Kathlyn Clore

Bill Clinton 2, Kim Jong Il 0.

The former American president is landing in California right now after securing the release of CurrentTV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

The duo was arrested in March and subsequently sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea while

reporting about human rights issues near the China-North Korea border.

But many journalists who have become entangled in the lairs of oppressive regimes aren’t coming home today. In fact, today is a particularly busy day in the world of disturbing news about threatened journalists:

Africa
In Gambia today, six journalists charged with “sedition, defamation and conspiracy” are facing judgment. If they are found guilty, they face fines and jail time of up to two years.

Elsewhere in Africa, two journalists who have been held in police custody since Saturday may be formally charged today. The pair of editors from Niger are detained after publishing reports about “corruption charges involving the national human rights commission.”

Russia
In a courtroom in Russia today, the four men charged with the 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya are being retried after a successful appeal by the prosecution. According to Reporters Without Borders, “The Russian justice system’s inability to punish those who use murder to silence critics and protect their interests just feeds the cycle of violence and serves as licence for the killers to continue killing.”

China
AsiaMedia, a daily digest of media news from that region, is reporting today that a Chinese journalist has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of corruption. It is a “rare case of a female journalist working for the powerful state broadcaster, CCTV, being sent to prison.”

Iran
Good news today from Iran, though, the world’s leading jailer of journalists with 36 in jail. The Islamic state released five journalists from its prisons today. One of the quintet had been in prison for a year; the rest were arrested in the protests following the June elections in Iran.

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Suddenly, the “furloughcations” facing many a journalist in the United States and Europe don’t look so bad.

Check out this CPJ report for more information on detained reporters.

I am happy to see Roxana Saberi freed after spending four months in jail accused of spying for the United States.

Her case was frightening for so many reasons. It would have been awful to see Iran sentence her to a more severe punishment as a way to chill the (perhaps) slight thawing of relations with America (sad for her safety and the improvement of international relations).

It is interesting to read speculative reports saying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei perhaps had a hand in orchestrating her release.

On a somewhat tangental thread, I also am starting to wonder - after reading so many vehement denials - if Saberi was actually spying in any capacity for the United States. She’d certainly have been a good candidate for that line of work.

Of course the U.S. government would not be so brazen as to reveal her as a spy (plus, that would be illegal, as the Valerie Plame affair reminds us). But I wonder if many journalists were asking government officials about this issue.

Which begs the question: Is it unethical for journalists to ask questions that lead the interviewee to break the law? I.e., should journalists ask government officials if Saberi is a spy knowing they are anyhow not supposed to publish the information that she is a spy?

Or is it unethical (and illegal) only when it comes to publishing the information? I don’t think it is illegal for journalists to know classified information. In fact, knowing classified information could make a reporter better at her job. It’s only illegal when she tells someone that classified information (by way of publication).

Perhaps more information will come out about this in coming months. So far I have not seen reports making an issue of investigating Saberi’s background.

Anyway, what’s ultimately sobering about this is that for every reporter released, there are others going into the Big House every day. My RSS reader brought me this story about two reporters in Zimbabwe who are being prosecuted for “‘publishing falsehoods.’”

I also saw this story break over the weekend, about the murder of a Mexican journalist. Seems like whenever journalists are killed in Mexico no one can ever officially tell if it is because of their work.

Sad, especially given how many young American journalists who want to work hard to support their colleagues taking on tough stories in dangerous places are sitting at home right now on company-mandated furloughs.

Anyway, violence and intimidation (economic or physical) against journalists should not go unaddressed. Brings to mind this chilling video, inspired by a poem I first read at Yad Vashem from the ALDE Civil Liberties campaign:

Knowing that my video journalism skills are not yet award-winning, I volunteered to make this video for the Monterey Bay Chapter of the United Nations Association. It was good practice, plus a good chance to watch Rick Steves’ travel documentary on Iran (embedded below).

(By the way, Rick Steves’ has had a pretty inspiring career. I had been downloading his podcasts for a while, but sort of lost interest. I plan to make a renewed effort to tune in, though, after learning more about Steves. Mad props to anyone who funds their travel dreams teaching piano lessons! Plus, this wasn’t his first trip to Iran - he visited there as a long-haired young adult about 30 years ago. Oh, and Steves is a spokesperson for NORML while at the same time being an active Lutheran. He seems like a pretty cool dude!)

