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One Francis Avenue r t Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 s Nieman Reports
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University V ol. 65 No. 1 SPRING 2011 l. l. V o 65 No. 1
S P R I N G G 2011
S HA T T E R I N G B G A R R I E R S
T O
R E VEAL
C O R R U P T I O N Shattering Barriers to Reveal Corruption
“In every newsroom, censorship and reporters’ self-censorship was widespread—and it was aimed squarely at the work of The Niema The investigative reporters. So common was this expectation that we came to anticipate the first question we would be asked n
Fou whenever we talked with targets of our investigation: ‘Who n d
a is paying you (or your boss) to attack me?’ The next words t i o n
we would hear was a promise from them that our newspaper a t
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a would not publish our story. That is when the pressure points r v a r
d would be tapped, and the most effective ones involved politi-
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ve cians and their partners in business.” r s i t
y – Stefan Candea, co-founder of the Romanian Center for
Investigative Journalism in Bucharest, Romania End Note
‘to promote and elevate the standards of journalism’
Agnes Wahl Nieman the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation
Vol. 65 No. 1 Spring 2011 Nieman Reports The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
Campesinos return home after a fiesta in Chiquipata, on the shores of Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca. Bob Giles | Publisher Melissa Ludtke | Editor Pablo Corral Vega, a 2011 Nieman Jan Gardner | Assistant Editor Fellow, is an Ecuadorian photo- Jonathan Seitz | Editorial Assistant journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic and The Diane Novetsky | Design Editor New York Times Magazine. He has published six books of photography, including “Andes,” for which he traveled the length of the mountain Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Editorial range and took many of these in March, June, September and December Telephone: 617-496-6308 photos. He is founder and director of by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, E-mail Address: Nuestra Mirada (www.nuestra One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. [email protected] mirada.org), a network of Latin Subscriptions/Business Internet Address: American photojournalists, and Telephone: 617-496-6299 www.niemanreports.org organizer of Pictures of the Year E-mail Address: Latin America Visual Journalism [email protected] Copyright 2011 by the President and Contest. This essay was translated Fellows of Harvard College. from Spanish by Ted O’Callahan, a Subscription $25 a year, $40 for two years; add $10 freelance writer and translator as per year for foreign airmail. Single copies $7.50. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, well as an editor for the Yale School Back copies are available from the Nieman office. Massachusetts and additional entries. of Management’s Qn magazine.
Please address all subscription correspondence to Postmaster: Music and dance fill the streets during Carnival in Barranquilla, Colombia. One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 Send address changes to and change of address information to Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108. P.O. Box 4951 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Manchester, NH 03108
Photos by Pablo Corral Vega.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 81 Nieman Reports
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University Vol. 65 No. 1 SPRING 2011
4 shattering Barriers to Reveal Corruption
Post-Communist Realities: The Perils of Investigative Reporting 5 Abandoning a Broken Model of Journalism | By Stefan Candea 6 Establishing the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism | By Stefan Candea 8 Sorin Ovidiu Vintu: Buying Propaganda as News | By Stefan Candea 11 Russian Journalists Need Help in Exposing Corruption | By Alexei Navalny and Maxim Trudolyubov 12 Costs That Investors Seem Willing to Ignore | By Alexei Navalny and Maxim Trudolyubov 14 The Challenge: Investigating ‘Russian’ Mafias in a Time of Twitter | By Alain Lallemand 16 In Poland, Pressures Plague Investigative Reporting | By Beata Biel 19 Libel Laws Pose Obstacles to Ukraine’s Investigative Journalists | By Vlad Lavrov 21 British Libel Law: Its Ripple Effect on Journalists Worldwide | By Jonathan Seitz 22 Enduring Pressures: It Goes With the Job in Armenia | By Edik Baghdasaryan 25 The Stark Contrast of Words and Deeds | By Seda Muradyan 28 Independence Buys Freedom But Also Fewer Viewers | By Nino Zuriashvili 30 Hungarian Politics: Present in the Journalistic Mix | By Tamás Bodoky
engaging the Next Generation 33 Out of Tragedy in Turkey Emerges a Journalistic Mission | By Özge Mumcu 35 A Bulgarian Reporter’s Journey Traces a Nation’s Progress | By Stanimir Vaglenov 38 Questioning the Western Approach to Training | By James Miller 40 Media Assistance on the Global Stage | By James Miller 41 Where Western Perceptions Clash With Eastern European Realities | By Drew Sullivan 43 An Idea Born Out of Necessity—And It Works! | By Henrik Kaufholz 45 The Challenge of Cross-Border Reporting in Europe | By Brigitte Alfter 48 Investigating Farm Subsidies on a Global Stage | By Nils Mulvad
Government Pushback—In South Africa and China 50 Arriving at a Sadly Familiar Crossroads | By Rob Rose 52 The Shady Dash for World Cup Cash | By Rob Rose
Cover Design: Diane Novetsky | Nova Design 53 Chinese Journalists Circumvent Government’s Tight Restrictions | By Ying Chan 54 China’s Propaganda Department: New Restrictions on the Press 56 Investigative Reporting in China: Progress, Setbacks and Surprises | By Jan Gardner
Press Danger and Freedom: Presidents, Drug Traffickers, and sheriffs 58 Exposing Corruption When Illegal Activity Is Business as Usual | By Fernando Berguido 59 Freedom of Information Laws in Latin America | By Fernando Berguido 61 Intimidation, Exile and the Exhilaration of an Investigative Story Being Published | By Gustavo Gorriti 64 The Mexican Press: At the Crossroads of Violence | By Elia Baltazar and Daniela Pastrana 66 Asking Questions in Small-Town America Can Be Dangerous | By Samantha Swindler
3 Curator’s Corner: The Value of the Nieman Fellows’ Experience | By Bob Giles
68 Nieman Notes | Compiled by Jan Gardner 68 A Journalist’s Letter From Academia | By Jon Palfreman 70 Class Notes 78 End Note: An Abundance of Images: Is It Leading to a ‘Trivialization of Photography’? | Words and Photographs by Pablo Corral Vega
Nieman Reports’s Redesigned Website: Check Out Our New Look
With this issue of Nieman Reports, we are jobs changed. In an area reserved for Professor’s launching the redesign of our website. Its Corner, we will highlight offerings for j-school location stays the same—www.niemanreports. teachers and students. org—but what you will encounter there will Our table of contents will be just a click be quite different. Instead of arriving at our away, as is our magazine’s archive that opens table of contents, the Nieman Reports home- a gateway to past issues. The search box is page will welcome you visually into our digital on our homepage for use in finding Nieman space by featuring a revolving potpourri of Reports stories. stories. Some are from Nieman Reports; with Bookmark www.niemanreports.org, and others, we will spotlight exceptional reporting, visit us often. And give us feedback. We have photography and multimedia work done by made these changes to our website so we can members of our global community of fellows; provide a global audience of journalists with and still more content will relate to topics of a steady stream of new and unique content. enduring interest to journalists. Have ideas about how we can do this better? In our Nieman Notes section, we will share Please send them to [email protected]. updated news about fellows—books published, n—Melissa Ludtke
2 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Curator’s Corner
The Value of the Nieman Fellows’ Experience The 50th year celebration of South African Niemans offers a vivid reminder that their work served as ‘a powerful force in the struggle to end apartheid,’ and their ‘authoritative voices continue to be heard.’
By Bob Giles
ifty years ago, two journalists from South Africa were the Nieman experience has meant to the generations of in the final weeks of their Nieman fellowship year. The South African Nieman Fellows. It was inspiring to meet two—Aubrey Sussens, the white editor of The Rand journalists whose reporting and commentary became a DailyF Mail, and Lewis Nkosi, from a young generation of powerful force in the struggle to end apartheid and whose black writers giving voice to the yearning for freedom—were authoritative voices continue to be heard. the first South African journalists in the Nieman program. Joe Thloloe, NF ’89, was a labor reporter who refused Their journey to Cambridge in the fall of 1960 began to compromise his principles and was banned by the white a remarkable tradition that has linked journalists in the government. He is now press ombudsman for the Press United States and South Africa ever since. This partner- Council of South Africa. It is a critical role as the press ship was celebrated recently during a festive dinner at tries to roll back an effort by the ruling party to limit the the elegant Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town. It was an freedom of expression so admirably guaranteed in the evening for reminiscences and an opportunity for me to new Constitution. offer a toast celebrating our common purpose in fostering Allister Sparks, NF ’63, was editor of The Rand Daily journalistic excellence and anticipating another 50 years Mail when it disclosed secret government plans to fund a of South African Nieman Fellows. propaganda campaign in support of apartheid. Later on, This cooperative undertaking began to form in 1958 the owners who wanted to make the paper appeal more through the United States-South African Leader Exchange to affluent whites and less to poorer blacks fired him. He Program. Representatives of religious, philanthropic, edu- became well-known to American audiences as South Afri- cational and cultural organizations from both countries can correspondent for The Washington Post and author of laid out a mission to build a “bridge of understanding and several perceptive books about the apartheid era. cooperation by means of private, nongovernmental efforts.” Ton Vosloo, NF ’71, recalled that he arrived at Harvard In both countries, the founders stated, “lack of accurate as a strong supporter of apartheid and, over the year, information and often-sensational news reporting” has learned a “change of mind.” He rose to become one of hampered progress in developing a genuine understanding South Africa’s most progressive media executives whose of each other’s problems and solving them. companies have provided critical financial support for the In 1960, racial injustice was also very much on the mind South African Nieman Fellowship program. of Louis Lyons, curator of the Nieman Foundation. During Mathatha Tsedu, NF ’97, wrote provocative stories about the late 1950’s, he had begun to seek out journalists from the South African political scene, which led the government the American South who would use their year at Harvard to ban him from journalism for five years beginning in to sharpen their knowledge and insight for their reporting 1981. He later became editor of the Sunday Times. and commentary on the American civil rights movement. These are among the Nieman Fellows whose courage Lyons saw the fellowships for South African journalists, as journalists helped bring hard-won freedoms to South especially black Africans, in the same light—as a way for Africa and its press. The community of journalists in South reporters and editors to prepare for their journalistic roles Africa is small and closely knit and, on this occasion, it in the long struggle to end apartheid. was clear that the elder Nieman Fellows among them are As the number of South African Nieman alumni grew, revered as true heroes of the struggle for freedom. they worked to remove the racial barrier that had confronted There is now a new generation of women and men, Nkosi and Nat Nakasa, who was the second black South especially from Nieman classes beginning in the early 1990’s, African fellow four years later. In time, they organized who hold top editing positions or are building audiences as the Nieman Society of Southern Africa, which vets themselves, and they find the voices of their elders worth candidates and established a steady rhythm of black and reading or listening to across South Africa. white journalists being sent to Cambridge. In all, 56 South Amid hugs and warm handshakes, many told me how African fellows have come to Harvard—by far the largest meaningful it is to have this strong bond with the Nieman contingent of Niemans from a single foreign country. Foundation. Others spoke with feeling about how their The anniversary weekend resonated with good fellow- intellectual growth at Harvard and their lasting connections ship and deeply felt expressions of appreciation for what with Nieman classmates had transformed their lives. n
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 3 Shattering Barriers to Reveal Corruption
.It was a battle cry heard in Cairo’s Tahrir Square .داسفلا :In Arabic, corruption looks like this Romanians define this pervasive force as corupţie, and reporters encounter it in newsrooms where “local oligarchs—rich businesspeople who are involved in politics and whose primary busi- ness interests are not in media—now own and control media,” writes independent Romanian journalist Stefan Candea. In Russia, Коррупция is thought of as the tightly woven fabric of oligarchical wealth and political power. In confronting a web of illicit business inter- ests that extends far beyond the nation’s borders, Alexei Navalny and Maxim Trudolyubov write, “Today in Russia journalists need help in their fight against corruption.” When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it signaled the end of Communist domination. Many predicted the emergence of democratic institutions in countries now able to govern themselves. Yet in the intervening 4:12, Feb. 11, 2011, Tahrir Square. Photo by Peter Turnley/Corbis. decades neither political leadership nor civic institu- tions—including journalism—have fully lived up to these expectations. Instead, corruption has insinuated itself into government, business and media to a degree that stifles—if not firmly prevents—journalists from exposing illegal dealings, a role they would assume in a functioning democracy. The barriers to this kind of reporting and how reporters overcome them is the focus of this issue of Nieman Reports. Journalists write about their attempts to report on corruption in countries from the Black Sea region and Eastern Europe to the tip of Africa and into the heart of China, and from the corridor of nations that stretches from Peru to Mexico and into rural United States. Bulgarians say Корупцията to describe the usual target of investigative journalist Stanimir Vaglenov, who tells of the personal risks reporters face when they take on corruption: “Fail to watch your step and your health might be damaged—or you could lose your life.” In Hungary, watchdog reporters do uncover korrupció but consequences are rarely meted out to those whose crimes they reveal. The reporters exposing them, however, are “censored, persecuted, sued or fired from their jobs for doing this type of reporting,” writes Tamás Bodoky, a freelance investigative journalist based in Budapest. External support for such efforts is vital. In this issue, journalists in Europe who provide assis- tance explain their strategic approaches—such as facilitating collaborative cross-border reporting— at a time when concerns are being raised about conventional models of Western training. Corrupción is how Mexican, Peruvian and Panamanian journalists say it in places where the challenges of reporting about corruption involve not only legal barricades—some of them starting to be overcome—but deadly retribution. In a rural county in Kentucky, the managing editor of a small-town newspaper carried a gun and stopped sleeping near a window while she and a young reporter investigated the web of corruption involving the powerful local sheriff. n—Melissa Ludtke
4 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Shattering Barriers | Post-Communist Realities: The Perils of Investigative Reporting
Abandoning a Broken Model of Journalism There are many in Romania who ‘profoundly dislike independent journalists, and especially nosey ones.’
By Stefan Candea
t’s hard to do honest investiga- 1989, a new elite emerged from business leaders, media owners tive journalism in Romania. the huge pool of former agents and senior journalists. To understand this, one need and informants of Securitate, The elite’s most valued asset onlyI look at the country’s media the Communist secret service. is its control over information. landscape and know how its so- Members of this heavily protected It is not coincidental that most cietal institutions function. After elite became judges and members of the public still doesn’t know the collapse of Communism in of Parliament, prosecutors and the names of many of the 15,000 agents and 400,000 informants from the time when President Nicolae Ceausescu ruled this country with an iron fist. And the elite—most of all older journalists and politicians—profoundly dislike independent jour- nalists, and especially nosey ones. While I was writing these words, I kept being pulled back to an evening last November when I attended the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) awards ceremony in New York City. On this night journalists gathered to celebrate the courage, persistence and determination of those who report the news despite being arrested, kidnapped, shot at, and sometimes killed. (In 2010, 44 journalists were killed while doing their jobs, according to CPJ.) In my mind’s eye, I replayed clip after clip of video I had seen there about reporters who took great risks to expose The Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism—co-founded by Stefan Candea and three fellow corruption and abuses of reporters—reported in 2004 on forced labor, prostitution and other crimes against children in Romania power or tell the world and Moldova. Photo by Mihai Vasile/RCIJ. about those who are
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 5 Shattering Barriers
victims of terrible oppression. Their Romania today: About a year ago, two compromising information about the efforts reminded me of why such well-known “senior” journalists were president and his political entourage. journalists deserve our trust, respect caught on tape trying to blackmail the After his words were leaked to the and recognition. head of the country’s National Agency media, the journalist said that this At the same time, I flashed back to for Integrity, which is the governmental was not blackmail; it was investigative Romania. Now I was wondering why agency charged with investigating the journalism at work. any sane person would invest trust wealth of public officials. One of the Indeed, the so-called investigative and respect in most of the journalists journalists did not ask for money; journalism in Romania was for years who work there. Their main product is he can be heard explaining that he’s a cover for blackmail, advertisement propaganda and their primary talent in a “different league” of journalists racketeering, and disinformation is withholding the truth. [See box on so $70,000 means nothing to him. campaigns. Some journalists or media page 8 about Romanian media owner But during the taped conversation he outlets still use this kind of approach Sorin Ovidiu Vintu.] threatened to publish compromising to “sources” as a way of making good Here is a situation (one of many information about that state clerk and money. Not surprisingly, the owners I know about) that exemplifies what mentioned withholding that informa- of some of these media outlets are “investigative journalism” looks like in tion if, in return, he would be given organized crime groups.
