khashoggi has been a columnist for The Washington Post since he moved to self-imposed exile in the U.S. in September 2017. Khashoggi wrote critically about Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. He criticized politically motivated arrests and was one of the first to report the arrest in the country of Saleh al-Shehi, a prominent columnist, in January 2018.

On October 2, Khashoggi had gone to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to complete paperwork certifying that he had officially divorced so he could marry his Turkish fiancée, according to news reports. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, wrote that Khashoggi visited the consulate for the first time September 28 unannounced and the staff received him cordially. According to Reuters, the consulate staff told Khashoggi he would need to return to complete the process; Khashoggi called the consulate on the morning of October 2 and was told to collect his paperwork at 1 p.m. the same day. He arrived with Cengiz, gave her his two mobile phones, and told her that if he did not return she should call Yasin Aktay, his friend who works as an aide to Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdoğan, according to Reuters.

Cengiz wrote in The Washington Post that after three hours she asked consulate staff about her fiancé’s whereabouts, and when they claimed that he left the premises without her noticing, she immediately called Aktay.

On October 6, Turkish intelligence sources claimed that a team of Saudi intelligence agents killed Khashoggi and dismembered his body, according to The New York Times. They did not offer any proof of the claim. The Daily Sabah, a Turkish newspaper close to the government, and The New York Times both reported that a group of 15 Saudi intelligence officials arrived on a private jet from Riyadh early on the morning of October 2, checked into two separate hotels near the consulate for three nights, and later all left the country the same day.

Saudi authorities denied that Khashoggi was abducted or killed at the consulate and said that he left on his own, Reuters reported. They did not offer proof that Khashoggi left the consulate.

The Washington Post reported October 10 that U.S. intelligence had intercepted communications indicating that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had previously ordered Khashoggi to be detained and rendered from the U.S. back to Saudi Arabia.

On October 11, the Turkish government told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, The Washington Post reported. The paper quoted one unnamed official as saying of the audio recording: “You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic. You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.” A second person briefed on the recording said men could be heard beating Khashoggi, according to The Washington Post.

Khashoggi, who was 59 years old at the time of his disappearance, has long-standing ties to the Saudi royal family, The Washington Post reported. However, he was fired from Al-Watan twice, once in 2003 over his criticism of a 14th century Muslim theologian and again in 2010, after the paper ran a piece critical of the Saudi state’s governing religious ideology, according to a BBC report. 

In between his stints at Al-Watan, he was an adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal while the prince was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.K., and became his media aide when the prince was later appointed ambassador to the U.S.

Donald Trump is a threat to journalists

This is yet another in a long list of Donald Trump embarrassments. America is losing credibility.

Committee to Protect Journalists Names Trump Top Press Oppressor

President Donald Trump was named the winner of the "Overall Achievement in Undermining Global Press Freedom" award by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The organization made the announcement in response to Trump's "Fake News" awards. Committee to Protect Journalists

"Amid the public discourse of fake news and President Trump's announcement via Twitter about his planned 'fake news' awards ceremony, CPJ is recognizing world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media," reads a statement on its website*.

Trump at the beginning of the year tweeted he would be giving out awards for the "most dishonest & corrupt media" of the year Jan. 8., but recently changed the date to Jan. 17. (Maine Writer ~ I'd be honored if he added a category for bloggers!)

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was named the winner of the "Most Thin-Skinned" leader and, for "Most Outrageous Use of Terror Laws Against the Press."

China's Xi Jinping was picked for having the "Tightest Grip on the Media," and State Counselor and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar for being the "Biggest Backslider in Press Freedom."

Of Trump, the CPJ wrote: "While previous U.S. presidents have each criticized the press to some degree, they have also made public commitments to uphold its essential role in democracy, at home and abroad."

"Trump, by contrast, has consistently undermined domestic news outlets and declined to publicly raise freedom of the press with repressive leaders such as (China's) Xi .


*Amid the public discourse of fake news and President Trump's announcement via Twitter about his planned "fake news" awards ceremony, CPJ is recognizing world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media. From an unparalleled fear of their critics and the truth, to a relentless commitment to censorship, these five leaders and the runner-ups in their categories have gone above and beyond to silence critical voices and weaken democracy.

Obviously, Donald Trump is making America less great.