I learned an important “VJ for Dummies” lesson making this: Don’t make interviews or take pictures in the dark. If you do, you will get home with less usable material than intended.

If my favorite Austrian videographer reads this he will probably laugh, because I should have learned that lesson by now. But anyway, this was my first “semipro” attempt at solo/DIY VJ-style reporting.

And, in more well-produced movie action…

A few days ago I read a Global Voices Advocacy post that has really been bothering me.

The post talks about users in Syria who have been indicating lately that their Linked In profiles are inaccessible in Syria.

One user got frustrated and wrote to Linked In. He was told that Linked In is “… ’subject to export and re-export control laws and regulations. This includes the Export Administration Regulations maintained by the United States Department of Commerce and sanctions programs maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Under the User Agreement, LinkedIn Users warrant that they are not prohibited from receiving U.S. origin products, including services or software. As such, and as a matter of corporate policy, we do not allow member accounts or access to our site from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria.’”

A snipped from Linked In’s user agreement verifies this:

On the one hand, I get it. The United States does not allow its citizens do business in certain places. That’s just part of being a business operating from the United States.

But obviously, that Linked In has not registered/based part of its business in another country in a way that would legally circumvent this policy is an endorsement of the idea that people in some nations should not, in fact, be linked in.

Isn’t a big part of this World Wide Web thing all about bringing people together to network and discuss ideas? And isn’t a big part of Linked In about making professional contacts? I don’t see why professionals working in Syria or Cuba are not worth contacting.

Even understanding that business can choose to do business in whatever way they see fit, this still does not sit with me. After all, we as consumers have just as much right to decide where to bring our business. So the big question is: Are Linked In users OK with being “linked out” of some places?

Another question: How does Linked In handle users who are not citizens of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria but happen to be traveling in those areas when trying to log in to Linked In?

UPDATE 23 April: Facebook has updated its terms of service and will also block countries the U.S. has embargoed. Obviously, they read questions and comments made during the ongoing period of Facebook community voting on the terms of service. Their response to quesitons about blocking certain countries was, “As we state in the Principles, our principles are constrained by limitations of applicable law.”

Here’s a clip from their “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities”:

Right now on my alumni e-mail listserve from university a discussion is raging about whether or not to encourage young people to attend journalism schools.

It started with a posting of this TechCrunch article, which argues not against practicing journalism, but against outmoded journalism education.

Seems fair enough. Why go into debt (typical of the American collegiate experience) to learn outdated skills? Why prepare to enter an industry in peril?

Then again, there are benefits to a practical liberal arts education. Certainly journalism schools provide degrees more practical than, say, English departments. Although a journalism degree is not, by comparison, as practical as one granted by science, law, or medical faculties.

Regardless… The discussion on my e-mail listserve has been about the need (or not) for journalism education in the U.S.

While following the chatter, I realized it is worthwhile to consider the vital role journalistic approaches and practices play on continents other than North America. Some of the most important (in my opinion) work the EJC does is its attempts to improve the journalism education systems in former Soviet nations. The rationale is that students graduating from universities in Eastern Europe will be far better prepared to help in the continuing transition processes if they are educated beyond old Soviet schools of thought about media.

Journalism education is also especially important in countries like Russia or Africa. Yesterday I edited an interview with a Liberian doctoral student in Moscow. He’s been in Russia for about a decade, but upon earning his doctorate will return home to practice journalism in Africa. I can imagine he will draw often on his education.

And after reading this deflating BBC update about American journalist Roxana Saberi, I am reminded that foreign correspondents are especially in need of good education.

Saberi

was arrested in January for buying a bottle of alcohol in Iran. I have wondered if she really was actually caught buying alcohol, which I understand to be illegal but tolerated in Iran. Perhaps something else happened. Because I’m surprised a foreign journalist in that country - especially a woman - would put herself at risk by purchasing anything illegal. Doing so seems unnecessarily provocative, especially for an Iranian-American journalist who has a background in both nations and could thus be seen as particularly subversive.

That’s just a question I have wondered since reading about her arrest, which has for some reason piqued my interest. Truly I hope the situation resolves itself peacefully (for her and future foreign reporters in Iran).

Saberi is now on trial - behind closed doors, scarily enough.

Granted, sometimes journalists have to deal with dangerous situations in foreign lands. But that’s precisely why they need to be educated: To understand their legal rights at home and abroad, to understand various cultures and political systems, to know languages. There is more to being a journalist than being able to communicate well on various technical platforms.