Establishing the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism
Let’s begin by looking at a typi- Nobody would touch a company regional network of journalists to do cal Romanian media experience: that pays the boss to take such cross-border investigative projects. A multinational gold mining luxury trips. Soon our center became a founding company, Rosia Montana Gold When a few colleagues and I member of the Global Investigative Corporation, initially established saw things such as this happening, Journalism Network. by a controversial Romanian who as they often do in Romania, we has had drug convictions, tries for realized that for investigative jour- What We Do years to start a mining project in nalism to develop it had to do so Romania that involves the use of outside the local media industry. It Our center’s focus is primarily on cyanide. The company, which faces would be up to us to create a media publishing investigative reports severe criticism from The Roma- environment in which investigative about organized crime (local and nian Academy and groups such as journalists could work so in 2001 I international), media, human rights Greenpeace, pursues an aggressive collaborated with three colleagues abuses, networks of power, the public relations campaign involving to establish the Romanian Center environment, resources, energy and the Romanian media. for Investigative Journalism (RCIJ) sports. We also do undercover sto- This company is an important as a nongovernmental organization ries. Our location in Europe allows advertiser in Romanian newspapers (NGO). Two years later, with the us to be involved with a number of so very few articles critical of this center in place, we left our news- cross-border investigations and to company appear in the mainstream paper jobs at Evenimentul Zilei publish our work in the European media. And the company organizes (“The Event of the Day”) and began Union, the Balkans, and the Black and pays for luxurious trips (they to publish our stories on our own Sea region. call them “research trips”) for top website (www.crji.org). Where we can publish our stories managers of national and local We didn’t need a newsroom; we is something we think about a lot. media companies to places such as worked as freelancers, often out of Since they are often published New Zealand. Upon their return, our homes. We involved a group of without any financial compensa- managers publicly claim they went freelance photographers and trav- tion coming to us, we have to find there to research the way the parent eled the country to identify young ways to pay for our investigative company, Gabriel Resources, works journalists who wanted to work work. Our stories are published in other countries. as we were doing. Our network in Romania and Moldova in print Put aside the fact that managers expanded both in Romania and and on digital media. As we work haven’t done field research in years as a result of our travels around on topics that involve other nations and the actual reporters in the the Balkans and other Eastern and people, we are able to get these newsrooms that they oversee view European countries. On these trips articles into publications in other this as reason for self-censorship. we started to build an informal countries. Or we just publish them
6 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
The Industry as Enemy unethical practices), they unfortunately my newsroom, where the editors and became the models for generations of management came from this aforemen- During the early years of Romania’s young journalists to follow. tioned generation of older journalists. transition from Communism to When I set out to do investiga- I would find colleagues stealing and democracy, media owners were either tive stories as a journalist, my work selling photos I had obtained during well-connected business entrepreneurs focused on organized crime. This put a stakeout; others tried to leak articles or former journalists who had worked me into all kinds of threatening—and to the target of my investigation before within the Communist propaganda potentially compromising—situations: the print button was hit. machine. They transferred their There were bribery attempts and Then there were the bosses them- competencies and the rules from surveillance, and other media attacked selves—those who owned the media. their previous professions into these my stories and me. Lawsuits and court I started doing investigative journal- new ones. Of course, those skills had trials were used to try to weaken my ism 12 years ago in the newsroom nothing to do with quality journalism resolve, and I received death threats. of a leading national daily paper in or its foundational ethics. But when I could live with all of this. For me, Bucharest. The paper was co-owned these reporters became financially what was most disturbing was the by a well-known German media group. successful (profiting through their corruption and censorship I found in That fact didn’t help me in my daily
online, which increasingly has more judiciary, from businesspeople and USAID—is shrinking or has ended. and more impact. their own bosses, we also decided It’s been challenging—and fun— To bring recognition and cred- to get involved in media advocacy to reinvent the media system so ibility to our network, we submit of freedom of expression and ethics. investigative journalism can find a our investigations to regional and We keep an eye on media legislation, safe home, and doing our work in this international journalism contests. threats made to journalists, and way does give us a lot of freedom. As individuals or members of a abusive treatment of them by media It also forces us to be innovative reporting team, we have received organizations. Identifying the best in how we gather information, how awards from Investigative Reporters local and international watchdog we package, publish and distribute and Editors (IRE) and the Overseas organizations to work with was an our stories, and how we avoid the Press Club, along with the Kurt important step. typical pressures and finance the Schork and Global Shining Light work we do. We face an ongoing awards, to mention a few. Two of Our Funding struggle in finding the right people us also have been given journalism to work with and in making sure fellowships at Harvard and Stanford As a nonprofit NGO, the cen- that our network is not misused. It universities. Such opportunities ter provides tools and resources is a learning process. for international networking and for investigative journalists and What is not fun is living in a affiliation are vital tools in helping develops supportive mechanisms. continuous crisis at the intersection us become better journalists and We serve as a resource center for of little money and an abundance preparing us to be contributing journalists by providing links to vari- of topics in need of investigating. members of IRE and the Interna- ous online databases that we have The trends in media assistance tell tional Consortium of Investigative created, such as one that displays us that international donors are Journalists. information about media ownership not keen to finance such a center Another role we play is as teach- in Romania. To retain our editorial as a long-term project. But having ers. Having witnessed the lack of independence, our digital platform said that, our activities during the professional training in Romania, carries no advertisements nor do last nine years have managed to we now pass along to others the we take money from the Romanian create a backbone for investigative- knowledge we have gained through government, local companies, or related journalism initiatives that the years. For example, we teach businesspeople. stretch across the entire region. investigative reporting techniques Now that Romania is part of the This achievement is what certifies at Bucharest University and in E.U. and considered a functional the RCIJ brand. n—S.C. regional workshops. Given the pres- democracy, funding from some sures we know journalists endure mainstay donors—such as Scoop, from politicians and a corrupt Open Society Foundations, and
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 7 Shattering Barriers
work; what mattered was that the my colleagues and I left the paper. Now gation: “Who is paying you (or your co-owner was an old school Romanian our dilemma became where we would boss) to attack me?” The next words we journalist. He was involved in publish- go to publish our stories. Nearly every would hear was a promise from them ing the paper, writing daily editorials, Romanian newspaper owner had this that our newspaper would not publish deciding on the editorial content, and same background and perspective. In our story. That is when the pressure signing advertising contracts. And fact, they were organized in a cartel points would be tapped, and the most because of him being in the center of nicely named the Romanian Press Club. effective ones involved politicians and these conflicting positions the inves- And in every newsroom, censorship their partners in business. tigative stories I did were sometimes (and reporters’ self-censorship) was not published. Or they were published widespread—and it was aimed squarely Building From Scratch in a censored form. Or, in the worst at the work of investigative reporters. cases, they produced under-the-table So common was this expectation Looking back at my early years, all of benefits for this owner. that we came to anticipate the first what I learned working in a newsroom When such episodes became too question we would be asked whenever was how not to do journalism. Some frequent—and too absurd—several of we talked with targets of our investi- of the genuine investigative skills that
Sorin Ovidiu Vintu: Buying Propaganda as News
“I need an organization to respond to my orders like the Audi I own. I turn the key; it starts. I turn the key back to the left; it stops.” —Sorin Ovidiu Vintu
Sorin Ovidiu Vintu is a leading Romanian media mogul, and these are words he spoke in a phone call to one of his top managers. He and his media empire are emblematic of the practices and perspective of the mainstream media in Romania. As a power broker, Vintu considers his media business to be a military weapon and views his journalists as embedded within his troops. He is a controversial self-defined “financial speculator” whose strategy Romanian businessman Sorin Ovidiu Vintu has a simple strategy for dealing with is to build a media empire to gain journalists: “I don’t want to do any business with them,” he said. “I just want to buy power and protection. In the 1980’s them out.” Photo by Vadim Ghirda/The Associated Press. he served a four-year jail sentence for business crimes. More recently he was convicted of a crime related panies through offshore structures distribution companies. From news to his involvement with a bank that and proxies. He has incurred losses to satire, from finance to fishing, is connected with Fondul National approaching $100 million. But in his media empire covered every- de Investitii (“National Investment his quest to buy as much media and thing. He also controlled a polling Fund”), an investment fund that as many journalists as possible, he institute, which was quoted by his turned out to be a Ponzi scheme is willing to overpay for acquisitions media group. He hired seven high- that left about 300,000 Roma- and salaries. profile union leaders in industries nians without the money they had When his media operation was at unrelated to media to sit on his invested. its peak, it included several TV and media company’s board. He also Vintu started his media empire radio stations, newspapers, week- invested in a network of digital in 2003. What money he used is lies, magazines, online platforms, signage from which he distributed unknown since he operates his com- publishing houses, and print media editorial content in the Bucharest
8 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
I acquired came from international Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) sometimes have to start our investi- workshops, seminars and conferences requests usually do work eventually. gations using undercover techniques I attended. Of greatest value has been Contrast this with reporters in Romania and continue them with traditional hands-on training from working with who must build databases from scratch reporting techniques. In a country Western colleagues. But no skills or by extracting information from a range subsumed for five decades under the approach could be directly imported to of documents, and those can be quite deep secrecy of Communism, attempts my work in Romania; I had to adjust difficult to get. Assumptions about to use our nation’s laws are nightmarish. them to the reality in my region. what the data might yield must be Reporters usually have to go to court In a newsroom in the United States formulated and tested by the reporter to enforce a freedom of information or Western Europe, reporters have since it is rare that anyone else has request—and the legal process can access to a wide range of information, conducted a similar investigation on take up to five years. Finding com- some of it in the form of databases, and this matter. In the best-case scenario, petent government workers who are they also have some confidence that an official investigation starts after not corrupt is the rare exception so those who hold government jobs are we publish. investigative reporting cannot start doing what they are said to be doing. Such circumstances explain why we there. All of this makes our efforts
international airport, subway prosecutors were developing their During the election year of 2009, stations, and supermarkets. He case, they wiretapped his phones a person who had been the direc- announced that he had expanded so that when this case got into the tor of Radio Free Europe during into Moldova, Serbia, Hungary and courtroom, transcripts from these the Ceausescu dictatorship and a Greece and opened a signage com- phone conversations were leaked to director of Radio Deutsche Welle pany in Paris. His flagship media the press. They show just how deeply in the 1990’s ran Vintu’s company, outlet is Realitatea TV. engaged he was in directing his Realitatea-Catavencu Group. Vintu also established a media entire media group to influence the In wiretapped conversations, foundation in Brussels that por- presidential election in 2009. His Vintu spoke in military terms about trayed itself as standing for excel- goal was to overturn the president his media war with the president: lence in journalism and education. then in office and replace him with “I pulled out of the barracks my One of the managers at the foun- one of his friends. regular army …” he said, referring dation was also being paid by the In numerous recorded conver- to his stable of reporters. He also government to represent the Roma- sations with top politicians and described his strategy of collecting nian Chamber of Deputies at the leading journalists, Vintu is heard journalists when he was speaking European Union. This foundation bragging about his “war” with the with a top media manager about two developed a close partnership with president and describing how he Romanian bloggers. “I don’t want the International Federation of Jour- uses his media empire to change to do any business with them. I just nalists (IFJ), which is the world’s people’s minds. He acknowledges want to buy them out … I can give largest organization of journalists on several occasions that he doesn’t them a bribe and that’s it. And they with more than 600,000 members care if the stories that his media join our troops. It is a technique to in 100 countries. It donated about broadcast are not true; they only attract people next to you.” $250,000 to IFJ’s Safety Fund and need to serve his business interests. Unfortunately, what these record- IFJ’s ethical journalism program, ings reveal is actually business as created a journalism award, and Embedded Journalists usual at major media outlets in the local representative of Vintu Romania. Vintu might be more Foundation has, at times, repre- For such a propaganda machine to powerful than a lot of other media sented IFJ at joint events with the work, it needs to build credibility owners, but how he conducts his European Anti-Fraud Office. and have an army of journalists business dealings does not set him Late in 2010, Vintu was arrested willing to work under such condi- apart. What is so difficult for me and held in jail for nine days before tions. Vintu bought credible news to absorb are the compromises—in being released to await trial. The outlets and enforced this kind of practice and principle—that too charges involve help he gave a discipline by surrounding himself many journalists who work for former business partner in escaping with often well-known journal- such people are evidently willing an international arrest warrant. As ists whom he could manipulate. to accept. n—S.C.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 9 Shattering Barriers
In recent times, direct political pres- sure on the news media diminished as Romania climbed its way into the Local oligarchs—rich businesspeople who European Union. What is worrying now are involved in politics and whose primary are the frequent attempts by members of Parliament to sneak in ridiculous business interests are not in media—now pieces of legislation that would put a leash on journalists. Among the recent own and control media. Usually their business draft laws were these proposals: interests are also the target of criminal • Force TV stations to broadcast 50 investigations. percent positive news and 50 percent negative news • Put the print media under the juris- diction of the National Audiovisual relevant only after years of finding the journalist, have sold their shares in the Council necessary software, building particular business. Local oligarchs—rich busi- • Censor the comments for all news databases, and looking for additional nesspeople who are involved in politics websites. resources. And we are not necessarily and whose primary business interests able to build our network of sources are not in media—now own and control The only reason such laws have not while this is happening. media. Usually their business interests passed is that we have strong nongov- As we struggle to obtain informa- are also the target of criminal inves- ernmental organizations that act as tion and find a way to publish it, the tigations. The reason that they invest legislative watchdogs. However, the form that the story will take is the last in money-losing media corporations recent national defense strategy identi- thing we can worry about. But how to is to gain leverage to negotiate with fies the media as being “a vulnerability” package investigative articles is very politicians to keep themselves out of for “national security.” These days, important so we keep a watchful eye jail. They run their media companies as soon as politicians assume power, on the foreign news media and see as they would a military operation, they, too, start to profoundly dislike how they experiment with multimedia and like their predecessors, they, too, independent and nosey journalists. publishing. profoundly dislike independent and But independent and nosey journal- That’s also the reason why we nosey journalists. ists aren’t going away—and finding immediately brought onboard a group Here and there it is possible to find support for their investigative work of independent photojournalists. good journalists who are isolated in in Romania is why a decade ago I We welcomed them to take part on a newsroom. Gather them together co-founded the Romanian Center for major projects, such as undercover and their numbers might add up to Investigative Journalism. [See box on research in the separatist republic of enough to build a competent, strong page 6 about the center’s founding.] It Trans-Dniester and an investigation and honest newsroom. But then who stands as a testament to the dedication in 2004 into enslavement and other would pay for that? of a few—and hopefully the inspira- crimes against children. These local oligarchs lack any tion for many—to not give in to the dimension of ethics, discourage pressures bearing down on journalists A Broken Mainstream Media competition, and don’t adhere to a who dare to tell the stories that a meritocracy. Why should they adhere democratic people deserve to hear. n During the past two decades, millions to any standards of journalism? After of dollars in foreign media assistance all, their only need is to hire people to Stefan Candea, a 2011 Nieman have poured into Romania but without produce propaganda and send out the Fellow, is a freelance journalist much noticeable positive effect on the continuing onslaught of infotainment, and co-founder of the Romanian quality of its journalism. What one business and political manipulation, Center for Investigative Journalism must conclude is that we have a broken live press conferences as breaking in Bucharest, Romania. He teaches media industry, and the economic news, and copy-and-paste journalism. investigative journalism at Bucharest pressures bearing down on media have A lot of these so-called journalists University, and he is a member become even more burdensome. This use their media work as a trampoline of the International Consortium means that investigative journalism propelling them into governmental of Investigative Journalists and a must find ways to develop outside the positions, including foreign diplomacy, correspondent for Reporters sans mainstream of this industry. or into jobs with a political party or Frontieres in Romania. During the past five years, owners corporation. Their dream is to become like my former boss, who had been a part of the establishment.
10 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
Russian Journalists Need Help in Exposing Corruption ‘While journalists and bloggers in Russia risk their lives to reveal corrupt practices, there are ways that those living in free and lawful societies can aid their efforts.’
By Alexei Navalny and Maxim Trudolyubov
xposing corruption in countries where the rule of law has not been established is always a heavily one-sidedE affair. Independent media and the Internet are the tools that citizens have to fight against it while the ruling elite retains the power of the state’s resources and commands the loyalty of those who enforce punish- ment on those who interfere. Today in Russia journalists need help in their fight against corruption. We don’t want intrusive assistance, but rather moral and professional support from our international colleagues (journalists and bloggers) along with attentiveness on the part of international investors. Core values of transparency and accountability on a corporate and a state level are critical in our struggle against corrupt practices. We have been promoting these values through our work at Vedomosti (“The Record”), Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who is believed to have discovered a major tax fraud a Russian business daily based in involving police officers, was subsequently arrested on charges of tax evasion and died in Moscow and at the blog navalny. pretrial detention in 2009. Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/The Associated Press. livejournal.com. Still, contending with bureaucracies and companies in countries known for high levels the country’s gross domestic product. charges cooked up by those who took of corruption is tricky. To outsiders, This past November President Dmitry their businesses away or needed to get our efforts might appear futile, even Medvedev acknowledged that up to rid of witnesses. Sergei Magnitsky, a impossible. Corruption, some say, is $33 billion is stolen annually through Russian lawyer who worked in the an internal issue and it is inevitable the state procurement system alone. Moscow office of Firestone Duncan, a in countries that are moving from The corruption index that is produced legal, tax, accounting and audit com- state-run to market-driven systems. by Transparency International ranks pany, is believed to have uncovered one But corruption is not just a pile of Russia as 154 (out of 178 countries), of the biggest tax frauds perpetrated rocks placed in our way while we head below Pakistan, ahead of Venezuela, by a gang of police officers. He was down the road toward something differ- and tied with nine other countries in arrested on charges of tax evasion ent. It involves crimes that thwart the terms of public sector corruption. [See and after 11 months of imprisonment, progress of entire societies; in Russia box on page 13 about the increasing during which he was denied proper the consequences of widespread cor- “kickback margin” in Russia.] medical treatment, he died in pretrial rupt practices are disastrous. Accord- Corruption is not just theft. It leads detention. ing to the Russian think tank Indem, to moral and physical suffering and Corruption is not really an internal Russia’s corrupt officials pocket $300 the destruction of people. Thousands issue either. Rather, it is a continuous billion a year—close to 20 percent of in Russia are serving prison terms on flow of funds from source countries,
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 11 Shattering Barriers
such as Russia, to haven countries, on comparative costs of constructing confirm the allegations. It is well worth such as the United Kingdom, Swit- pipelines.] An internal investigation noting that Transneft’s international zerland, the United States, and many at Transneft, the state-controlled auditor is a Big Four accounting firm others. This flow would not be possible Russian pipeline monopoly, submit- and Transneft has also issued bonds without indirect support from banks, ted to the Audit Chamber of Russia on international markets with major corporations or even some Western estimated that up to $4 billion had U.S. banks underwriting them. Neither officials. Often, neither international been embezzled by a company officer the auditing firm nor the banks have investors nor partners of Russian through overcharging and violations blown the whistle on these practices. companies notice the cost and expense of normal business practices during Corruption in faraway places anomalies that occur on the Russian construction of the East Siberia-Pacific is actually not that far away. The side of the border. Ocean pipeline (ESPO). When one of proceeds find their way to banks in Pipeline construction provides a the report’s writers made a copy of countries throughout the world; they good example; pipelines built for the it publicly available, heated discus- are invested in real estate that could Russian energy company Gazprom sion began in Russia, and there were be next door or in another country’s routinely cost three times more than expectations that authorities should sports teams. Corruption’s reach is ones made for similar European act. Subsequently, the audit chamber global, and thus remedies must be companies. [See accompanying box classified the report and refused to global in their reach, too.
Costs That Investors Seem Willing to Ignore
Compare the cost of gas pipelines with very similar technical specifica- tions built in places with a similar climate and geography, as reported by East European Gas Analysis. One is the Gryazovets-Vyborg pipeline in Russia; the other is the OPAL pipeline in Germany. The pipelines feed and take gas out of the Nord Stream system, respectively. With the Russian pipeline, one kilometer of pipe cost about $7.3 million without compressor sta- tions.1 In comparison, one kilometer of the OPAL pipeline, built in 2009- 2010, cost $2.9 million including compressor stations. The price of steel pipe and the cost of labor in 2006 were substantially lower than when the OPAL pipe- In 2001 free speech advocates demonstrated in Germany against Gazprom, a major line was constructed in 2009-2010, Russian energy concern, when it took over a Russian TV company. Gazprom is partly says Mikhail Korchemkin, head of owned by a German firm.Photo by Edgar R. Schoepal/The Associated Press. East European Gas Analysis, so the cost ratio approaches three to one. “As sure as I am sitting here one Gas Industrialists of Russia, in an pipelines in Soviet and post-Soviet kilometer of a pipeline cannot pos- interview for the business television Russia. Yet the foreign shareholders sibly cost more than [$2.75 million] channel RBC. Shmal should know of Gazprom don’t appear willing to in Russia,” said Gennady Shmal, since he has overseen the construc- notice such discrepancies. n—A.N. president of the Union of Oil and tion of thousands of kilometers of and M.T.
1 The price tag was calculated with rubles converted at the average exchange rate in 2006 when this section of pipeline was built.
12 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
There are plenty of corrupt practices that are ripe for journalists to inves- tigate—and the roots of these stories can be found in countries throughout the world. In fact, foreign banks, real Corruption’s reach is global, and thus estate agents, and fund managers keep Russia’s biggest secrets, and ill-gotten remedies must be global in their reach, too. gains are being siphoned out of Rus- There are plenty of corrupt practices that sia into the West at an ever escalat- ing pace. Companies from countries are ripe for journalists to investigate—and where corruption seems possible leave massive footprints in the West. We the roots of these stories can be found in suggest that our colleagues research countries throughout the world. these companies carefully—keeping a watchful eye on any irregularities. Questions should be asked and, if necessary, legal action can be taken.
Business reporters and sharehold- time stealing defrauds societies of ers in companies from countries with resources just as harm is inflicted Kickbacks: The high levels of corruption should pay on the environment. close attention to the way large Rus- Margin Is Growing sian state-controlled companies are Of course, investment is a private run and take a bolder stance against affair. But the practices of businesses The primary mechanism of these pernicious practices. Leading in which investments are made are no big-time corruption is known American pension funds and mutual longer regarded as being value-neutral. as raspil, which translated funds are shareholders, giving them the Many nations have laws in place that literally means “sawing”—or right to receive an explanation about criminalize, for example, bribes of siphoning away funds that the the inexplicable costs and expenses foreign officials; one example is the government allocates for con- that inevitably affect financial results. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the struction and social projects. Shareholders should be encouraged to United States. And in many countries Recently the term “kickback send their queries directly to the Rus- public opinion no longer tolerates margin” has emerged in Russia, sian prosecutor’s office, investigative corruption involving political leaders. according to Elena Panfilova, department, and the police. While journalists and bloggers in who directs Transparency There are policies that should be Russia risk their lives to reveal corrupt International Russia. In the put in place, including ones we list practices, there are ways that those early years of the 21st century, below. If enacted, these approaches living in free and lawful societies can the kickback margin was 15 to to increased transparency would help aid their efforts. In our global economy, 20 percent but it has grown to open up paths to cover corruption: neither borders nor jurisdictions in just a few years to 50 to protect anyone from the destructive 70 percent, according to the • Corporate governance in interna- effects of corruption. Journalists can Russian Association of Build- tional projects should be addressed provide powerful voices, but if their ers. Kickbacks are usually • Information disclosure standards voices aren’t joined by others then it transferred to a “consultancy,” on international exchanges need is likely that corrupt practices will which is an obscure company to be toughened escalate, not diminish. n registered in Russia or offshore • Tougher professional standards are in the name of a wife or other needed for auditors and consultants Alexei Navalny is a Russian lawyer, relative of a person involved who are responsible for review- popular blogger, and a prominent with the deal. When, and if, ing and reporting on companies anti-corruption campaigner. Maxim the time comes for actual suspected of corruption for inter- Trudolyubov, a 2011 Nieman Fellow, construction or social projects national investors is editorial page editor of Vedomosti, to be done, they are paid for • Environmental security is examined a Russian business daily. with a fraction of what was whenever international agreements originally allocated. n—A.N. on large infrastructure projects and M.T. are pursued. Consider “corruption security” in a similar way since big-
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 13 Shattering Barriers
The Challenge: Investigating ‘Russian’ Mafias in a Time of Twitter Can Western and Eastern European journalists join together to overcome the difficulties the press have in covering these powerful criminal forces?
