Stark facts and personal tales of attacks on the press took the centre stage at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 8th May, in a session chaired by BBC Global News director Peter Horrocks

Elizabeth Witchel from CPJ details the findings from their current report on press freedom. Photo: Alex Glynn

Heather Blake from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) outlined why her organisation thinks this is an important issue to campaign on:

“It affects all of us. The hallmark of democracy, of society, of freedom is in the freedom of speech and the freedom of press. And the press being attacked is always a sign there are other violations taking place.”

Defence and diplomatic correspondent at The Independent, Kim Sengupta, stated the immense importance of shedding light on what is happening “and it is essential they are protected to tell the truth.”

Getty Images picture editor Aidan Sullivan reminded the audience:

“If people aren’t being held accountable for killing and hurting journalists, we will eventually get to a point where sadly it is too dangerous to go and cover stories.”

He started the press freedom campaign A Day Without News? because, he explained: “I’ve just lost too many friends.”

Elizabeth Witchel of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) relayed the findings of their current report. She also reminded the audience of the human face to the statistics, drawing attention to a banner featuring the face of Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani journalist who was found dead in a canal in 2011, showing signs of torture.

Blake shifted the conversation to the increasing role and repression of citizen and digital journalists (netizens) and talked about how RSF now records acts of impunity against these groups as well as traditional journalists:

“One of the stark changes in what RSF is calling ‘the changing character of reporting’ is the proliferation of citizen and netizen journalism. Due to this change, the impunity against digital community users is on the rise – they have become the new target of state and non-state actors.”

On this point Horrocks asked:

“Is there a danger that by extending the definition of those that RSF are concerned about, regimes will say you’re talking about people we would see as activists?”

An international humanitarian lawyer in the audience chipped into the debate:

“I think the conflicts of the last few years, including Syria, highlight that this is the role that these people will fill when the international media is excluded a large part of the time.”

Sengupta cautioned that this was a problematic point:

“I have great difficulties because I think as a journalist you try to subscribe to a certain ethos – we try to be objective. And citizen journalists are not. In Libya, guys who were writing on the web were then picking up the gun and going to fight.”

Sullivan agreed with Sengupta, warning that although netizens are not combatants, and they should be protected, it shouldn’t necessarily be as journalists:

“When we start to blur those lines, what we’re trying to do and what I’m trying to achieve becomes more difficult.”

Alex Glynn is a freelance journalist currently doing a Newspaper Journalism MA at City University.

You can watch the session or listen to the podcast below.

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/attacks-on-the-press-stamping

Across the world everyday journalists face injuries, kidnappings and death in the line of their work. In the majority of cases the perpetrators are not brought to justice and this evading of punishment often leads to self censorship by other journalists.

Reporting on corruption, crime, conflict, politics and human rights is crucial in society, but how can we better protect the journalists doing this work?

Following World Press Freedom Day we will be bringing together some of the key players that are working on tackling impunity, to discuss the level of the problem and the work they are doing to combat it.

Chaired by Peter Horrocks, the director of BBC Global News, responsible for leading the BBC’s international news services across radio, television and new media. He has worked at the BBC since 1981.

The panel:

Kim Sengupta is the defence and diplomatic correspondent at The Independent. He covers international and domestic news and his extensive reporting from around the world has included many of the major conflicts in recent times.

Heather Blake is the UK Director for Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières) and an affiliate to Pembroke College, Oxford University, Changing Character of War programme.

Elisabeth Witchel is a Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) consultant, she served for many years as the organisation’s journalist assistance coordinator. She launched CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity.

Aidan Sullivan is a photographer, picture editor and vice president of Getty Images. He is the director of the Ian Parry Scholarship and founder of the campaign A Day Without News?.