Media
UN expert warns of dangerous decline in media freedom – World – ReliefWeb
Reporters getting killed while chasing a story. Online attacks against women journalists, including death and rape threats. Targeted electronic surveillance to intimidate and silence investigative journalism.
This is the dangerous reality for many journalists around the world as media freedom and safety have diminished in the digital age with a grave impact on human rights, democracy and development, a UN expert warned.
“The decline of media freedom and the rise in threats to the safety of journalists is a worldwide trend, most sharply evident in backsliding democracies and recalcitrant totalitarian States,” said Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “The consequences for human rights, democracy, public participation and development are worrying.”
In a report to the Human Rights Council, Khan said digital technology has opened great opportunities for journalists and media freedom, including ground-breaking investigative reporting, cross-border collaboration, fact-checking with audiences, and access to treasure troves of data and sources.
However, Khan pointed out the digital age also poses serious challenges and threats. As examples, she cited online and offline attacks and killing of journalists with impunity; criminalisation and harassment of journalists; and the erosion of independence, freedom and the plurality of voices and opinions in state and corporate media, including digital companies.
“Silencing journalists by killing them is the most egregious form of censorship,” Khan said, urging the Council to consider measures to address impunity, including an international taskforce on the prevention, investigation and prosecution of attacks against journalists.
She cited a database site compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that reported that 455 journalists had been killed while doing their jobs between 2016–2021. In more than eight out of ten cases, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
Online attacks against women journalists
The report draws special attention to online attacks against women journalists, which are often vicious, coordinated and highly sexualized, and target women from religious and ethnic minorities or gender non-conforming people.
“Such violence inflicts very real psychological injury, chills public interest journalism, kills women’s careers and deprives society of important voices and perspectives,” the report says.
“A free, independent and diverse media fulfils society’s right to know, as well as journalists’ right to seek, receive and impart information.”
– IRENE KHAN, UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF OPINION AND EXPRESSION
The old practice of abusing laws – from libel laws to anti-terrorism legislation — to punish journalists and suppress media freedom has been revived by some States with a new ferocity, the report adds.
Khan cited the case of Philippine Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, who has faced an onslaught of legal actions in the Philippines for her critical reporting of former president Rodrigo Duterte.
Erosion of independence and pluralism
Khan also pointed to the erosion of independence, pluralism and economic viability of media in the digital age.
In a number of countries, including in Central and Eastern Europe, there is a creeping trend towards State control over public media and in favouring privately-owned media that serves the political or economic interests of those in power.
Khan also said media viability is a matter of human rights, not just a question of economics. The collapse of the advertising-based news media business model in the digital age has led to staff cutbacks and closures of news outlet in many countries. While some national and international news providers and niche news producers are managing through subscriptions, paywalls, reader contributions and subsidies, many others could face a media extinction.
“In a world where disinformation increasingly masquerades as news and authoritarian and populist leaders attack journalists and media outlets to sow public distrust, critical independent journalism produced in the public interest is essential. Its absence or decline in many countries represents a major assault on media freedom,” the report warns.
Media
Jon Stewart Slams the Media for Coverage of Trump Trial – The New York Times
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.
Media Circus
Opening arguments began in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial on Monday, with much of the news media coverage homing in on as many details as possible about the proceedings.
Jon Stewart called the trial a “test of the fairness of the American legal system, but it’s also a test of the media’s ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way.”
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Jimmy Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, took the stage with Madonna in Mexico City over the weekend.
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The economist Stephanie Kelton will chat with Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng, the guest co-hosts, on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”
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Media
Jon Stewart lampoons media’s coverage of Trump’s first day at trial – CNN
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Media
Jon Stewart rips media over coverage of ‘banal’ Trump trial details – The Hill
Jon Stewart blasted the media for covering the “banal” details of former President Trump’s first of four criminal trials, which began with opening statements Monday following a week of jury selection.
In his Monday night broadcast of “The Daily Show,” Stewart poked fun at the TV news media for tracking Trump’s traffic route from Trump Tower to the courtroom, compiling footage from various outlets, as they tracked each turn his car made.
“Seriously, are we going to follow this guy to court every f‑‑‑ing day? Are you trying to make this O.J. [Simpson]? It’s not a chase. He’s commuting,” Stewart said. “So the media’s first attempt — the very first attempt on the first day — at self-control failed.”
Media outlets have closely covered Trump in recent days, as he makes history as the first U.S. president to stand trial on criminal charges. Trump is also the presumptive GOP nominee for president this year.
Trump currently faces 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records in connection to reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 ahead of the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged affair she had with the former president a decade prior. It is the first of four criminal trials Trump will face, and perhaps the only one that will go to a jury before the November election.
Stewart, in his broadcast, took aim at TV news outlets, suggesting they were covering small news alerts as significant breaking news developments.
Stewart pretended a producer was talking in his earpiece and paused midsentence, saying, “Hold on. We’re getting breaking news,” and cut to a clip from an earlier interview conducted by CNN’s Jake Tapper, who similarly cut off his guest momentarily to identify a photo displayed on screen to his audience.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. Just for one second. I apologize,” Tapper said in the clip. “We’re just showing the first image of Donald Trump from inside the courtroom. It’s a still photograph that we’re showing there. Just want to make sure our viewers know what they’re looking at.”
Stewart shot back, saying, “Yes, for our viewers who are just waking up from a 30-year coma, this is what Donald Trump has looked like every day for the past 30 years. Same outfit.”
Stewart ripped CNN again for analyzing the courtroom sketches so closely, saying, “It’s a sketch. Why would anyone analyze a sketch like it was — it’d be like looking at the Last Supper and going, ‘Why do you think Jesus looks so sad here? What do you think? It’s because of Judas?’”
“Look, at some point in this trial, something important and revelatory is going to happen,” Stewart said. “But none of us are going to notice, because of the hours spent on his speculative facial ticks. If the media tries to make us feel like the most mundane bullshit is earth-shattering, we won’t believe you when it’s really interesting.”
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