By Alain Lallemand
disappearing as mechanics dismantled These stories were simply too three to four cars per night. No longer was I a reporter within a expensive to undertake and triumphant Europe: I was now embed- too hard to sell: How do you ded in a circumstance of continental resistance. This left me no choice but tweet mafia stories? Suddenly to become a “foreign” correspondent working on the multiple fronts of this I realized that our Western war that numerous Eastern Europe newsrooms … were suffering journalists had been covering for so long. Morally, I had no other choice some kind of attention deficit but to enlist my newspaper to cover t’s been 20 years since the global this story and allocate our budget to dissemination of the “Russian” ma- hyperactivity disorder this effort. fias, and this is a topic I’ve covered resulting from our lack of In 2004, I watched with delight as asI an investigative reporter for 15 of the E.U. brought in Lithuania, Poland those years. As I review some of my money and a loss of our deep and Hungary. I recognized that the notes from these years, I am left to inclusion of these countries was the wonder how I once could have asserted commitment to such stories. only way to root out the Soviet-style that the threat is behind us—that the mafias who held such power. Then European Union and even the United came 2007, when the E.U. opened States had survived the vory v zakone, its doors to Bulgaria and Romania, the criminals who emerged out of the and I’m still wondering if it didn’t try old Soviet Union and obtained a high On that day I understood, through then to build a bridge too far. But was status of authority and power. Now I blood and fear, how five years of press there any other choice? am not that sure anymore. investigations had enraged the Russian Don’t get me wrong. I never had One particular moment keeps mafias. To commit such a cold-blooded faith that the press would be able to buzzing in my head: July 17, 1998. murder in the heart of Western Europe play a decisive role in the diminishment That Friday, in the middle of the high- meant they were in the highest state of organized crime. As I followed the security diamond district in Antwerp, of alarm. What I didn’t comprehend trail of heroin during these last two Belgium, a killer who has never been at that time was that the criminal years, I saw how the Bulgarian mafia caught or even identified fired seven avtoritets (“authorities”) that we were can send its own trucks to collect bullets—one in the head, six others in branding “Russians”—coming from Afghan opiates—they can reach as far the torso, from behind—into one of Moscow but also Warsaw, Poland and as Sistan-Baluchestan in eastern Iran. my best sources. Rachmiel Brandwain, Kiev, Ukraine—were already fighting When I saw that, I lost any illusion who was 49 years old, had been one gangs from Lithuania, Albania, Kosovo, I might have had of an easy victory. of the main money launderers for Chechnya and even Kazakhstan to But in 2011, I am still astonished Russian and Eastern European mafias. maintain a tight grip on the Western when new sources come to me in Brus- With his help, I had discovered how European criminal markets. In fact, sels, among them Chechen refugees Burmese heroin was coming to New this second wave of organized crime who are former fighters of the first York, on whose orders Lithuanian was already in business: The head of Chechen war (1994-96), complaining journalists were slaughtered, and how the Kazakh gang had just established about the return to Western Europe the Red Army’s budget was siphoned himself in Waterloo, Belgium and at of a new generation of Chechen kill- out of the Kremlin through weapons, the hand of the so-called Lithuanian ers and loan sharks. This most recent cigarettes and vodka. “devils” thousands of luxury cars were wave of criminals is not working for
14 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities the Russian mafia; they work for the and undercover operations—that have these stories pose a legal (and conse- pro-Russian regime in Grozny, the been challenged in Western Europe by quently a potential financial) risk of capital of Chechnya. And if they do the mafia lawyers. killing a newsroom. not dare to sleep in Warsaw, Poland This investigative energy represents These stories were simply too anymore, they do stay as close as the golden side of this coin: Police expensive to undertake and too hard to Minsk, Belarus. investigations were valid, and legal sell: How do you tweet mafia stories? In the eyes of their victims, I see systems were in place in Lithuania; Suddenly I realized that our Western the same despair as I did 20 years ago. this permitted local journalists to newsrooms—though we knew we were I also find a common thread between believe they would be protected as confronted by a new wave of mafias— the purely criminal slaughters of the they produced new revelations. But were suffering some kind of attention 1990’s and the assassinations of jour- there is a more somber side: In 1996, deficit hyperactivity disorder resulting nalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow less than one year after the “behead- from our lack of money and a loss of in 2006; Umar S. Israilov, a former ing” of the Vilnius Brigade, a new our deep commitment to such stories. It bodyguard to the Chechen president criminal network emerged. Members was a terrible time for this to be hap- who later accused him of kidnapping of the Daktarai gang came out of the pening; after all, a new generation of and torture, in Vienna in 2009; and former Soviet Union’s re-education investigative journalists—financed and journalist Zarema Sadulayeva in Gro- camps and again turned their assaults coached by many of us during training zny, also in 2009. It left me wondering on Western Europe. sessions in the 1990’s—was emerging in whether this means that all of the This is where the story gets murky. Eastern Europe. These were precisely stories I have done—and those done In response to this second wave of the new editorial partners that we had by a battalion of Russian and Eastern mafia activity, the Western press proved been craving 10 years before—like the European journalists—have produced itself to be quite weak. As the new Center for Investigative Reporting in any positive and sustainable results. century started, I recall writing that Bosnia or the Romanian Center for judicial cooperation between Eastern Investigative Journalism in Bucharest. The Lithuanian Saga and Western Europe had improved, [See box about the Romanian center but the budgets of our police forces on page 6.] They needed us as partners Since 1994, I’ve been back and forth were shrinking. I realize now that our for future investigations, and we were to Lithuania many times. This coun- newsrooms were experiencing a similar unable to follow through. In the name try offers a wonderful narrative that situation; while we had established of Western European newsrooms, I illustrates this dramatic plot, beginning better channels of communication think we owe them an apology. with the dark times of October 1993. with colleagues in Eastern Europe, I do not foresee any improvement It was then that the Vilnius Brigade, our budgets to support this kind of before 2015 due to the structures of the dominant mafia group in Lithu- reporting were vanishing. Since 2001, our Western European newsrooms. ania, killed at point-blank range Vitas every euro left in our newsroom was No newspaper will fund ambitious Lingys, the 33-year-old deputy editor spent on covering terrorism and the cross-border investigations about a of Respublika newspaper. So huge was wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (I particular mafia group and collective the shock that the presumed godfather must admit I was one of the first to funding approaches can be problematic of the brigade, Boris Dekanidze, was temporarily neglect mafia coverage when it comes to organized crime. arrested and sentenced in 1994 and and fly repeatedly to Kabul and Fal- Nobody wants to fund these stories executed the following year. lujah.) Since 2006, we have not even so for them to be reported we must In the aftermath of this event, I been able to keep that minimal pace. establish “no budget” networks—with could see that the press were finding each newsroom covering and exchang- their muscles and independence, and East Meets West ing the information it can gather in Vilnius, the capital, as well as the close to home. But for this to happen countryside I started to hear support Then came something even worse— journalists in the West will need to for democracy. Local newspapers, such the short attention span of readers rediscover flexibility and humility and as Kauno Diena (“Kaunas Daily”) consumed by buzz and infotainment. those in the East have to adjust to in Kaunas, were publishing every Mafia coverage requires too many working with our quality standards. bit of information they had on the names to be remembered. These stories Today no Lithuanian newspaper local mafia heads, even in the face are perceived as being too complex, would get a reporter in the West a copy of direct threats. At the same time, and with their evolving structures the of the judiciary records of its nation’s I saw a new generation of policemen connections can be very difficult to “godfather.” If Western journalists want and magistrates. They might have map. The budget needed to do these a copy of the Soviet-era indictments had private ambitions but their goal lengthy investigations is huge because and sentences or leaked information was to reach a Western European human intelligence—the need to find from a wiretap, they have to get those standard of quality. They did so with and work with challenging sources—is themselves. A Lithuanian newsroom their investigations—using wiretaps such a key factor to success. Finally, likely has the best pictures and direct
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 15 Shattering Barriers
phone numbers, and reporters there not want us to simply tweet this news. in narrative reporting at the Univer- will know the latest rumors. But what If we are to regain our position as sity of Louvain in Belgium. He is new is that Lithuanian newsrooms brave firefighters of the daily life, our specializes in reporting on organized are now able to take the lead in a newsrooms have little choice but to crime and members of the mafia. joint investigation and ask Western readjust their thinning budgets and During the past decade he has reporters to jump in. This is a serious become serious once again in their contributed reporting to projects done improvement. reporting about these mafia groups. by the International Consortium of On the Western side, I also find This time we can report hand in Investigative Journalists, including some reason for hope. After a decade hand with our colleagues in Eastern “Making a Killing: The Business of of rebuilding in Western Europe (as Europe. Perhaps this imperious need War,” “Collateral Damage: Human well as in Africa and South Asia), we to join forces will prove to be an Rights and U.S. Military Aid After hear again from readers and sources important turning point. n 9/11,” and “Tobacco Underground: about the activities of these power- The Booming Global Trade in Smug- ful Eastern European mafia groups. Alain Lallemand is a senior inves- gled Cigarettes.” They tell us about developments that tigative reporter at Le Soir (“The threaten their serenity. And they do Evening”) in Brussels and a lecturer
In Poland, Pressures Plague Investigative Reporting ‘Most censorship is of an “inner” nature. Journalists self-censor because they are aware of their employer’s political position and thus do not submit stories in opposition to it.’
By Beata Biel
n April 10, 2010 an airplane be granted this prestigious award? legal problems that would be encoun- with President Lech Kaczynski, When someone calls me an inves- tered after such a story is published. his wife, and dozens of other tigative journalist, I say, “No, I am Is it not wiser to have those jour- PolishO leaders crashed in Smolensk, just a journalist who has worked on nalists prepare less revealing and less Russia. All 96 passengers died. This a few investigative stories.” If asked important news stories and produce event became an important exam for how many investigative journalists those more often? Costs are lower and the Polish media—it was an exam there are in Poland, I answer, “None, the product exists almost immediately. we failed. even though many reporters have done That is how most editors think these Investigative journalism in Poland some investigative stories.” days so it is no surprise that of the is moderately young—only about 20 In 2006 my colleagues at “Super- four large Polish TV channels, only years old. After 1989 and the fall of wizjer,” a magazine show on Poland’s one carries a program with investiga- Communism, new titles for journalists commercial station TVN, investigated tive stories. emerged and along with them a lot the Polish-Russian gas deal. It took However, the fault doesn’t lie only of intelligent and ambitious reporters them two years and travel to several with how editors think. The weak point who produced captivating investigative countries to prepare a 30-minute in the Polish news media is that few stories. Each year a few big publications film—“Russian Mafia, Polish Govern- journalists have employment contracts. revealed corruption in politics, sports ment and Gas.” Today I don’t know any I had an employment contract for organizations, medical institutions, Polish media outlet that would decide only two years out of the decade I shady businesses, or organized crime. to do it. By “it” I refer to allowing have been a journalist. Many reporters The Grand Press Award for the best journalists to work on one story for sign a monthly contract to perform a investigative story of the year was such a long time, paying them every particular task. This gives them neither a big event with huge competition. month for material that will not be stability nor security; it also makes However, about three years ago Polish ready soon, plus covering all of their them struggle for every penny. And investigative journalism started to die. expenses for research, filming, travel- it affects the way managers assign Now, as the time of the Grand Press ing, establishing relationships, and stories—fewer, shorter, faster. contest approaches, people wonder: Is meeting with sources. Nor would a Many investigative journalists there any investigative story that could news organization assume the risk of decided they didn’t want to do essen-
16 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities tially assembly-line production work on stories and switched to public relations work or what they call “strategic solutions.” In a recent poll by the Institute for Media Monitoring (Instytut Monitorowania Mediów) and the Polish Journalists Association (Stowarzyszenie Dziennikarzy Pols- kich), 42 percent of the journalists who responded indicated that they were considering leaving the profes- sion. Money was one factor; others included the media being political, attempts from outsiders to manipulate the media, and too many fellow journal- ists acting in unprofessional ways—by pursuing stories that are sensational, lacking adequate preparation for their jobs, copying and pasting the work of others, and ignoring the basics of reporting, such as needing two sources When the president of Poland died in a plane crash in Russia, the Polish media focused before publishing a story. on conspiracy theories—only a few investigated. Photo courtesy of the president’s office.
Newsroom Budgets also managed to receive some mobile who was working at the airport that There are more questions to be phone videos taken by various wit- day and did a flight simulation to see answered about what happened with nesses who were there after the crash. if the weather conditions really made it the president’s plane. Most of the Polish Additionally, our findings disputed impossible to land. Since we were the news media sent reporters to Smolensk some conspiracy theories that were only journalists who did so, it seemed in Russia on the day of the catastrophe. popular in Poland; the most popular like we had achieved something big. Later, only two or three newsrooms one was that a person who took video Is the media situation really so bad allowed their journalists to go back of the crash site was later murdered, in Poland that they cannot afford to to investigate the crash. (The others which was not true. send reporters to work in Russia—even decided that it was too expensive.) After my report was broadcast, a on an important story like this one? While it might seem unbelievable, most prominent Polish journalist wrote on stories about this tragedy—including Facebook: “Send Biel to Smolensk for Newsroom Politics the investigative ones—were prepared a few months and she will find the “behind the office desk.” reasons for the crash.” Unfortunately, Now we have come to the second “Superwizjer” is a proud exception. Russians handled the main investiga- reason for the dire circumstances of In 2010, the TV news program sent tion of the crash, and they shared very investigative journalism in Poland—the reporters, including me, to Russia a little information with Polish journal- forceful and negative influence of few times and prepared four stories ists. Nor were any Russian reporters politics. The Smolensk case offers a related to the crash. We were given the working (or even willing to work) on stark example of how political sym- resources—except for time, which was this story so we could not count on the pathies influence Polish journalism. scarce—we needed to work on these sources they might have had among Instead of researching and reporting stories. Our work brought very good the prosecutors. This situation meant news articles, journalists spent most results: I located eyewitnesses who that we could talk with witnesses, keep of their time and energy in the first proved to be crucial to the investiga- an eye on the Russian investigation, months after the catastrophe speculat- tion. The first civilians to reach the examine the rumors and conspiracy ing about the involvement of various crash site described what was hap- theories—given Poland’s relations with political parties and individuals in the pening there and confirmed that no Russia, there have been many—and plane crash. one survived. (There was a rumor in dispute false ones. In my newsroom, I have never Poland that some people survived the The question is whether we did experienced the manipulation or plane crash.) anything exceptional. We did the censorship of investigative stories for At that time, the names of these investigative work that reporters would political reasons nor have any of the eyewitnesses and their observations do at the site of such an event. My journalists with whom I work closely. were unknown to Polish prosecutors. I colleagues spoke with the air controller Yet such situations do occur at TV news
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 17 Shattering Barriers
programs when journalists recognize which stories are considered politically “good” or “bad” and adjust their com- mentary accordingly. Most censorship The need in Poland is great for a few is of an “inner” nature. Journalists self-censor because they are aware of journalists with investigative skills to act as their employer’s political position and thus do not submit stories in opposition mentors to the hundreds of students who to it. I know of many journalists who want to be investigative reporters. sell their stories or write under false names for competitors because the other owner has a different political affiliation. Right now most of the mainstream news organizations support the Polish better story than that.” I experienced can create feelings of antagonism government. Journalists rarely criticize this situation twice, and it ended with among us. it and officials who serve in it are given money being offered or with promises I know these things happen. I’ve a lot of trust. When it comes to suspi- of other avenues of financial profit. experienced some of them and I’ve cions of illegal lobbying or corruption, Unfortunately, I’ve heard of journalists heard firsthand about them from many journalists are blind. In part, who accepted such offers. other journalists. However, I never this is a remnant of behaviors learned Pressure is also exerted on jour- hear anything said publicly about when Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who did not nalists when rumors are spread in any of this. Why? In Poland there is hide his dislike of many journalists, an attempt to undermine their cred- no institution to support and protect was prime minister. Some politicians ibility. These rumors can be about a journalists. The Polish Journalists have confirmed the existence of a journalist’s personal life or they can Association exists but few journal- black list of journalists who were not involve professional accusations. When ists are members as it is considered to be talked with. An investigation is the rumors are about work they can very—no surprise—political. There is under way to find out if journalists, involve corruption or manipulation, no national Polish journalists’ trade mainly investigative reporters, were including stories about working for union. being spied on back then through the and being paid by secret services or One more factor has an impact on monitoring of their phone calls and by foreign governments. One day I Polish investigative journalism. We text messages. picked up a phone call from someone lack strong journalism education; this who wanted to warn me about a col- means reporters can’t improve their Pressures on Journalists league I was working with who was, qualifications. Very few journalists according to the caller, drug addicted, in Poland speak foreign languages, When current Prime Minister Donald corrupt and using me as a cover for and as a consequence there is little Tusk came into office, the atmosphere his shady businesses. or no international coverage. Digital changed. Journalists became too I do not care about other journal- technologies are not understood; most lenient in their coverage of politicians. ists’ personal lives, as long as they do journalists don’t even know about new In the poll mentioned earlier, 92 not influence our work. Since I work media tools. Recently I asked colleagues percent of the respondents stated that only with people I know very well or about computer-assisted reporting and they were pressured in their coverage. I work on my own and I always check they had no idea what it is. How to Though I find this percentage to be all of the facts in my stories, I knew encrypt messages and files remains a too high, I do know such situations that the work we were doing together mystery to most journalists so almost happened, with pressure being exerted was beyond any suspicion. If I was no one does it. Nor are we supported mainly by forces on the outside. to believe such rumors, then none of with the new tools that could help us When some journalists I know did the journalists I know who work on with database reporting, for example. a big story on drug trafficking, they investigative stories would be consid- This means that we are left to find were asked by prosecutors to take ered clean. I’ve heard such rumors ways to broaden our knowledge on special security precautions since about every one of the investigative our own, but it is hard to find anyone there were threats made on their reporters I work with, and I’ve heard to help us. lives by organized crime bosses. Such rumors said about me, including one I count myself among the fortunate threats are common. Journalists are that I was working for the Russians. since at the beginning of my profes- pressured by people offering money I am always very skeptical about sional life I met a master investigative and, let’s put it straight, corrupting hearing such accusations regarding journalist with whom I worked and them. This practice begins with words fellow reporters, but there are many from whom I learned so much. The like these, “Leave it. I will give you a journalists who believe them and this need in Poland is great for a few
18 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities journalists with investigative skills realize the dire nature of this situ- Beata Biel is a journalist and TV to act as mentors to the hundreds of ation, then perhaps some will want producer based in Krakow, Poland. students who want to be investiga- to do what they can to change it. If In 2008 she received a Grand Press tive reporters. The issue is whether such thinking results in action, then Award for the best TV documentary enough journalists will step forward students might find masters to impart of the year; she was nominated to teach the next generation how to lessons, give them tools, and offer again the following year. She is a develop sources, verify information, practical experience that will give 2011 Transatlantic Media Fellow at and analyze a database. them the start they need to become the Center for Strategic and Interna- There is not a lot of reason for good investigative journalists. If? “If ” tional Studies in Washington, D.C. optimism, but I do see faint glimmers is a tiny word—with a big weight of of hope. As experienced journalists possibility riding on its shoulders. n
Libel Laws Pose Obstacles to Ukraine’s Investigative Journalists ‘If we decide to pursue the story, they [lawyers] guarantee a lawsuit will be filed in London, the libel capital of the world, where the burden of proof is on the defendant—the journalist and his newspaper.’
