Jodie Ginsberg remembers an important lesson from her decade as a Reuters foreign correspondent and bureau chief: there simply is no substitute for being at the scene.
“The first and most important source is what journalists see in front of them – their ability to give a firsthand, eyewitness account,” says Ginsberg, now the president of Committee to Protect Journalists, the non-profit advocacy organization based in New York City.
A memorable case in point was how two Associated Press journalists last year were able to tell what was happening on the ground in Mariupol, Ukraine. As a Russian siege largely destroyed the city, children’s bodies filled mass graves and shells demolished a maternity hospital, but Russian officials tried to deny it and called the horror stories nothing but fiction.
“The Russians said this was all a fake, but the AP journalists at the scene were able to say no, and tell the real story,” Ginsberg said. One of them, Yevgeny Maloletka, took an unforgettable photograph, seen on front pages around the world, of an injured pregnant woman being carried on a gurney from the bombed-out hospital by emergency workers; her baby was born dead and she died soon afterwards.
But with journalists threatened with harassment, danger and even imprisonment around the world, that crucial ability to report on the ground – to get the invaluable eyewitness account – has been sorely diminished.
The situation is dire; as democracy declines worldwide, there are more journalists in prison now than at any time since the CPJ began keeping track. The organization’s annual prison census showed 363 reporters in prison at the end of last year – an increase of 20% from the previous year, with the most journalists jailed in Iran, China, Myanmar, Turkey and Belarus.
This ugly trend means less on-the-ground reporting – not only by the imprisoned journalists but by many others who flee conflict zones or are forced to censor themselves in order to avoid the growing dangers.
When the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in late March on false espionage charges in Russia – he remains imprisoned – many western journalists finally fled the country joining those who had left months earlier. The threats had simply become untenable.
“Evan’s arrest sends a powerful message to other journalists – that you may face something similar,” Ginsberg told me. “That has a chilling effect on reporting, which is the aim of the repressive governments doing this kind of harassment and imprisonment. It is meant to silence journalists.”
No longer is it just war correspondents who face extreme danger. These days, the dominance of authoritarian governments around the world make life hazardous for all kinds of journalists. Local and regional reporters around the world may bear the brunt most, partly because they don’t have the protection and legal resources of large news organizations.
In addition to the countries named above, Ginsberg said that Mexico, Haiti, Russia and parts of Latin and South America are particularly difficult places for journalists to do their work now.
Concerned people can help. They can show they care about journalism by subscribing to news organizations or donating to free-speech and press-rights organizations including CPJ, Pen America and Reporters Without Borders.
And perhaps most important of all, they can keep jailed journalists in mind, and keep their plight in the public consciousness. That goes for Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who went missing in Syria in 2012 and is believed to be a captive of the Syrian government. It goes for Gershkovich, of course, and for the hundreds of lesser known reporters who are threatened or jailed around the world.
It was encouraging to hear Joe Biden bring up Tice and Gershkovich at the White House correspondents’ dinner last weekend in Washington DC. He spoke of Evan’s “absolute courage”, and said US officials are working every day to bring him home.
“Our message is this,” Biden added. “Journalism is not a crime.”
Not only is journalism not a crime, it’s a necessity – one that’s becoming harder than ever to carry out with every passing month.
That’s not only terrible for those directly involved. It also hurts everyone who cares about the truth.