By Vlad Lavrov
ot long ago I spoke at a deeply divided politically and with that your article might cost people NATO-sponsored event where strong ties between the powerful their jobs?” Hearing this makes us representatives of Ukraine’s law players in business and politics, any feel like a modern-day Herostratus, enforcementN and security and military investigation that involves a member of accused of being determined to destroy forces listened to presentations by the ruling elite (a major businessman our publications for the sake of our journalists who have investigated cor- or political leader) is viewed as being investigative egos. ruption. Speaking as a reporter who has politically motivated and is assumed worked on many local and cross-border to be funded by political opponents. Doing Our Job investigations, I discussed a story I Or, in the most extreme cases, the did in 2007 about a controversial journalist is presumed to be working But as journalists we feel we are investment project with cross-border to undermine the state’s international doing our job. We have performed links to organized crime. This project image. the necessary due diligence and are would have provided billions of dol- Things become far worse when prepared to face the court. We can lars to the Ukrainians involved with the investigation focuses on major prove that our story is accurate, such it, but it did not happen, in part due oligarchs or their companies. Then the as the one involving a businessman to my investigative reporting. threat of a lawsuit arises. Given the who the police 10 years ago labeled a In the question and answer ses- recent financial crisis, which downsized “mobster” or a company that boasts of sion, I was amazed when a man in the print advertising market in Ukraine its impeccable reputation but has been the audience asked if I realized that by almost a third, even publications that accused of being corrupt and having my work on that story had deprived remain financially stable are reluctant links to organized crime. Yet when Ukraine of $25 billion. In response, to irritate the wealthiest people or risk we try to double-check our informa- I asked him if he was suggesting that being sued by them. tion—to prove that our publication is Ukraine should stop fighting organized In this climate of financial uncer- safe in case of possible litigation—by crime and money laundering. He tainty, publishers and editors in chief filing requests with the police and responded with words clearly chosen will ask reporters about the damage asking them to reconfirm statements to please the organizers of this event, that a particular investigative story they made just a year ago or verify but his question accurately reflects the might cause. Typical of questions the contents of the document they prevailing attitude toward investigative being asked of investigative journal- leaked to us, our jobs become very, journalism in Ukraine. In a country ists today is this one: “Do you realize very difficult.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 19 Shattering Barriers
In the absence of a bet- profound effect on media ter law regarding access owners. As a result, no to public information, matter how well we did the authorities have 30 our investigative report- days to respond, which ing, whenever the specter could be their refusal to of a London courtroom give us any information. is involved, the owner is If we ask for anything likely to step back from related to criminal cases publishing the story. It launched by a previous doesn’t help that most government that could journalists’ contracts in compromise people now Ukraine contain a clause in power, the system requiring employees to works impeccably—with indemnify the newspa- silence. A law enforce- pers against libel and ment officer explained slander lawsuits resulting to me how his colleagues from their work. Having handle undesirable infor- to defend oneself in Lon- mation requests: “They don, where lawyers’ fees will answer that such can average $750 an hour, a criminal case never can sober up anyone. existed, and before saying so will destroy any traces Removing Libel as of it.” An Obstacle The prospect of jeop- ardizing one’s publica- As a full-time journalist tion thus becomes more and editor in Ukraine real. But we still try to since 2004, I’ve expe- do our jobs properly. If rienced all of this. In we miraculously find a one of my first stories, I former police officer who Citizens confront masked police officers outside the village council reported about a land deal is ready to testify that the office in Kozyn, Ukraine, over a land dispute in 2004.Photo by Vlad in Kozyn, a small suburb documents we gathered Lavrov/Kyiv Post. of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. are real, we will write a The local council refused pleasant non-accusatory to comply with a federal letter to the subject of request to hand over an our article, such as a former mobster guarantee that a lawsuit will be filed extremely valuable piece of property. who is now a wealthy businessman in London, the libel capital of the The council was defending the rights and major advertiser, asking him to world, where the burden of proof is of local residents. One day the riot share information about his rough on the defendant—the journalist and police simply stormed the village in background and tell us how he was his newspaper. In 90 percent of these an attempt to confiscate the land—or, able to overcome all the difficulties cases, the defendants lose. As the in this case, the documents required and become so successful. We give him result, they have to pay the damages to seize control of it—from the local more than enough time to respond. He and the plaintiff’s legal costs that start council. doesn’t, and then we write our story, at $100,000. [See accompanying box I was the only reporter on the sticking to the facts. about British libel law.] scene when the police arrived. I hid But when the story has moved At this point, it’s no longer about in a resident’s home overlooking the through all of the necessary four due diligence or getting our sources council building that police had taken edits, the wealthy businessman finally right. Our country’s richest business- over so I could safely report on the responds. Only, instead of speaking man, Rinat Akhmetov, prevailed in incident. I remember being concerned with him, we get to talk to his Lon- libel cases filed in London against two about getting out safely since the police don- or Washington-based lawyers who Ukrainian publications; the Kyiv Post, had blocked all of the roads from the list all of the Ukrainian and European where I work now, had to publish an village. Yet I would rather face the publications that apologized or lost apology while the other publication danger of being in that village under in court to their client for making paid a fine of $77,500. those circumstances than endure a very similar inquiries into his past. Just the prospect of becoming the routine conversation with foreign libel If we decide to pursue the story, they next victim of such a lawsuit has a lawyers. As dangerous as that situation
20 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
British Libel Law: Its Ripple Effect on Journalists Worldwide
By Jonathan Seitz
Germany’s Duke of Brunswick was Stop It.” The first chapter was attorney if the case fails. However, an overweight, autocratic paranoiac posted online and 23 copies of lawyers are allowed to collect “suc- who was kicked out of his fiefdom the book had been bought online cess fees” on top of their usual fees by a peasant uprising. in the U.K. when they win a case. A statement like that might be This system doesn’t work so well the reason why the United Kingdom To avoid the multiple publication for those who own newspapers. has come to be considered the rule, the Kyiv Post, a frequent target When sued for libel, they can end libel capital of the world. While of such lawsuits, blocked access to up paying their lawyers’ fees, the living in exile in Paris in 1848, all Web traffic from the U.K. in plaintiff’s lawyers’ fees, damages the Duke became one of the U.K.’s December 2010 in protest of its awarded to the plaintiff, and a suc- first libel tourists when he sent his defamation laws. cess fee. In fact, these success fees manservant across the channel to This rule—and a history of court are so onerous that the European purchase a copy of the September decisions—has solidified the U.K.’s Court of Human Rights ruled in 19, 1830 Weekly Dispatch, which reputation as one of the easiest January that they violate freedom he believed contained defamatory places to win a libel lawsuit—unless of expression, adding another voice statements against him. The exact you happen to be a journalist. In to the call for reform of the law. In details of what was written have the U.K., the stance on defamatory February a judge’s ruling prevented been lost to history, but the court a libel case between Ukrainian ruled that the words were libelous businessman Dmitry Firtash and enough to award a judgment. More the Kyiv Post from being heard in important was the finding that London’s High Court. The judge the mere purchase of a copy of …The threat of having wrote that Firtash’s connections the newspaper constituted a new [a lawsuit] filed to Britain were “tenuous in the publication and a new act of libel; extreme.” this essentially nullified the six-year against a publication Among those urging libel reform statute of limitations. is Deputy Prime Minister Nick The Duke of Brunswick ruling— can have a chilling Clegg. This past January he called formally known as the “multiple effect on what gets for reforms that would transform the publication” rule—still stands. U.K. courts “from an international Brought into the Internet era, it published. laughingstock to an international means that if an article is viewed blueprint.” But putting a new law even once in the U.K., it falls under in place is likely to take Parliament its jurisdiction for a libel suit. Here until 2013. are examples of libel cases filed in statements could be considered Other countries have taken steps London based on this rule: “false until proven true,” leaving to address the problem. This past it to publishers and journalists to August the United States enacted • In 2005, the Icelandic investment prove their claims in court whenever a law that prevents courts from bank Kaupthing successfully sued a lawsuit is brought against them. recognizing foreign judgments that the Danish newspaper Ekstra Because these lawsuits are costly don’t meet the standards of the Bladet for a story critical of and time consuming to defend, the First Amendment. The precedent its advice on establishing a tax threat of having one filed against a was a statute—enacted in New York shelter. publication can have a chilling effect State in 2008—known as “Rachel’s • Terrorism scholar Rachel Ehren- on what gets published. Law” because it was prompted by feld was successfully sued by Saudi Compounding this, plaintiffs face outrage over the London suit against banker Khalid bin Mahfouz, who almost no risk in bringing libel Ehrenfeld. The formal name—“Libel she had identified as a financier lawsuits. Lawyers frequently file Terrorism Protection Act”—bears of Osama bin Laden in her 2003 lawsuits under a conditional fee an apt description for how a lot book “Funding Evil: How Ter- agreement—“no win, no fee.” The of publishers feel about the Duke rorism Is Financed and How to plaintiff does not have to pay his of Brunswick’s enduring legacy. n
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 21 Shattering Barriers
OCCRP will not approve the story. Using this method is how I was able to publish several stories that otherwise I would not have been able to get to readers in Ukraine. After their initial publication abroad, these articles could appear in Ukrainian media as reprints of foreign news stories. This method is much safer for the publishers. My plan is to launch a similar investigative journalism project in Ukraine—and what I will do first is to use any funding we receive to make libel insurance available to local journalists. For now, a few of my Ukrainian colleagues joke that I have invented “offshore journalism.” I know they are actually happy for me. They understand that this is just a way to fight self-censorship. n
Vlad Lavrov is an investigative reporter for the English-language Citizens of Kozyn, Ukraine, speak with a representative of the federal government in 2004 Kyiv Post in Kiev, Ukraine and has during a dispute over control of a valuable piece of land. Photo by Vlad Lavrov/Kyiv Post. taken part in several international investigative projects, including the award-winning “Tobacco Under- was for me, the ways I had to deal of mine who are also investigative ground: The Booming Global Trade with it seemed more transparent and reporters working in Eastern Europe. in Smuggled Cigarettes,” organized predictable. Through a grant, OCCRP obtained by the International Consortium of As the result of lawsuits being libel insurance, but qualifying for it Investigative Journalists. Previously threatened and filed, I joined the Orga- requires proving to lawyers that our he worked as business and world nized Crime and Corruption Reporting reporting and documentation is solid; editor for Korrespondent magazine Project (OCCRP) established by friends otherwise, the lawyers who work for in Kiev.
Enduring Pressures: It Goes With the Job in Armenia ‘… we have an unwritten understanding in our office not to speak about these pressures if they aren’t life threatening; our problems remain within our office walls.’
By Edik Baghdasaryan
riends and acquaintances ask based online newspaper where I am fail, it means we aren’t performing our me all the time, “What exactly editor in chief, to know what we have task properly. is it that you want? What do uncovered. Numerous obstacles are placed in Fyou expect to achieve with all your As investigative reporters, we are like our way, and they can seem unconquer- investigative stories?” the aquarium fish called the “cleaners” able—or at least be daunting enough My answer is always the same: I who scour the tank for grit and grime. to discourage any sensible person want to restore a degree of justice in We carry out this function in society from trying. Against this backdrop, Armenia, and I want readers of Hetq as we try to uncover the dirt and clean investigative reporters resemble stray (“Trace”), the independent Yerevan- it up. At times, we succeed. When we dogs that are kicked and cursed by
22 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
Covering the inner workings of the criminal world and revealing its ties to members of the government’s ruling elite is a dangerous proposition. On the evening of November 17, 2008, three people attacked me after I left the office and headed for my car.
passersby. In fact, this has happened ministry confessed that it was true. When this explanation failed to to some of us. So when your life’s work The blood bank’s director was fired. clarify the situation, we decided to doesn’t lead to the results that were publish the contradictory responses— envisioned, it’s only natural to ponder Following Bananas and then we added that Armenia its value. Is the effort worth it? And neither exported bananas or banana then there are the risks to consider—for It is an investigative reporter’s job oil to the Bahamas, a fact we’d learned oneself and family members. They can to pry information from government from World Bank reports of products be summarily fired or not find any sources and verify it. Figuring out what traded by countries. In an interview work at all when a relative is labeled is accurate can be extremely difficult after we published this story, the a “dangerous” reporter. when agencies release contradictory person who directs the SCC’s research Another big obstacle to doing inves- information in response to the same and legal affairs department admitted tigative journalism is the reluctance set of questions. But receiving very that Ketrin Ltd. had never re-exported of government sources to provide any different responses can also alert us bananas or produced banana oil. information. Make an inquiry about to suspect practices. This is what However, Ketrin Ltd. was registered abuse of power and months will pass happened when we at Hetq requested as an exporter of several thousand before any reply comes, and then it’s information about the export of tons of bananas to the Bahamas and often pure claptrap. This is what usu- bananas from Armenia. The national to Georgia. Of course, no such export ally happens despite a law stipulating statistics service indicated that Ketrin ever took place. Forged documents that government agencies must supply Ltd. had exported nearly 3,600 tons of showing the export of banana oil to such information within five days and bananas to the Bahamas during 2005 the Bahamas were filed to avoid pay- that it must also be posted on their and 2006. The deputy chairman of ing various customs and other taxes website, made readily available not the State Customs Committee (SCC) and levies estimated at a total of $1.5 just to the reporter who requested it of Armenia responded to the same million. but to everyone. Yet my experience inquiry with a figure of 866 tons. After an investigation that took tells me that government officials go We wrote to the SCC deputy chair- five months, we published stories that out of their way to hinder the flow man about this wide discrepancy. Here showed how the owners of Ketrin Ltd. of information to the public. Years is how Colonel A. Afrikyan responded: who were top government officials—the ago I couldn’t convince an American deputy chief of the National Security colleague that decisions made by the We are informing you that in Service and the head of the Compulsory Yerevan mayor were off limits not only 2005-2006 the “Ketrin Ltd.” Enforcement Service—were involved to residents of the city but to reporters. firm exported 59.44 kilos of in the swindle. We obtained copies of those decisions banana oil to the Bahamas, an The Armenian press widely covered only after a two-year court process. amount equivalent to the 755.4 the banana export story for several tons of bananas imported on a months. In our editorials we even In 2001, reporters at Hetq uncovered temporary basis for reprocess- suggested that the prime minister’s the fact that the Ministry of Health’s ing purposes. According to the supervisory division—a sort of gov- blood bank included blood from donors Custom’s statistical methodology, ernment accountability office—study infected with HIV. After we published “the re-exportation, i.e., of repro- the matter. But our efforts came to the news, the ministry declared “war” cessed imports” are considered naught. The officials involved had too on us and directed staff not to speak to be foreign exports and are much sway. to us on any matter. Soon after other thus registered as exports of the There was one result related to our news outlets picked up our story, the Republic of Armenia.” investigation: The amount of bananas
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 23 Shattering Barriers
Suffering a Beating
Covering the inner workings of the criminal world and revealing its ties to members of the government’s ruling elite is a dangerous proposition. On the evening of November 17, 2008, three people attacked me after I left the office and headed for my car. I momentarily lost consciousness from a blow to the back of my head. A policeman who was passing by fired shots in the air to chase off my assail- ants. One of them was arrested a few days later and he is now serving a five-year prison term. He had links to the former environment minister. Prior to the attack, I had published a series of investigative articles regarding the business dealings of that minister, Journalist Edik Baghdasaryan was attacked after he exposed a government official’s grant- who had granted exploratory mining ing of mining licenses to family members and friends. Photo by Gagik Shamshyan. licenses to his family members and friends. They later sold them for millions of dollars. The police never being imported into Armenia, of which government officials. found the other two assailants or the half was going unreported, began to be Society and the press in Armenia person who ordered it, though I have recorded and the importing company are highly politicized, and any incident no doubt that the former minister started to pay the required taxes. Two can quickly become politicized. At was behind the attack. We presented years after our story was published, Hetq, we have never worn the colors evidence in court that on the day of I had the occasion to speak to the of any political team, and we have an the attack the young man on trial had Armenian prime minister during a unwritten understanding in our office placed four calls to the minister’s cell private meeting. When I told him that not to speak about these pressures if phone. The court paid no attention to our investigation had been ineffective, they aren’t life threatening; our prob- this evidence, given that the minister, given that the government wasn’t lems remain within our office walls. then and now, is a member of Parlia- taking appropriate measures based ment and sits on the council of the on the revelations we had published, In 2002 we couldn’t get any TV station ruling political party. he responded that on the contrary the to broadcast what we had uncovered Overcoming such challenges and banana exposé had brought $3 million about a murder in the army. The avoiding such dangers isn’t easy. But we into state coffers. courts had sentenced a soldier to do our best in the name of our read- 14 years, but we had come up with ers—those who get up in the morning Absorbing the Pressures evidence that he wasn’t the murderer. and open the paper to see what we Our seven-month investigation proved have to say about issues of concern I am always asked about the pressures why the soldier in question could not to them. I always tell my journalism brought to bear on reporters. I usually have committed the crime. We had students that in the end they are only avoid responding since I don’t feel that discovered that the state’s investiga- accountable to individual readers. To reporters face greater pressure than tors and military authorities literally give them an adequate accounting, lawyers or even average folks. Pres- beat a confession out of him and his stories must be truthful, sincere and sures exist in our line of work and are testimony was provided under duress. accurate. n applied in a variety of ways—physical We also illuminated the violations that assault, offers of bribes, the perform- military prosecutors made in the case Edik Baghdasaryan directs the ing of favors, the threat of being sued and their contradictory rulings. It was Investigative Journalists of Armenia for publishing information, and the only after Internews Armenia selected and is the editor in chief of Hetq, an problems involved with broadcasting it as the best investigative film and I independent newspaper in Yerevan, or publishing investigative pieces. challenged the TV officials attending Armenia. We constantly face difficulties, from the ceremony to broadcast the film dealing with law enforcement agen- that it finally was shown—at noon cies to obtaining clarifications from on a weekday.
24 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
The Stark Contrast of Words and Deeds ‘In Armenia, the shutdown of A1+ was a valuable lesson to all nonstate-run TV companies in showing what happens to a company that acts in ways considered to be unloyal to the government.’
By Seda Muradyan
… We need your honest and unbiased trust that the authorities are ready to made recently in the tightly controlled approach so that Armenian society, the allow the nation’s news media, most broadcast media sphere during the entire state structure, different bodies of all television news, to become transition to digital broadcasting. and individuals see in the mirror of an unbiased and truthful mirror of Instead of using this opportunity to mass media their own genuine picture. their regime? Can such presidential diversify the news media, the govern- It is crucial that the mirror is not statements—made to friendly audi- ment tightened its grip. fuzzy and the picture is not distorted. ences—about the necessity of fair When I was a child in Armenia —Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan media be regarded as a change of the during Soviet times, I would stand on December 28, 2010 policy that is leading to liberalization before a mirror and act as the host of the sphere? of my own talk show. Back then the resident Sargsyan was speaking The sincerity of such statements government acted as the queen did in at a reception to representatives merits close attention this year, with Snow White, one of my favorite fairy of media outlets, most of whom parliamentary and presidential elec- tales. Each morning the queen asked, Pare loyal to the Armenian government. tions looming in 2012 and 2013, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the In hearing his words—and contrasting respectively. Already the president’s fairest one of all?” And the mirror would them to his actions—can Armenians words stand in contrast to changes answer, “You, my queen, are fairest of all.” Then Snow White grew up to be a beautiful woman, and the mirror gave the queen a different answer: “Queen, you are full fair, ’tis true, but Snow White is fairer than you.” The queen broke the mirror when it told her the truth.
Silencing a TV Channel
On April 2, 2002, the govern- ment of Armenia, which has been an independent country since 1991, banned A1+, one of the first of Armenia’s inde- pendent TV channels, from broadcasting. This decision was made with clear political motives. I had worked at this TV channel for more than six years. This channel stands as a symbol of Armenia’s “broken mirror.” By shutting it down, authorities revealed their fear of the power of TV—the Opposition supporters protest the results of the 2008 presidential election and clash with po- country’s dominant news lice in Yerevan, Armenia. On this day, March 1, 10 people died and more than 200 were injured. medium—if it moves out of Photo by Mkhitar Khachatryan/The Associated Press. their control.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 25 Shattering Barriers
At 9:45 p.m. on that day, I was the Since 2002, press freedom in Arme- and that for the first four months of host of the channel’s main news pro- nia has received bad marks in reports the campaign, “coverage was grossly gram. I knew this was going to be my issued by Freedom House, a watchdog biased in factor of [President] Serzh last appearance on A1+ so I closed the organization based in the U.S.; after Sargsyan in terms of both airtime newscast with these words: “Soon, we the closing of A1+, Armenia has been distribution and tone, giving him will be off the air. Our team is saying ranked among those countries that an unfair advantage over the other goodbye to you with the confidence are “not free.” Here are words from candidates.” and hope of being back on air again, its 2003 report—and this sentiment It is clear that Armenians received sometime soon.” Three hours later our has held since then: biased and censored TV coverage before broadcast transmitter was turned off the election. After the president was on the order of the National Commis- Freedom of the press declined re-elected, tens of thousands of Ter- sion on Television and Radio (NCTR). in Armenia as a result of the Petrossian supporters protested the A popular and independent voice of closing of the country’s leading result, which they claimed had been Armenia was shut down. independent television station, falsified. Unfair coverage before and After being on the air for six and a and the government’s continued after the election, held on February 19, half years and gaining vast popular- attempts to stifle criticism in 2008, added to the public’s distrust of ity among the people, A1+ lost its the media. authorities, and these feelings intensi- broadcasting license in a deal orga- fied following the events of March 1, nized by the government-controlled Many international observers when 10 people died and more than commission whose members had believe that A1+’s closing represented 200 were injured as protests were met been appointed by Armenia’s presi- a crucial change in the environment in with government force. dent. Despite the attempts of various which the news media operate there. In international organizations to help it Armenia, the shutdown of A1+ was a State of Emergency return to the air and a European court valuable lesson to all nonstate-run TV ruling in favor of that happening, A1+ companies in showing what happens to For nearly three weeks the government has been denied a broadcasting license a company that acts in ways considered imposed a state of emergency that ever since that day. to be unloyal to the government. The placed even harsher limitations on On June 17, 2008, the Strasbourg- 2010 Freedom House report referenced media outlets. The decree stated that based European Court of Human this situation when it said that “many “mass media will publish information Rights found Armenian authorities of the private television stations are given only by state establishments.” at fault for repeatedly denying a owned by government-friendly busi- Most newspapers suspended their broadcasting license to A1+. (Armenia ness elites, and broadcasters engage in work as a result of the censorship became a member of the Council of a high degree of self-censorship to avoid being imposed. On the order of security Europe (COE) in January 2001 and having their licenses revoked.” Issues officials, Internet service providers thus accepted the principles of the rule revolving around freedom of speech blocked the websites of A1+ (which has of law and the jurisdiction of human and media censorship in Armenia are a digital presence even though it doesn’t rights and fundamental freedoms for mentioned in many of the reports by have a broadcast channel), Haykakan its citizens.) This ruling spoke of the international watchdog organizations Zhamanak (“Armenian Time”), and license denials as violations of Article and by various high-ranking American Aravot (“Morning”). Radio Liberty’s 10 of the European Convention on and European officials. Armenian language broadcasting was Human Rights. Yet, during times of crisis in Arme- taken off the air and its website was It was not the first ruling this court nia, the government-friendly faces of blocked. made against Armenia, but it was the TV companies are predominant. Of course, these actions had a big the first time that the court’s ruling In the 2008 presidential election, for impact on increasing the use and referred to freedom of speech. Here example, most TV channels refused popularity of certain social networks, is a portion of the statement about to run paid political advertisements blogs and YouTube. These platforms the ruling issued by Terry Davis, who thus depriving the opposition of access became the windows through which is the secretary general of the COE: to a wide audience, according to Armenians could see an alternative to reports published in print and online state propaganda information. Proxy The decision of the Court is a media. An analysis of the election servers became protection shields for victory for freedom of expression. by Freedom House cited reports by many Internet users in Armenia. It should also serve as a lesson to election monitoring organizations in In this media environment, A1+ all governments inclined to arbi- the region. These revealed that “the continues to be denied a broadcasting trary interpretations of Article 10 coverage of [opposition candidate license. On December 16, 2010, the of the European Convention on Levon] Ter-Petrossian’s campaign by government denied its request for Human Rights, which guarantees the main broadcast media was selective, the 13th time. This time the NCTR this essential freedom. distorted, and mostly negative in tone,” accused A1+ of submitting fraudu-
26 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities
… [state censorship] had a big impact on increasing the use and popularity of certain social networks, blogs and YouTube. These platforms became the windows through which Armenians could see an alternative to state propaganda information.
lent documents. Mesrop Movesian, nalist for Aravot who specializes in the Internet and any new means of the president of A1+, denies these covering media law and freedom of broadcasting. Several Internet media accusations. There should be a fair speech, observed that “until now no outlets already have video content on and thorough investigation of what audit results of TV frequencies held in their websites. A1+ pioneered Internet happened during the entire applica- Armenia have been published for the broadcasting in Armenia this past Sep- tion process since there is reason society to justify the decision of such an tember when it began live-streaming to believe that political motivations exact number of broadcasters.” In one online news and TV shows. Right remain behind the NCTR’s decision of her recent opinion pieces published now, the country’s media law has no to deny a license to A1+. in Armenia, Israelyan recalls that even precise differentiation of Internet and Just two months before A1+’s license Marie Jovanovich, the U.S. ambassador other digital means of broadcasting. bid was denied, the COE secretary to Armenia, expressed amazement at Media law experts worry that Armenian general, in his remarks at a COE event the decrease in the number of TV government officials might implement called “Forum for the Future of Democ- companies. When Jovanovich spoke other measures by which they will racy,” highlighted the importance of at American University in Armenia control the Internet and thus curb freedom of expression in building this past June, she noted that while its natural absence of restraint. They democracy in Armenia. In remarks in other parts of the world digital could, some fear, demand licensing made this past October in Yerevan, broadcasting provides an opportunity for Internet broadcasts. Armenia, he said that “freedom of to increase the number of channels, If they choose the path of tight expression is the mother of truth, the in Armenia the number is decreasing. control of Internet broadcasting, Arme- basis for freedom and democracy, and The Armenian decision also contra- nian authorities will continue to break the avenue to prosperity.” dicts a key media recommendation of mirrors, thereby demonstrating again the Committee of Ministers of the COE their inability to see the true reflection Digital Issues that the transition to digital broadcast- of the regime. In the near future, we ing must not be done at the expense will learn whether President Sargsyan This past June, despite concerns raised of pluralism. When the competition will continue behaving like the queen by international and local experts, the for broadcast licenses took place in in Snow White—or if he will be true Armenian Parliament approved a new December, not surprisingly the TV to his own words. n section concerning the transition to channels remained under the control digital broadcasting in the nation’s of the business elite and companies Seda Muradyan is a 2011 Knight TV and radio law. Several media loyal to the government. Ownership Fellow at Stanford University. She organizations—the Yerevan Press is now even less diverse than it was is the Armenia branch editor and Club, Committee to Protect Freedom before this latest round of bids, with country director for the Institute for of Expression, and Internews Media the likelihood of remaining this way War & Peace Reporting. As a Knight Support NGO—criticized this initiative through the decade. There was no Fellow, she is developing a digital by highlighting how the changes will real rivalry. “It was obvious, that a game with the goal of mobilizing decrease pluralism in the Armenian pre-competition agreement has been Internet users in Armenia to be broadcast media sphere. With the new reached among the TV companies: citizen journalists gathering and law, the number of TV broadcasters it was previously decided for each of providing “alternative information” eligible for licensing will drop from them to apply for a certain channel,” and disseminating it through social 22 to 18. This means that some TV Israelyan wrote. networks and traditional media companies will be deprived of licenses. The next arena of concern involves outlets. Anna Israelyan, a prominent jour- how the government will try to control
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 27 Shattering Barriers
Independence Buys Freedom But Also Fewer Viewers ‘Since we left Rustavi 2, Studio Monitor has had a hard time building a wide audience. Getting our stories seen by people remains a major challenge.’
By Nino Zuriashvili
n Georgia, when a media organiza- have access to the information that we on our website (www.monitori.ge), but tion exists, two things are likely to need to document the story. When a TV the larger challenge remains finding be true about its owner. First, it station broadcasts our investigations, media outlets to broadcast our stories. willI be a business group or business- we do not allow them to drop any part Since 2007 a dozen of our investiga- man, and second, its owner will be of what we give them. Georgia’s major tive stories have been shown at the closely connected to those who hold TV channels—ones that are close to Tbilisi Cinema House, where we also government power. Since make presentations 2004 these descriptions about them. They are fit perfectly the profile of also uploaded to other the founders and owners online sites and some of the controlling share regional TV channels of 12 out of 13 of my show them.1 country’s TV channels. I was working as an Our Investigative investigative reporter at Projects Rustavi 2, one of Geor- gia’s national TV chan- There was one story we nels, when its ownership did after we discovered changed in 2004. Kibar how the mayor of Tbilisi Khalvashi, a business- had financed 15,000 man and good friend of workers during a four- Interior Minister Irakli month period prior to Okruashvili, bought the the May 2008 council channel that year. When elections. It turns out that happened, censor- that he diverted $7.9 ship of our investigative million of city funds to journalism began—four Nino Zuriashvili, left, and editor and videographer Alex Kvatashidze, pay for political activ- of our projects were Studio Monitor’s co-founders, have a difficult time finding outlets in ism. Official records blocked. Georgia that will broadcast their reports. Photo by Karl Idsvoog. showed that these funds I left my job, as did were to be spent to my co-worker Alex check the list of people Kvatashidze, an editor and videog- the government—are not permitted who live below the poverty line, the rapher with whom I collaborated by the government to broadcast our so-called socially vulnerable people, on investigative projects. Along with stories nor do those who work at these even though this should have been the several colleagues, we founded Studio channels attend presentations we do responsibility of the national health Monitor, a production company, as a about our investigations. ministry. nongovernmental organization. Our In 2009 the Caucasus Research We obtained official documents con- independent status means there is Resource Center conducted a media cerning this program, and through our no censorship of our stories—by us survey in Georgia. It showed that 75 sources we later found out who these or by anyone else—nor is there any percent of people expressed a desire workers actually were—paid partisan topic that we avoid covering out of to have an opportunity to watch activists—and recorded interviews with fear. There are, however, topics we investigative stories on various topics. some of them. They explained how cannot investigate because we don’t We make our investigations available they signed agreements while sitting
1 Studio Monitor’s stories have been broadcast periodically on regional channel TV 25 in Batumi, Trialeti, Gori and Bolnisi.
28 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities in the offices of the ruling National facts only after appealing to the court. because our stories had impact. Since Party and how the party’s district heads By examining the judges’ declarations, we left Rustavi 2, Studio Monitor has gave them their tasks to be carried out we could see that the houses had been had a hard time building a wide audi- by Election Day, including bringing stated as being their own property. ence. Getting our stories seen by people National Party voters to the polls. remains a major challenge. Maestro TV Essentially, the mayor’s office hid this Barriers We Push Against now broadcasts our stories, but this political program from public scrutiny. channel is seen in only half of Tbilisi, Another investigation we did It is still a problem in Georgia for the capital city, and in several nearby involved five members of Parlia- reporters to gain access to public towns on cable. TV stations in a few ment who were also members of the information. Often we are able to other parts of the country broadcast National Party. After they purchased see public documents only after we them but they have limited regional designated park land on the outskirts go through the courts. Due to actions audiences. Broadcasting throughout of Tbilisi, the City Council annulled the government has taken to block the entire country is not likely to hap- the “recreation zone” status of the our access to public information, pen, and because of this our stories are park; this made it possible for these Studio Monitor is now involved in not able to influence public opinion; businessmen to get a permit to start six administrative court cases against if they did, we would be threatened. construction on the site. various public institutions; one of We are constantly looking for ways By changing the status of the park, these cases has been sent on to the to update and perfect our professional the City Council committed a grave European Court of Human Rights in skills through training courses. When violation of the law. We reached this Strasbourg, France. Add to this legal I was covering financial topics, for conclusion after analyzing documents situation the fact that databases on example, I did a two-month training we obtained from the City Council, the websites of public institutions are course in economics journalism at Ministry of Justice, Public Registry, very poor, and finding information California State University, Chico. and Civil Service Bureau. becomes even more difficult. Later the U.S. Embassy financed a In another investigative piece we Our financial resources are quite visit to Georgia by Karl Idsvoog, a examined what happened to $51 mil- precarious, which adds to our difficul- professor at Kent State University and lion that the government allocated ties, especially when one project is a trainer in investigative journalism. to assist with repairing housing for coming to an end while the next one We also took a course in digital media internally displaced people (IDP). is in the pre-approval stage. Our lack in which we learned how to produce Georgia has about 250,000 IDPs as of facilities makes it difficult for us to stories for different platforms—print, a result of the wars in neighboring implement several projects simultane- the Web, and mobile—and how to get Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We found ously; if we were able to work on more our information to potential viewers, out that authorities worked out special than one project at a time, this would listeners and readers. terms and conditions that resulted in make it easier for us when it comes We still need training in how to 20 companies being able to win these to obtaining funding. We receive all better use computer-assisted report- contracts—and, not surprisingly, the of our funding from international ing and how to work on cross-border majority of these firms turned out donors, such as the European Union investigative projects. Romanian to be financial contributors to the representative in Georgia, the Open journalist Paul Radu, co-founder of National Party. Society Georgia Foundation, the British the Romanian Center for Investigative After we obtained the financial Embassy, United States Embassy, and Journalism, recently came to Tbilisi and reports and bidding documents, we the Eurasia Partnership Fund. we discussed possibilities for collabo- checked the quality of the winning With support for our investigative rating with him. Crime and corruption firms’ work. Our report revealed work coming from donors outside of do not recognize state borders. If our breaches of the terms. Although their Georgia, Studio Monitor is able to investigative efforts remain focused work was of low quality, the companies remain free from internal political only in Georgia and we cannot actively have never been officially criticized nor and commercial pressures; this means talk with and share information with has any compensation been demanded we are not answerable in any way to reporters in other countries, then we from them. Georgian authorities or major busi- will no longer succeed in our mission In “Symbolic Gifts of the President,” ness groups. of uncovering corruption and bringing we investigated property that had been When we worked for the national our investigative stories about it to sold by order of President Mikheil TV company Rustavi 2 and we had public attention. n Saakashvili. He “gave” (sold) houses a program dedicated to investigative that ranged in price from $11,000 journalism, our stories were seen by the Nino Zuriashvili is the co-founder to $140,00 for $600 apiece to 10 largest number of people. Back then, of Studio Monitor, an independent judges who sit on the Constitutional we received death threats because of production company in Tbilisi, Court. This presidential decree was the stories we did and the danger of Georgia. confidential so we could obtain the violence against us was always high
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 29 Shattering Barriers
Hungarian Politics: Present in the Journalistic Mix ‘… it is not the journalists but politicians and the media owners with the circles of power behind them who decide the topics that can be covered and which stories can be published.’
By Tamás Bodoky
toy of political and economic interest groups; it is not the journalists but Many newspaper editors politicians and the media owners with the circles of power behind them who want to publish such stories, decide the topics that can be covered and which stories can be published. but political and financial Taboo topics vary among publica- limitations make it tough to do tions. Information is leaked as a way of discrediting political opponents or so since infotainment is more business competitors. Political opera- tives will leak minor corruption cases popular and less expensive or to reporters and editors with whom n Hungary, acting as watchdogs is risky than muckraking. they are close while at the same time new for journalists since it was only they engage (often together with their in the early 1990’s that the media political opponents) in large-scale Iemerged from tight political control. In corrupt financial dealings and join these 20 years, as we have transitioned forces with their foes in muzzling any to democracy—albeit with political par- from their daily routines to take on media outlet that begins to investigate ties maintaining a measure of control investigative projects. Many newspaper these big-time operations. This is one over the news media—some reporters editors want to publish such stories, but reason why numerous corruption cases have used investigative journalism to political and financial limitations make go undisclosed. disclose dubious dealings of the politi- it tough to do so since infotainment cal and economic elite. Spotlighting is more popular and less expensive or My Stories these crimes, however, has not led in risky than muckraking. And the nation’s most cases to consequences for the deep political divisions—echoed in the It’s hard to know precisely when dur- perpetrators, though it has for many allegiance of various publications to ing my 15-year career as a journalist journalists who have been censored, one political party or another—mean I became an investigative reporter. persecuted, sued or fired from their that news organizations that lean left At first I wrote about science and jobs for doing this type of reporting. mainly investigate issues that involve technology, but even then I was more Hungarian investigative journalism politicians and related businesses on interested in concealed stories than has no veterans. A talented reporter the right while those tilting to the right in press conferences. There were lasts only a few years at this kind of examine what the opposition is doing. plenty of secrets and lies on that beat; work and then, after being driven to In the past few years, the rightist copyright organizations supported by the edge of isolation and moral and media conglomerates have increased multinational entertainment industry financial annihilation, he or she goes their power and influence—and so companies employed crooked means, in search of “new challenges,” as the investigative journalism has focused, with the assistance of the Hungarian saying goes. for the most part, on dubious activi- police, to criminalize file exchanges Even with these difficulties and ties involving leftist politicians who and sharing services. Between 2004 abbreviated lifespan, investigative controlled the government until the and 2006 the National Office for journalism has taken root in the spring of 2010. In fact, this circum- Research and Technology distributed Hungarian print and electronic media. stance played a major role in the $250 million of taxpayers’ money A handful of nonprofit organizations, conservative party’s landslide victory in annually for research and develop- such as the Hungarian Civil Liberties parliamentary and municipal elections. ment partly on the basis of political Union (HCLU) and the József Göbölyös All of this means that investigative considerations instead of scientific “Soma” Foundation, offer support journalism doesn’t serve the public achievement and professional merit. to enable journalists to break away interest well. Instead, it has become a Earlier, in 2002 and 2003, taxpayers’
30 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Post-Communist Realities money from a different government to preventing environmental crime. the demonstrators; many innocent agency had been funneled through This became evident as I uncovered people were beaten up and suffered secret channels that were aimed at corruption in the institutions in charge devastating injuries. I found evidence the surveillance of and eavesdropping of environmental protection. I wrote that handcuffed people were physically on Internet communications. a series of articles disclosing corrup- abused at police stations and that the From such stories, it was a small tion and malpractice related to the police used false witnesses to bring to step for me to start investigating major licensing of a power plant that was court some young people who did not corruption scams. Readers could see going to be built on a Unesco World take part in any violent actions. By that I wasn’t afraid to go after danger- Heritage site and also unveiling the using a hidden voice recording inside ous subjects so they sent me the courthouse, I showed that a lot of tips, information and an attorney threatened people leaks. In the 1990’s, Hungary who testified against police was a place where the oil mafia officers. I also interviewed a could operate freely in selling riot police officer who told fuel bought from dubious me that political pressures led sources without paying taxes to the police violence during and customs duty. The oil mafia the riots. was closely associated with the One reason why this series political elite. I interviewed a received considerable atten- former member of the oil mafia tion—and the crimes had who sold fake documents in the consequences—was that the name of an oil broker company then-opposition political pow- with strong political ties and ers considered what happened wrote a story about it in 2008. to be important. This meant Since that time my colleague that I was regularly invited to on this story gave up her career be on their TV news program. as an investigative journalist Despite the numerous because she’d gone too far in awards I have received for trying to disclose the political my investigative reporting, the ties of the oil mafia and found recognition has not enabled me herself isolated and discredited Tamás Bodoky’s articles about unrest and police brutal- to work without confronting even by fellow journalists. ity in Hungary were published in a 2008 book. The title economic and political pres- In another case, the “wind of its English translation is “Trespasses.” Cover photo by sures. For nine years, I worked blew in through my open win- Szabolcs Barakonyi. for Index.hu, one of the most dow” a tax authority document read news portals in Hungary; used to blackmail the leader of during the last four years, I was Hungary’s largest bank in 2007. The economic and political lobbies behind allowed to focus fully on investigative blackmailers tried to extort approxi- a hydropower plant to be built on journalism. However, I had to quit after mately $60 million from him. I could conservation land in the Zemplén I wrote about a Spain-based company not get this article into the publication Mountains. The nature conservancy with close connections to the Hungar- where I worked at that time; I sold areas near Budapest have constantly ian government that was involved in a it to another media outlet, which was been under the threat of being used for major real estate swindle in Hungary. willing to publish it. Similarly, in 2009 the unscrupulous expansion of gated This company bought farmland for very I received a significant leak that led communities; a story I did disclosed low prices, had the land reclassified me to follow the complex route of that investors wanted to take control using corrupt practices, and gained approximately $150 million; the path of such a community in Magdolna immense profits from these operations. began with the state-owned electric Valley and its municipal budget. The However, the company did not stop company, went through a network of plan was vetoed at the last minute by there. It applied for and almost received hidden offshore companies and into a the then-president of Hungary. approximately $75 million in govern- hotel on the Croatian seashore, a wine The most wide-reaching conse- ment subsidies for the construction of cellar in Hungary, and other private quences of my investigative work a MotoGP racing track at Sávoly that enterprises. arose from a series of stories I wrote would never have turned profitable, I’ve dug into major corruption cases about the brutal violations the police according to independent analysts. I involving environmental pollution as committed during the anti-government filed a lawsuit against the state-owned well. As the red sludge disaster in demonstrations and riots in 2006. Hungarian Development Bank when it 2010 painfully demonstrated, Hun- Riot police illegally used telescopic denied access to the feasibility study gary does not pay enough attention batons and rubber bullets against for the proposed racetrack on which
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 31 Shattering Barriers
the government would guarantee its by government authorities, offices, is still pending. My articles also trig- loan. In information leaked to me, institutions and companies managing, gered a lawsuit against Index.hu, my I learned that high officials in the using or involving state property are former employer. Although I have never finance ministry had issued a written to be made accessible. So if officials been ruled against, often the threat warning that this construction was withhold information, reporters can file of a lawsuit is enough for Hungarian risky and illegal and disadvantageous a lawsuit. With the help of the HCLU, media companies to proactively post for the state. The socialist government I’ve filed and won several lawsuits and the demanded correction. backed off at the last moment, after I obtained concealed government data. The practice of bribing journalists succeeded in calling public attention There is censorship—and first and is also a major problem. Many com- to the case. Even though this particu- foremost self-censorship—related to panies offer journalists trips or gifts lar company had close ties with the political and economic pressures. But and a financial bonus for publishing then-opposition conservative parties investigative journalism is threatened or not publishing some information. and influential oligarchs, my editor in even more acutely by the shortage It is most challenging to deal with the chief cut important parts of my story of financial resources. Media owners more frequent financial and existential without any justification. Afterward he regard investigative journalism as an pressures that come from inside the refused my request for a guarantee in expensive and dangerous practice and editorial office or from the owners of my job contract that such intervention reporters who escape the daily routine the publication. with my stories would not happen of reporting news to spend weeks or There is some promising news in the again. I had to quit. months working on one story are not advancement of the digital media in So now I am a freelancer who pub- valued. Freelance journalists cannot Hungary. Websites and blogs broaden lishes articles in various publications. survive at even a subsistence level if the possibilities for investigative jour- My goal is to establish a nonprofit their primary concern is quality over nalists. When the mainstream media center for investigative journalism quantity. refuses to publish a story, journalists where I and other reporters can pub- Gaining access to important data- can still publish it online. With the lish investigative stories independent bases remains problematic. While popularity of social networks and viral of political and economic interests journalists can get free access to the marketing, stories often reach large and without bias. The public inter- Hungarian business register, there is audiences. But digital media can be est would be foremost, as happens a hefty charge for using the databases dangerous, too. While the number at American institutions such as the of the land registry offices. Access to of blogs dealing with public affairs is Center for Investigative Reporting information about foreign business increasing rapidly, the authenticity of and ProPublica that are models for services is also difficult, again due to their information often is questionable. this planned project. Already there relatively high fees. International coop- Many of the articles and posts are are several such nonprofit efforts in eration is not a strength of Hungarian biased or are filled, by intent, with the Balkans, including the Organized investigative journalists. Only a few of disinformation. Crime and Corruption Reporting them have a network of connections or Nevertheless, it is no longer possible Project (OCCRP). experience working across borders. In to stifle critical voices. Attempts to do fact, cooperation rarely occurs among so—such as the Hungarian govern- Threats to Investigative investigative journalists in Hungary ment’s recent and widely criticized Journalism and those in other European Union new media law—are doomed to fail. countries though corruption and The digital revolution has liberated As in other countries, investigative organized crime in Hungary thrives investigative journalism from the journalists in Hungary rely on a wide on its cross-border connections. restrictive oversight of mainstream variety of tools to access concealed Our personal safety as investigative media owners. The old media has to information. Although not everyone journalists is always a concern. With adapt to this new environment even if feels they should be used, there are the help of the OCCRP, I received basic for now the old reflexes of control and classic methods such as the secret training about what to do if I become constraint are still being exercised. n recording of images and sound, infil- the target of physical threats during tration and undercover operations. I my work. Unfortunately, I’ve had to Tamás Bodoky is a freelance investi- prefer to file freedom of information use the skills I learned there. Threats gative journalist based in Budapest, requests and lawsuits, if necessary, of legal consequences come our way, Hungary. Bodoky has won several against those who withhold public data. too, and these often succeed in scaring prizes for his investigative stories, Often concealed information is journalists away from investigating among them the Göbölyös Soma leaked. When this happens, all of sensitive issues; in Hungary, not only Prize, the Hungarian Pulitzer Memo- the consequences of publishing the the publication but the journalist can rial Prize, and the Iustitia Regnorum information are borne by the journalist. be sued for slander and defamation. Fundamentum Prize. At the same time, under Hungarian I recently won a lawsuit filed against law, documents related to activities me for libel and defamation. Another
32 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Shattering Barriers | Engaging the Next Generation
Out of Tragedy in Turkey Emerges a Journalistic Mission ‘The year after my father was murdered, our family founded the Ugur Mumcu Investigative Journalism Foundation … to encourage young people who are concerned about social problems and have ideals of hard work and humanity to enter the field of journalism.’
By Özge Mumcu
omeone—we still do not know as hundreds of thousands of people (“The Republic”), the newspaper he who—affixed a plastic bomb to marched in his funeral procession. worked for, he explored and exam- my father’s car, which exploded, After being trained as a lawyer and ined some of the toughest—and Skilling him. The day was January 24, spending a few years practicing law, most dangerous—issues of his day. 1993, and this assassination took a life Ugur Mumcu switched to journalism Regarded worldwide as an expert on dedicated to investigative journalism. in 1974. In the 25 books he wrote and international terrorism, my father, It also ignited an outpouring of grief in his articles published in Cumhuriyet with his pen alone, took on the topics
In January 1993 hundreds of thousands in Turkey mourned the assassination of investigative journalist Ugur Mumcu. The placard reads “Susmayacagız,” which means “We won’t remain silent.” Photo courtesy of Ugur Mumcu Investigative Journalism Foundation.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 33 Shattering Barriers
of corruption, mob rule, imperialism, Investigative Journalism Foundation change, diplomacy, law, economics, reactionary ideology, and terror. in Ankara, Turkey. The aim of the and the principles of human rights. He believed that remaining silent foundation is to spread the ideas and In the most recent program we paid or indifferent was “the crime of our principles my father lived by and to more attention to digital media and age,” and he received many awards encourage young people who are editorial work in TV than we have in for his willingness to the past. To demonstrate speak out in defense of what has been learned, democracy and human each student prepares rights. He was killed, it is a report—covering a believed, by the powerful news story with in- interests whose crimes depth information and he exposed. interviews. After their My father adhered to coursework is complete, one basic principle: “A they must pass an exami- murderer is a murderer, nation to gain access to no matter if from the internships at national right or left.” He pressed newspapers and TV for the investigation of channels. many murders regard- While there are a less of the political number of journalism affiliation of the victim schools in Turkey, young or whether a person was people usually learn on murdered for his convic- the job and not through tions or in an act of ter- a training program. No The nameplate in front of Turkish investigative journalist Ugur Mumcu ror. He dug for evidence such training is offered identified his location as “yolsuzluk masası” (“corruption desk”).Photo about terrorist groups in the private sector due courtesy of Ugur Mumcu Investigative Journalism Foundation. and their connections to the long hours that with weapons traffickers employees work and and he examined how media owners’ lack of these relationships played out in local concerned about social problems and interest in supporting such efforts. and international politics. And he have ideals of hard work and humanity The gap we are hoping to fill in the shared with the public the results of to enter the field of journalism. Its future is finding ways to unite our his investigations, involving the Kurds, guiding principle is the promotion young fellows with foreign reporters arms trafficking, corruption, foreign of freedom of expression as it carries so that we can encourage and support intelligence services, the mafia, and forth my father’s understanding of the cross-border reporting on the many the attempted assassination of Pope role and value of journalism. investigative stories that now demand John Paul II. Each year the foundation trains such an effort. Here are words my father wrote young people, who apply to be fellows, Funding for the foundation comes in May 1992: to become investigative journalists with from a variety of sources, including a three and a half month course of what we earn from giving seminars on … the journalist must write study. (The largest number of fellows creative writing, philosophy, photog- articles based on news, events, we’ve had at one time is nine.) In the raphy and political thought as well as concepts, documents and infor- 360 hours of intensive courses—taught workshops on documentary filmmak- mation, which requires the by about 50 academics and active ing. We also publish books, primarily journalist to be a reliable per- journalists—the fellows learn how to: my father’s works, but children’s books son. The journalist has to keep as well, and we teach courses for secrets … know how to keep the • Write a news story, especially one children. Some of our money comes sources of news and information with investigative elements from independent donations. confidential, and should dare to • Tell the difference between what Our hope is that we instill in dispute with the government and “can claim to be news” and what these fellows the courage to write powers when necessary. is not on forbidden topics and give them • Do investigative reporting. skills so their research and reporting will be grounded in intellectual argu- Training Young Journalists The last of the how-to lessons is ment and documentation. In Turkey, the most important so it is empha- maintaining editorial independence The year after my father was murdered, sized during the training. Other core is the key to determining what will our family founded the Ugur Mumcu lessons involve local politics, climate be reported as news. Looking to the
34 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation
United States, we see digital publica- and government bureaucrats. connections result in self-censorship tions like ProPublica—which describes Reporters Nedim Sener and Kemal being practiced by those who work in itself as “journalism in the public inter- Göktas experienced this when they the media—from reporters to top-level est”—and we realize how digital media researched their books about Hrant managers. can emphasize investigative reporting Dink, the Armenian editor in chief What we achieve at the foundation and be seen as the exit strategy from of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper honors my father’s life and work as the mainstream news organizations, Agos, who was assassinated in Istan- it constructs a continuum between which sometimes won’t take on those bul in January 2007 by a Turkish the principles he died upholding and kinds of stories. At our foundation we nationalist. Also seen as “inconvenient” the ones we, as journalists in Turkey, are using digital tools to research and is the coverage of topics that involve need to abide by even in what remain publish information (on our “Social corruption, such as reporting about difficult times. n Memory Platform”) about victims of the Deniz Feneri (“Lighthouse”) case assassination in Turkey, including the involving the transfer of donations from Özge Mumcu is coordinator and a unsolved case of my father. the Germany-based charity to officials board member of the Ugur Mumcu To do this kind of reporting in in the ruling Justice and Development Investigative Journalism Foundation Turkey, digital media are essential. Party (AK Party) government or the and a writer for the independent The country’s political atmosphere Kurdish situation, as it relates to the news portal t24.com.tr. In writing still oppresses those who advocate Kurdistan Workers Party and the this article, she received invaluable freedom, including freedom of the Turkish Hizbullah. assistance from Mehmet Ayfer Kanci, press, and Turkey has not reconciled Pressure on investigative report- who volunteers at the foundation with its military past. Those jour- ers also comes from media owners and is an editor at the TV channel nalists, for example, who set out to because of close relationships the TRT Turk. With his 16 years of jour- investigate unsolved murder cases in owners develop with those who serve nalism experience, Kanci provided which political motives are suspected in government. These owners often essential information about recent of being in play often find themselves run other businesses as well and face news media practices in Turkey. under pressure from political parties pressures from the ruling party. The
A Bulgarian Reporter’s Journey Traces a Nation’s Progress Once beaten and tried in court for his investigative reporting, Stanimir Vaglenov now teaches young journalists and manages uncensored Internet projects for the nation’s leading news group.
By Stanimir Vaglenov
y career as a journalist began a vital role in the development of my I could write these investigative at the same time the Berlin career as a journalist. Soon after the articles because, as a citizen, I felt Wall came down. It was in dictatorship collapsed I felt I could play I was playing a part in the effort to M1989 so this was a time when demo- a valuable role in bringing forth the overthrow the government. In this cratic changes were starting to happen democratic principles that my country way, I lost any fear of authority. I in formerly Communist countries, had lacked for decades—freedom of have survived because of the kind of including my own—Bulgaria. When I speech, the rights of citizens, and the experience and outlook that I have was working on my first stories as a promotion of independent journal- acquired in more than 20 years of journalist, I also participated in two ism. Years later when I was teaching being a journalist in a country where student strikes. And I witnessed the investigative journalism to younger the ambition for change overcomes overthrow of two Communist govern- colleagues and college students, they the pressures of fear. ments and the removal of a president would read my stories and ask: How Is it dangerous to be a journalist appointed by the Communists. could you possibly still be alive after in Bulgaria? Yes, it is: Fail to watch The overlap of these events played writing this? your step and your health might be
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 35 Shattering Barriers
about this group after I had conducted a series of investigations. The lawsuit I have survived because of the kind of filed against me went on for months. At that time it was impossible for experience and outlook that I have acquired a journalist to demand and acquire in more than 20 years of being a journalist official information in connection with an investigation. Additionally, in a country where the ambition for change the telecommunications company director barred me from the central overcomes the pressures of fear. office building. Even so, I had at my disposal reliable sources who supplied documents from telecommunication equipment auctions. These documents clearly showed how companies whose damaged—or you could lose your for my health. offers were far from the most favor- life. On several occasions after an Shortly after the incident I moved to able won the auctions because of the investigation I did was published, Sofia, the capital, where it is generally corruption built into the selection I took some time away, including safer for journalists. Still, for a year procedures. traveling abroad. I would stay away I received 10 threats that I would be In the course of those several until the primary danger had passed. taken to court in my hometown because months, I described with exact num- To this day, I seek to have a flexible of my stories. None turned into an bers the mechanisms of corruption and schedule for leaving home or work actual lawsuit. They were just ways of defended my journalistic disclosures so as to impede the organization of warning me that if I wanted to have a in court. In December 1996 the top a possible attack. Yes, Bulgaria is still family and lead a normal life, I should officials of the Socialist government a considerably dangerous place for stop writing about certain people. resigned, followed by the collapse of the journalists, but the dangers are not In Sofia, threats followed the publi- Orion friendship circle and its power. the same as reporters would find in cation of almost every story I did, and This is how I managed to fairly easily Iraq, for example. over the course of a couple years, I was win the first court case against me. When I went to Iraq months after taken to court on three occasions. The In 1997 Iliya Pavlov, the boss of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, hardest period of time—packed with Multigroup, the biggest private enter- I worked in a precarious environment threats and court cases—was between prise in the country, threatened—via for which one can hardly prepare, not 1994 and 2002. an official message he sent to all of to mention the difficulty of ensur- I definitely do not consider myself the nation’s news media—to sue me. ing one’s safety. Danger arrives with a hero nor am I a journalist who has His legal action was in response to an randomness. In Bulgaria reporters been severely pressured. I am more analytical piece I had done about how usually have the opportunity to assess of a typical representative of the the Russian interest in gas, which he the situation and decide how far to go journalistic guild from the transition represented at the time, was not in with their investigation. years in Bulgaria. In those times, a accordance with the Bulgarian national In 1994 I was the victim of a physical significant number of my colleagues interest. By chance, this threat of a attack. It happened in my hometown have been put on trial, become victims lawsuit happened on my birthday, of Stara Zagora where I worked for of physical encounters, been fired, or and the managers of 24 Chasa (“24 nearly a year after graduating from the were pursued. Hours”), the newspaper I was working university. I wrote an article in which for at the time, as a joke gave me a I was critical of a nightclub that was Fighting Lawsuits present of a striped shirt so I could be notorious for drug distribution and ready for jail. In these ways, we tried underage prostitution. The owner had In 1996 I found myself in court for to overcome the stress of a potential good contacts in the local underground the first time. The person who headed claim for a large amount of money, world and a close relative at the local the state telecommunications company which could cause serious trouble for police department who was chief of had sued me. I had written in my our newspaper. the department in charge of the fight stories that he was part of a criminal At that time Bulgarian law allowed against organized crime. That is why group that was extremely close to the journalists to go to jail for stories they he thought he was untouchable. After Socialist government then in power. published; this law is something we my story was published, the nightclub’s This group, which the news media have since managed to change through owner tried to buy up the print run of called “the Orion friendship circle,” had social pressure. But thanks to the this regional newspaper. Later, three of permeated state authority on multiple managers of 24 Chasa, Multigroup’s his bodyguards attacked and beat me levels and drained state resources legal threat was overcome without but without any serious consequences through various schemes. I had written any serious backlash. It was not a
36 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation secret that Pavlov was connected to the most dangerous criminal groups in Bulgaria. Years later he managed to acquire American citizenship, and in March 2003, on one of his rare visits to Bulgaria, he was shot to death in front of his office in Sofia by a sniper. In 1997 I was back in court again when the boss of a security company, who was also part of the Orion friend- ship circle, took legal action against me. For two years he pursued me with lawsuits because of a story that described how he pressured innocent people to leave their private property. He lost this legal fight. Soon after, this man was arrested and prosecuted for his participation in the murder of the former Bulgarian Prime Min- ister Andrey Lukanov. He received The funeral of wealthy Bulgarian businessman Iliya Pavlov, who was shot to death by a a life sentence, which another court sniper in front of his office in Sofia, Bulgaria.Photo by 24 Chasa/Bulgaria. repealed, and he is now free. A public prosecutor who had deprived scores of people of justice initiated the most grueling court case I created a personal website. When I extremely important in helping me to against me after I wrote about his disagreed with my editor’s decision, I learn more about the guidelines for actions. Even though the Supreme had a place to publish those stories, investigative journalism. In 2003 my Court Council imposed due penalty along with the ones that the newspaper book, “Toppling the Government: 100 on this prosecutor, it did not prevent did publish. There were times when Stories of an Investigative Journalist,” her from filing lawsuits against me I agreed with my editor that my life became the first book about investiga- for two and a half years. I prevailed would be in danger if we published tive journalism published in Bulgaria. because of the competence of my the story, and so I would not publish The next year I compiled and edited a defense lawyer and the support of my those on the website either. report for Transparency International newspaper’s publisher. Through the years I have par- about journalistic investigations by ticipated in a number of investigative Bulgarian nongovernmental organiza- Gaining Skills journalism trainings in Bulgaria con- tions. The U.S. Agency for International ducted primarily by foreign journalists. Development funded the investigations In 1997 I started using databases In 2001 I made a presentation at and the report. as I worked primarily in analyzing the Global Investigative Journalism Between 2004 and 2006 I partici- information from company registers. Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark; pated in the BBC’s Technical Assistance This reporting tool made it possible I took part in the second conference for Improving Professional Standards for me to discover connections between in Copenhagen in 2003 as well as of Journalism project as a local trainer. businessmen, politicians and organized the third one in 2005 in Amsterdam, Through this project, nearly 600 crime. I gradually incorporated into the Netherlands. In the course of all Bulgarian journalists and media work- my work more advanced database three conferences, I attended train- ers received training in investigative reporting and the classification of ing workshops on computer-assisted reporting. I also co-taught a course in information in Excel spreadsheets. reporting and these have proven to investigative journalism (with a focus For a number of reasons, however, be hugely significant to my work. on new media) at Sofia University. some of the journalistic investiga- In 2002 the U.S. State Department The development and teaching of this tions I did between 1997 and 2008 invited me to attend a month-long course was financed by the Embassy of were not published in the newspaper. training in investigative journalism the Netherlands from 2008 to 2010. Sometimes this was because the people in the United States, where I visited During this time I also started or companies I had investigated were the editorial offices of leading news to seek support outside of Bulgaria too powerful and they made aggressive organizations in Seattle, Minneapolis, for my reporting and to engage with threats against the newspaper and Philadelphia, New York, Washington reporters from other countries on me. The decision was made by the and other cities. cross-border projects. For more than editor in chief. This is why in 1998 My visit to the United States was five years I have worked with Scoop,
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 37 Shattering Barriers
a valuable support program financed executive director of the Information fective judicial system, which fails to in part by the Ministry of Foreign and Online Services Department at provide a legal environment that is Affairs in Denmark for Eastern Euro- the Newspaper Group Bulgaria, which sufficiently protective of the rights of pean investigative journalists. Scoop is the company managing the biggest Bulgarian journalists. provided vital support for journalists newspapers and magazines in Bulgaria. Just a few weeks before I wrote in Bulgaria and the Balkans at a very I am responsible for the Newspaper these words I was in court, but this difficult time. [See Henrik Kaufholz’s Group’s Internet projects, including time as a witness. A colleague of mine article about Scoop on page 43.] Bulgaria’s two biggest news websites, had a lawsuit filed against her for a Since 2006 I have worked on www.24chasa.bg and www.trud.bg. story she wrote about an employee projects with other journalists through With these new management at the Ministry of Justice who was the Organized Crime and Corruption responsibilities, I have had to con- fired because of corruption. What she Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is siderably reduce the number of had reported is true, but she was in a highly effective network of Balkan- investigations in which I can take court having to defend her story. A based investigative journalists. For a part. However, my positions allow me lot of Bulgarian journalists have faced cross-border project on the Balkan to upload stories—without censorship similar situations, and many of them energy market as it confronted new of any kind—to our websites, which end up being found guilty. While the economic circumstances, I provided the receive a combined total of more than situation is much better than it was necessary information from Bulgaria. 100,000 visits daily. And I do this years ago, it remains dangerous for I continue to work with OCCRP. working with a team of talented young investigative reporters to do their work In 2006 and 2007 I prepared journalists who are mastering the in this country. n annual reports (“Reporter’s Notebook minutest details of investigative jour- for Bulgaria”) describing the levels of nalism. I am studiously transforming Stanimir Vaglenov is the founder corruption in Bulgaria as part of a myself from a traditional journalist to of the Bulgarian Investigative project of Global Integrity, an inde- a digital media professional as I strive Journalism Center and the execu- pendent information provider based to continually apply new technologies tive director of the Information and in Washington, D.C. I also prepared to my investigations as well as figure Online Services Department at the anti-corruption reports for this same out how to best use multimedia for a Newspaper Group Bulgaria in Sofia. center in 2008 and 2010. more effective presentation. He was awarded the Global Shining Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, I established Today I feel that journalism in Light Award at the Global Inves- the Bulgarian Investigative Journalism Bulgaria can be conducted in the tigative Journalism Conference in Center that was launched at the start same way as it is in Western Europe Toronto, Canada for his work on the of 2008. Through this center I am able or the United States. What creates a OCCRP cross-border project about the to work collaboratively with investiga- distinction is the substantial lack of Balkan energy market. tive journalism centers throughout the resources for Bulgarian journalists. world. And I’ve assumed the role of Another problem remains the inef-
Questioning the Western Approach to Training ‘International journalism training can have the feel of a quite rigid, institutionalized sense of what must be done even while operating in an environment of increasing contingency and dynamic change … ’
By James Miller
alter Lippmann complained Lippmann observed acidly in his book Lippmann considered making in 1919 that American jour- “Liberty and the News,” and wonder training in schools of journalism a nalists were doing the work how nations that thought themselves to requirement for the job. But what he Wof “preachers, revivalists, prophets and be self-governing “provided no genuine really wanted, philosophically, was to agitators.” They reported the news training schools for the [journalists] model the practice of journalism on “by entirely private and unexamined upon whose sagacity they were de- science, which had successfully har- standards.” People would look back, pendent.” nessed the “discipline of modernized
38 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation
somewhat self-defensive accreditation documents on “missions and purposes” … this is a time of unprecedented international and “viability” in the “university of the efforts to codify and inculcate Western-style news future.” The University of Colorado recently moved to “discontinue” its reporting and editing … in places quite different (accredited) School of Journalism and Mass Communication for failing to from American newsrooms and classrooms, with resolve tensions between journalistic nothing like the journalistic or political-cultural skills training and the conduct of media research. history of North America and Western Europe. Western Aid—Western Media
This unsettled history makes no appearance in the confident realm logic.” Decades later, Bill Kovach and lament, however, American journalism of international journalism training. Tom Rosenstiel, in “The Elements of education was already taking root in There, a surprisingly idealized version Journalism,” were still pursuing the pragmatic public universities. Newspa- of mainstream journalism has been same possibly illusive end, encourag- per publishers were giving their names actively promoted for decades. The ing newspeople to adopt the rigor of and money to establish such schools at export of media in the American style their five “intellectual principles of a private institutions. Training and occu- was a hallmark of Cold War modern- science of reporting.” pational enrichment programs began. ization theory. Then, as now, develop- If the dream of a scientific journal- Lippmann himself helped convince ment experts sought to replicate the ism has yet to be fulfilled, the more Harvard to use the unexpected Nieman U.S. media system, claiming it to be prosaic of Lippmann’s visions seems bequest in the late 1930’s to offer a a necessary means of democratization. to have been realized. By 2000, so mid-career fellowship for journalists. The return to Europe of former many young American journalists had After the war, publishers established Communist countries in the 1990’s majored in journalism or communi- the American Press Institute to give was a watershed opportunity for North cations that the degree had become advanced training to their employees. American and Western European train- in effect a necessary condition for In the 1970’s publisher Nelson Poynter ers of “free and independent news.” a reporting or editing job. In addi- created his own idiosyncratic training Later, Western journalism training tion, this is a time of unprecedented school, which became the influential became part of post-conflict, “peace- international efforts to codify and Poynter Institute. building” interventions in Southeastern inculcate Western-style news report- If there is a hodgepodge feel to Europe and Africa. It can now be found ing and editing—to train on a global the development of American jour- nearly everywhere in the developing scale what its proponents assertively nalism education and training, its world. Media assistance more generally, call “world journalism”—in places quite one persistent, overarching theme is which includes creating an “enabling different from American newsrooms the jealous desire for the status of a environment” of privately owned, and classrooms, with nothing like the profession, like medicine and law, for advertising-supported media, freedom journalistic or political-cultural history the realization of a science of journal- of expression laws, and technological of North America and Western Europe. ism. Yet, from the start there was “capacity building” as well as journal- There is the obvious irony that sharp debate, inside and outside the ism schools has become so extensive these achievements occur at the very academy, about whether and how to that a German scholar, Christoph moment of mainstream journalism’s educate and train. In 1993 journalist Dietz, recently produced a 30-page great unraveling—jobs grown scarce, Michael Lewis famously dismissed “the bibliographic guide to 20 years of widespread doubt about the very entire pretentious science of journal- literature on the subject.1 purpose and nature of news, and ism” taught in the now nearly 500 Clearly, global journalism training is amateurism celebrated, all an implicit schools and departments of journal- today an established part of Western challenge to the notion of training in ism. The two principal associations of foreign aid, well funded though little a canon of ethics and practice. U.S. journalism educators have issued, discussed and hardly visible beyond Around the time of Lippmann’s during the last 25 years, a series of the circle of what Ellen Hume, an
1 Christoph Dietz’s bibliography “International Media Assistance: A Guide to the Literature 1990-2010,” was prepared for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and Forum Medien und Entwicklung (FoME) symposium, “The ‘Fourth Estate’ in Democracy Assistance,” held in November 2010.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 39 Shattering Barriers
Media Assistance on the Global Stage
The intertwined, global array of The Organization for Security and cation Council involves 29 academic media assistance funders and imple- Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) organizations that have met twice menters has become almost too representative on freedom of the to address common issues. Unesco complex to describe. Money comes media monitors the Caucasus and has published “a generic model” from international organizations Central Asia for conformity to of journalism education curricula, (e.g., the World Bank, Unesco, U.N. Western media standards, holds and then there is a Global Forum Development Program), founda- instructional conferences, and issues for Media Development that claims tions (John S. and James L. Knight, prescriptive reports. a membership of 500 nongovern- Open Society, Eurasia, Ford, John The Center for International mental organizations operating in D. and Catherine T. MacArthur) Media Assistance (CIMA), founded 100 countries. Its current chair is and national development agencies with U.S. State Department money the president of the International (USAID and its counterparts in at the National Endowment for Center for Journalists (ICFJ), which Sweden, Denmark and the United Democracy in Washington, D.C., is funded mainly by U.S. founda- Kingdom). Some organizations such has become a central node in this tions and the U.S. government. It as the International Research & network, producing numerous produces newsletters, sends working Exchanges Board (IREX) get money studies, hosting events, celebrating journalists into the field, arranges from funders and invite project pro- “media visionaries,” and advocat- exchanges of U.S. journalists and posals from trainer-implementers. ing the view that the “professional foreign journalists, publishes how-to Internews and the BBC World skills of journalists are probably the manuals, and offers online instruc- Service Trust are more likely to do most-recognized measure of media tion. n—J.M. both of these elements themselves. quality.” The World Journalism Edu-
Annenberg Fellow in Civic Media does one produce a Woodward and fessed standards and actual practice by at Central European University who Bernstein?” and considers performance showing how mainstream investigative has written several reports on inter- evaluation that examines “the impact journalists pretend to let facts speak national training efforts, approvingly on a per-story basis.” On the one hand, for themselves, while hiding their own called its “media missionaries.” [See this is pretty instrumental and formu- moral judgments behind an ironic accompanying box for descriptions of laic. On the other, the expectations are discursive style. funders of and programs for global extraordinary: The report says modern The stories in this issue of Nieman media training.] muckraking is nothing less than “an Reports are the work of industrious International journalism training important force in promoting rule of people, actively engaged in political can have the feel of a quite rigid, law and democratization.” change, putting themselves in real institutionalized sense of what must America’s own history of investiga- danger. But are they journalists? Is be done even while operating in an tive reporting, like that of journalism their work “investigative journalism” environment of increasing contingency education, is less tidy. In his paper or maybe some variety of post- and dynamic change—perhaps yester- “A Muckraking Model: Investigative journalism? Is it mainly an expres- day’s solutions to tomorrow’s problems. Reporting Cycles in American History,” sion of highly local knowledge, often In “Global Investigative Journalism: Mark Feldstein explains its major gathered on its own terms, using its Strategies for Support,” a report issued appearances (in national magazines own means? Did the writers require by the Center for International Media early in the 20th century and in metro- Western training programs? Assistance (CIMA) in 2007, such politan dailies during the fabled 1960’s) training efforts were described as the as the serendipitous convergence of Thinking Differently descendants of American muckraking’s a literate, politically attentive public, “vital tradition” that “has now spread and a commercially competitive media After thinking over the prospect of worldwide.” CIMA wants more of this, environment in which uncovering journalism education, Lippmann but only through additional training malfeasance is good business. James rejected it, saying of newsmaking to ensure “standards and quality,” S. Ettema and Theodore L. Glasser, in that “There is a very small body of professionalized behavior, and even the their book, “Custodians of Conscience: exact knowledge, which it requires no proper use of the term investigative Investigative Journalism and Public outstanding ability or training to deal reporting. The report wonders, “How Virtue,” reveal the gap between pro- with. The rest is in the journalist’s
40 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation own discretion.” An overstatement, the world in genuinely human terms. sidelines. The large-scale exportation even then, but now almost an anthem Fuller recommends the active of mainstream Western journalistic for the entrepreneurs at home who development of a new, more flexible ethics and practices today brings to are daily inventing replacements for journalistic “rhetoric” that draws mind Marshall McLuhan’s famous the mainstream news practices that creatively from alternative, even admonition against driving into the most international journalism training non-news forms like cinema, memoir, future while looking in the rearview persistently advocates abroad. long-form radio, and the tabloids. Here, mirror. n Another contemporary view, unex- Fuller takes a position much more pectedly from inside journalism’s akin to the experimental practices of James Miller is visiting professor establishment, urges the need for a entrepreneurial journalists than to at the Center for the Study of basic reconsideration of what con- the idealizations of training. And his Global Media and Democracy at stitutes reporting and how best to preferred means to prepare aspiring Goldsmiths, University of London, prepare reporters to do it. Jack Fuller, journalists sounds surprisingly like a and professor of communications the widely experienced newspaperman rich liberal arts education. at Hampshire College. His writing who became president of the Tribune Lippmann hoped for a science of on media assistance includes the Publishing Company, devotes a chapter journalism, but concluded that at its chapter “Retelling the News in to the conflicted science of journalism best it was creative work that eluded Central Europe: Western Journalism in his 2010 book “What Is Happening instruction in fixed routines and formu- as Democratic Discourse” in the book to News: The Information Explosion las. Fuller, nearly a century later, sees “Nationalist Myths and Modern and the Crisis in Journalism.” Having the adoption of these same rigidities as Media,” published in 2005 by Tauris, discovered the findings of cognitive a source for the decline of mainstream and “NGOs and ‘Modernization’ science, Fuller believes that the Stan- journalism. There will be journalisms, and ‘Democratization’ of Media,” dard Model of Professional Journalism plural, in the near future—new, post- published in the journal Global repressed what he calls emotion at and even anti-journalism—displacing Media and Communication in 2009. great cost to its capacity to represent familiar conventions of the news to the
Where Western Perceptions Clash With Eastern European Realities ‘In the Balkan context, what Westerners call corruption is seen as the customary tool of political organization.’
By Drew Sullivan
n 2000, I arrived in Sarajevo, the local celebrities. in so many ways. My journey from tumbledown, war-torn capital of My job was to train reporters, and I naïve and altruistic trainer to edi- Bosnia and Herzegovina. On a figured I could do that without having tor who oversees local investigative Ibrief hiatus from my reporting for a clear understanding of the environ- stories on organized crime has been The Tennessean, my two-week training ment in which they work. Or so I long and sometimes painful. Altering assignment seemed straightforward thought. Eleven years later I am still in the perceptions I arrived with proved and simple to perform. Sarajevo has Sarajevo part time advising the Center to be my biggest challenge. It should always seemed like Roman Polanski’s for Investigative Reporting (CIN), have been obvious, but it had never Chinatown—an inscrutable land where which I started in 2004. I also work occurred to me that American journal- bad things happened, and if you asked as an editor on the Organized Crime ism is unique and is only practiced in about them, the explanations seldom and Corruption Reporting Project, a the United States. It was forged out made sense. Corruption was rampant. regional consortium of investigative of our history, culture, politics and Crime lords with colorful names like centers founded to tackle the issue of economy. While it is a business, its Caco (pronounced “Satso”), Celo organized crime. practitioners also have a public service (“Cheylo”), and Gasi (“Gashi”) were My thinking back then was wrong responsibility. Democracy—with its
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 41 Shattering Barriers
need for a fourth estate This arrangement to fight corruption, hold undermines journal- government account- istic standards in this able, and educate its country and other coun- citizenry—is intrinsic tries in the region with to our journalism. similar dynamics. If But democracy, as income and credibility we know it in America, are not connected with isn’t yet working here. fairness, accuracy and Consequently, in the readability but with Balkans, journalism is political and financial a different beast. Those relationships, then the who are involved in workplace standards journalism act as play- don’t need to be high. ers in the political pro- Rather than being cess. Most editors and seen as a bad thing, publishers see them- organized crime is seen selves as serving the as just another actor in political establishment the political process. by hosting a dialogue Crime figures here are with the political elite smart in how they build about what is best for connections to powerful the country. The idea of political parties and The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium of serving the public inter- oligarchs. Some provide investigative centers, brings together journalists on cross-border stories. est is a distant second inexpensive loans to since unfortunately the politically connected public really doesn’t businesses, which serve matter. Power resides solely (and those holds the expectation that resources to launder their money and increase who hold it hope permanently) with will be fairly distributed. The spoils go their political influence. It can be the political elite so direct engagement to the winners, and therefore people difficult sometimes to separate who with them is seen as the most effective are not trying to change the system. is a criminal, who is an oligarch, who media strategy to bring about change. They are trying to belong to it. is a politician or, as is often the case, This difference in perception who is all three. changes everything. When the audi- Independent Media? ence and the owners belong to the My Training as Editor political elite, not only does it change The words “independent media” mean what stories get reported but it also very little in the region. Independent When I became an editor and had to changes how they are written or of what, people would ask. In Bal- work with journalists reporting stories, produced. Few feature stories about kan countries, almost all business my real training began. For one thing, ordinary citizens are done because is still determined by politics so no communication was an issue. Under- journalists and politicians regard one is truly independent. Almost all standing someone’s words did not mean them as irrelevant. Storytelling and media—organizations and journal- that I understood the importance they background context mean less to a ists—have political connections either held. It took years before reporters group of insiders so stories are often directly through the political parties really understood what I was trying unintelligible to ordinary readers. or indirectly through oligarchs and to say and, in turn, before I could see Instead, it is no surprise that most of organized crime. Political parties things through their eyes. Gradually, the Balkan news media tend to feature sponsor some of them and the ruling however, the “Chinatown effect” lost event-driven political stories about the party controls state media. The busi- the power of its mystery so that I was daily theater of Balkan politics. ness elite and the politicians operate able to understand why people acted Corruption also means something the advertising market. News media as they did and, importantly, I became different. Westerners think of cor- that survive in the region do so not able to predict their behavior. ruption as the (often illegal) use of through the quality of what they pro- In the beginning, it seemed as resources for the benefit of the few duce but through the nurturing and though people seemed to lie a lot to at the expense of the many. In the maintaining of connections with this me. I took offense, as many Americans Balkan context, what Westerners call elite. A nongovernmental organization tend to do. But I eventually realized corruption is seen as the customary like CIN is considered by many to be that to survive in a country ruled by tool of political organization. No one an agent of foreign powers. one party, people sometimes had to lie
42 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation to survive. Often it was not expected that many reporters relied on political will appear in the mainstream media. that the lie would be believed but just parties for their documents and seldom It is obviously very dangerous to accepted. had sources outside of their personal report on organized crime. While we I also clashed with reporters on contacts. However, when pushed, they have developed sophisticated ways stories. What I considered to be a proved very resourceful in getting all to protect our reporters, sometimes story, my reporters sometimes did sorts of data. I have even come to they don’t follow these procedures. not. Politics was news and was seen believe that when a reporter develops Such reporting can be done safely but to influence everything. Few reporters the necessary skills it is easier to secure exercising good judgment and sticking were interested in the plight of minori- government records in Eastern Europe to the ground rules is essential. ties, the working poor, and pensioners. than in the United States. Where we have succeeded is in Ordinary people were seldom included Despite the low standards evident bringing together a number of like- in stories and how an issue affected in most of the region’s news media, minded journalists who have the them was rarely reported. Instead, the reporters themselves proved to desire to expose corruption and reveal members of the political elite set the be as adept as journalists anywhere. the activities of organized crime fig- news agenda and were the ones who When given the resources and motiva- ures—all in an effort to inform the were quoted and portrayed in stories. tion—and with strict standards put in public. The standards remain a little There were other challenging dif- place—the reporters I have worked different than in Western newsrooms ferences. For example, politicians with were able to turn out great work and often stories don’t read as ones might squander public resources while that won international awards, even done by U.S. reporters would. But enriching themselves but technically when competing with U.S. journalists. given where we started—and where their actions were not illegal. As a We still face many problems. Fund- we are today—I would say that our consequence, many reporters felt this ing for media nonprofits is limited, approach is working. n was not a story because the activities even though potential donors recognize were not illegal. I invented the term that nonprofits are the only indepen- Drew Sullivan co-founded the “legal corruption” to address these cases dent source of news and information Organized Crime and Corruption and change the reporters’ perceptions. for citizens. Given the realities and Reporting Project where he served as Reporters warned me that it would sensitivities of the elite, many news- director and is now advising editor. be difficult to get the information we papers will not run politically sensitive He founded the Center for Investiga- needed to do investigative work. Free- stories. If reporters write about an tive Reporting in Sarajevo in 2004 dom of information laws are weak in oligarch in places like Serbia, Kosovo and still advises the center on a the region. But the bigger problem was or Azerbaijan, it is unlikely the story part-time basis.
An Idea Born Out of Necessity—And It Works! ‘Journalists who have promising ideas for investigations but work for news organizations with few resources apply for support.’
By Henrik Kaufholz
t was the spring of 2002 and a should be evident by now. Journalists— When she met a fact-finding mis- young Ukrainian woman named if not the public they serve—should be sion from the Danish nonprofit Inter- Valentyna Telychenko was puzzled. able to see signs of improvement at national Media Support (IMS) that IWhy, she wondered, do Ukrainian least in the standards of journalistic summer, Telychenko asked a logical journalists still perform so poorly? practice. But she didn’t find any when question: Is it possible to establish a After all, millions of dollars had been she analyzed the effect of the training project in which journalists can use spent bringing trainers to teach jour- and exchange programs for a Western the skills they are being taught? Her nalists in this former Soviet republic donor. Despite the investment of tens question emerged out of a number of and sending Ukrainian journalists to of millions of dollars, she found that conversations with journalists who had the United States and Western Europe the quality of journalists’ work was received Western-funded training. A so they could visit news organizations as bad as before the money started to frequent comment was “Oh yes, I would and learn from them. flow. Her conclusion—that money was love to have that opportunity, but my Telychenko knew that changes being wasted—was not well received. newspaper (or radio or TV station) has
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 43 Shattering Barriers
the participating countries. Separate committees oversee Russia and the Global Investigative Journalism Conference Caucasus. Each committee develops guidelines and operating plans; Kiev, Ukraine, October 2011 applications for funding are handled on the local level by coordinators for The Global Investigative Journal- each participating nation or region. ism Conference (GIJC), which now The native journalists are paid a small attracts more than 500 journalists annual stipend; the Scandinavian from more than 50 countries, has journalists are volunteers. been held every 18 to 24 months We promote a peer-to-peer approach since 2001. At this gathering, expand and strengthen the global so reporters and editors involved with journalists, many of whom con- network of investigative reporters Scoop are in contact with working front serious challenges in their and create a network for Russian- Western reporters and editors but reporting, share experiences and speaking reporters. More informa- they pursue stories on their own. perspectives and absorb new tech- tion and registration materials Scoop coordinators don’t rewrite or niques. This year for the first time can be found at www.gijc2011.org, edit stories and they do very little the GIJC will be held in Eastern and information about the work coaching. Information about published Europe, in the Ukrainian capital of this global network is at www. stories, along with links to them, of Kiev from October 13-16. One globalinvestigativejournalism.org. appear on Scoop’s website. Every goal of the 2011 conference is to n—H.K. Scoop-supported story is subject to a legal review before it is published or broadcast. Scoop has only been sued once (in Moldova) and it prevailed. Scoop supports small investigations no money.” So once the trainers left or 25 of them have won awards in their that are of national interest—many the reporter returned from overseas, own nations or internationally. of which have a budget of less than there was no opportunity to practice $1,300. But it also funds investigations what had been learned. How Scoop Works involving teams from several coun- IMS took this finding back to the tries and some of these cross-border Danish Association for Investigative The way we work at Scoop is quite projects have received grants of more Journalism (Foreningen for Undersø- simple: Journalists who have promis- than $53,000. With globalization gende Journalistik, FUJ). It had already ing ideas for investigations but work well under way, it is imperative that partnered with Investigative Reporters for news organizations with few reporters’ investigative efforts assume and Editors in establishing the Global resources apply for support. Mostly global dimensions as well. Investigative Journalism Conference, Scoop provides financial support, but To summarize, Scoop’s key operating next being held in Kiev, Ukraine this because it is part of an international principles are: October. [See accompanying box about network journalists can also find the upcoming conference.] expertise; partners, if needed; and • Support local investigative projects Hearing from Telychenko about back-up assistance, in case they get • Step in when journalists ask for the challenges facing journalists in into trouble. our assistance but do not order Ukraine, FUJ and IMS decided in Scoop was designed to be a support investigations or ask that specific January 2003 to create Scoop, an structure for journalists. It is not in the issues be researched organization to support the efforts of business of building centers, creating • Promote the peer-to-peer approach investigative reporters in places like associations, or providing training. of journalists working with Ukraine, where internal support is Reporters are creating nonprofit journalists limited or nonexistent. Scoop is now centers for investigative reporting in • Establish regional networks to pro- active in 13 countries in the Balkans and their countries, and we offer support mote transnational investigations. Eastern Europe and has been involved for their efforts. Scoop’s mission is to in establishing similar organizations in respond to the local needs of investi- Has Scoop been worth the many the Middle East (Arab Reporters for gative journalists so if training is the millions that the Neighbourhood Pro- Investigative Journalism, ARIJ) and local need, then Scoop offers it, or, in gramme of the Danish government, the West Africa (Programme for African most cases, asks a training organiza- Open Society Foundations, and many Investigative Reporting, PAIR). Since tion to step in. other foundations have given to support its founding, Scoop has supported the Scoop’s efforts in Europe are over- its work? We know Scoop is making a work of reporters and editors involved seen by a committee of Danish journal- difference. Enthusiastic reporters all with more than 400 investigations; ists as well as journalists representing over Eastern Europe and Russia are
44 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation
Scoop was designed to be a support structure for journalists. It is not in the business of building centers, creating associations, or providing training. Reporters are creating nonprofit centers for investigative reporting in their countries, and we offer support for their efforts.
digging up the kind of information dova, Vladimir Voronin, about Scoop. Henrik Kaufholz, whose journalism that those in authority, including the An investigation into election fraud career started in 1967, is a reporter oligarchs, would like to keep hidden. and another that looked at how the at the Danish daily Politiken. Nonprofit centers for investigative Voronin family used the presidency to Co-founder of the Danish Association reporting are being developed in many enrich its own coffers led to his party’s for Investigative Journalism (FUJ), of these countries—and there are even defeat and his own election loss. he is FUJ’s representative at Scoop investigative programs appearing on Telychenko no longer works for for Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, local TV in some parts of this region. Scoop. In Ukraine she has taken a Belarus and Russia. He has been a In countries where we’ve been active, role closely related to the passion correspondent in Moscow, Bonn and investigations funded by Scoop have that drove her to come up with this Berlin, and he covered the war in the changed laws, led to corrupt bureau- idea. She is the lawyer representing Balkans from 1991 to 1995. crats being fired, and alerted people the widow of the murdered Ukrainian to the pollution of their tap water. journalist Georgiy Gongadze in court Ask the former president of Mol- cases trying to solve the brutal crime. n
The Challenge of Cross-Border Reporting in Europe ‘Through networking, journalists contribute their part in shaping this European public sphere by investigating and illuminating its common issues.’
By Brigitte Alfter
hey are poor women who come tinent. The rules and loopholes that assistance from the European Fund mostly from Latvia, a country enable the women to be brought here for Investigative Journalism, Smyth on the easternmost border of were decided in Dublin, the capital of and Jolkina joined forces to stitch Tthe European Union. What they hope Ireland, and Brussels, the headquarters together the beguiling chain of sup- to find in Ireland is a better life for of the E.U. ply and demand. “Working together themselves and their families. Instead, Aleksandra Jolkina, a young and enabled both of us to identify contacts they experience abuse and threats, and committed Latvian journalist, had in each other’s countries that would soon they are powerless and trapped. been researching this topic in Latvia have been difficult or impossible to The assaults against them are commit- since 2007 when she worked for the source while working on our own,” ted by members of organized crime daily newspaper Diena (“The Day”). Smyth has observed. groups who lured the women—with Likewise, Jamie Smyth, a social affairs In October after Smyth traveled to the promise of $1,300 to $2,600— reporter who is the former European Latvia for Jolkina’s assistance with into sham marriages to obtain E.U. correspondent for the Dublin-based reporting, The Irish Times published residence permits for men, many of Irish Times, had been working on a series of three stories about sham whom are from the Indian subcon- the same story. Last summer, with marriages. In turn, Jolkina went to
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 45 Shattering Barriers
sphere, which is something politicians, philosophers, political analysts, and media commentators have said for … the many languages and media cultures decades is lacking. Through network- ing, journalists contribute their part in enable journalists to draw on their research shaping this European public sphere by investigating and illuminating its competencies, joining together in cooperative, common issues. not competitive, ways. When journalists have cooperated on stories, the impact of their work has been strong. One of the more significant projects that I have been involved with was Farmsubsidy.org. Ireland to report on the story from spent much of their time focused Each year the E.U. distributes more angles she hadn’t been able to cover on agendas related to their native than $70 billion to subsidize farmers. from Latvia. By working together to countries, even though the E.U. has Inspired by the success in 2004 of two connect the two ends of the Latvian developed into a quasi-federal body. I Danish colleagues who made freedom women’s journey, Jolkina and Smyth came to believe that if reporters want of information requests about subsidies produced stories that made big head- to play an effective watchdog role in in Denmark, I asked that the European lines in Ireland and were noticed overseeing what happens in Brussels Commission provide me with informa- throughout Europe. Early this year, then we need to produce better journal- tion about all of those who benefited Jolkina’s book on the subject was ism. And to do this requires finding from the E.U.’s farm subsidy program. published in Latvia. ways to cooperate with journalists from Only with that material in hand could other countries on reporting important we make a thorough analysis. My The Need to Cooperate cross-border stories. request was denied. The fact that E.U. countries have A year later I co-founded Farm The chain of human trafficking involved 23 official languages and several non- subsidy.org with the following plan in two countries on opposite sides of official languages can appear to present mind: We would work on this country the E.U.; yet the enabling legislation, obstacles. Yet the many languages and by country. European journalists in as decided at the E.U. level, affected all media cultures enable journalists to many countries as possible would file E.U. countries. This circumstance is draw on their research competencies, applications through their country’s quite typical today when it comes to joining together in cooperative, not freedom of information system to stories about social affairs and public competitive, ways. Knowledge about request this information. Once they policy in Europe. As such, network- common issues can be compared and had the information and published ing among journalists is essential contrasted as a way to move forward stories in their native press, they would to fulfilling their role as watchdogs. with a vexing topic. No new networks upload their data onto the common Yet, especially when travel, multiple of sources have to be created; reporters website. This way we would be able to languages, and various administrative can share resources to mutual benefit. see a wider European pattern evolve. entities are involved, working as a team Through such partnerships journalists [See more about journalists’ access to can mean additional costs. Jolkina and can obtain high-level research that farm subsidies data in Nils Mulvad’s Smyth managed to cover travel and they can shape into stories told in story on page 48.] This revealed that other costs through the grant they their native languages and fit into the usual political narrative that had received from the European Fund for their media tradition. these funds assisting small and poor Investigative Journalism. By investigating and illuminating farmers was wrong. Instead, we’d This is a project I’ve been building issues common to E.U. countries, these found that old European nobility and up since 2008 with assistance from journalists do their part in creating international corporations were among the Belgian journalism foundation, a vital and vibrant European public the program’s largest beneficiaries. the Pascal Decroos Fund. It has pro- vided research grants to journalists in Belgium for more than a decade. I learned of the Decroos fund when I worked in Brussels as a European affairs correspondent for a Danish newspaper. In Brussels, many of the journalists who comprise the world’s second largest corps of correspondents Under this banner, the European Fund for Investigative Journalism featured reporting (the largest is in Washington, D.C.) that it financed in Ireland and Latvia on human trafficking.
46 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation
Interestingly, these stories strongly With the Pascal Decroos Fund’s tutions; we want to directly support influenced public opinion; people visionary director, Ides Debruyne, I journalists in their pursuit of investi- started to talk in everyday conversa- co-founded Journalismfund.eu in 2008 gative stories. Because of the difficult tions about farmers and their subsidies. with the aim of expanding the reach times in the media business, internal Given how well this funding for investigative networking approach projects can be tough worked, I decided to to get. Thus, important try using it to examine stories go untold. And as other cross-border issues. political and policy issues Since then I have been cut across borders—and involved in several such reporters want to follow investigations. There was the money or compare and the story about trafficked contrast circumstances— women; in others we were money isn’t easily available able to reveal side effects to enable them to do this. of pharmaceuticals and We believe the chang- examine the ways in which ing European structures, lobbyists influence climate combined with new media change policy. Another col- possibilities, provide good laborative effort focused on opportunities for quality illegal fisheries. Each story journalism. Our goal is had European aspects to thus to channel money in it, and in all cases stories support of research and were published in several networked reporting on countries to strengthen specific stories. the impact. For several of Scoop and the Pascal these projects we received Decroos Fund receive most support from nonprofits to of their funding from gov- cover the additional costs ernments that respect their for travel and translations. editorial independence. Recently we’ve had to Support Structures halt our attempt to obtain For Journalists E.U. grants because of a struggle about retaining Fundraising story by story journalistic independence. is cumbersome, as anyone Our primary task is to who has done it will attest. develop support structures To keep these efforts going, The German magazine Stern (“Star”) reported on how wealthy in Europe to facilitate we needed a support struc- Europeans received farm subsidies, and it used a headline that cross-border, networked ture. From my involvement translates as “He who has, will be given.” journalism. So part of our in 2003 with the creation effort is to raise awareness of Scoop—initiated by the among potential donors— Danish Association for Investigative and breadth of grants available to and journalists—about the necessity Journalism and the Danish nonprofit European teams of investigative jour- of this model. n International Media Support to offer nalists. While fundraising continues to support for journalists in the Balkans be a challenge, we persist because we Brigitte Alfter is a freelance jour- and Eastern Europe—I learned the know this model works and provides nalist covering European affairs and value-added efficiency of creating a value in the stories that emerge. In a co-founder of Scoop, Farmsubsidy. pool of resources and expertise to Europe, there exists a longstanding org, the Wobbing network, and the assist individual journalists or small tradition of public monies being used to European Fund for Investigative teams of reporters in investigations. support media, along with safeguards Journalism. She was a co-winner [See Henrik Kaufholz’s article about for editorial independence; many of the Investigative Reporters and Scoop on page 43.] Comparably low European foundations and donors Editors’ Freedom of Information levels of support were found to result have slowly begun to carve out a role Award in 2006 when she was a in strong investigative pieces ranging for themselves in this realm. European affairs correspondent for from local corruption to regional war The needs we identify are specific. the Danish newspaper Information. crimes to international trafficking. We do not want to support media insti- Her website is www.alfter.dk.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 47 Shattering Barriers
Investigating Farm Subsidies on a Global Stage The collaborative effort among journalists to make the E.U.’s farm subsidies transparent is a striking example of how developing networks and providing support for reporters can result in important stories being told.
By Nils Mulvad
it is a violation of human rights to publish the farm subsidy information Working as a team, we to the extent now required of E.U. member states. So the commission has extracted the data from each asked all member states to shut down country’s website, created a their websites while it prepares a new regulation. We are hopeful that we database to provide a structure can influence this process by getting the commission to recommend that for them, and then reporters all member states include in their in different countries could budget figures an explanation of why arm subsidies in Europe is a the applicants are receiving funds. We natural topic for journalists. In- search for the information they believe this will be in accordance with vestigative reporters know what needed for their stories. the court’s ruling. Fcomes from following the money. Since This would also be a pragmatic close to half of the European Union’s solution to challenges we face with total budget goes toward subsidizing transparency in a number of related agriculture, trying to obtain informa- areas. If the court’s decision is used tion about these payments seemed like by others to shut down the publica- a good direction to head in—holding the European Council decided that all tion of all kinds of information about the potential that we’d find important member states would be required to private individuals, then it is likely stories waiting to be told. publish on their websites information that inappropriate expenditures will When Farmsubsidy.org was formed about who receives farm subsidies and continue to occur. For example, in 2005, its goal was to get access how much they receive. when we received the farm subsidies to information on who gets what in Our victory appeared total—and information we learned of funds farm subsidies from the E.U. and why. seemed to happen rather quickly. In going to support family members of Already, in Denmark, I had managed 2009 we realized there were some a high-ranking government official to get this data, and in the United problems on the websites with data in Bulgaria who was responsible for Kingdom, Jack Thurston had won missing for payments in 2008. By the his country’s distribution of the farm some legal battles that provided him next year, when all of the data on farm subsidy money. With so much of the with access to these figures. As the two subsidies were to be published on the E.U. budget devoted to subsidies, there of us corresponded about our efforts, websites, things seemed to be working remains a high possibility of fraud and we decided to take this project to the well. By May of 2010, we were able misuse of these funds. Only transpar- larger stage of the entire E.U.. Danish to engage in a successful data harvest ency regarding how these public funds journalist Brigitte Alfter had already festival in Brussels. Working as a are allocated will enable us to uncover requested this E.U. data in 2004 so team, we extracted the data from each problems. she joined forces with Jack and me country’s website, created a database Now we are just about back where in co-founding Farmsubsidy.org. [See to provide a structure for them, and we started—fighting to get informa- related story by Alfter on page 45.] then reporters in different countries tion on who gets what amount of this Our investigative network included could search for the information they public money and why. Knowing how people from various nongovernmental needed for their stories. good it felt to succeed in opening up organizations along with journalists. But our good fortune lasted only these records to public view—and real- After we started to file legal chal- briefly. In November 2010—just as izing the value of the stories the data lenges to get access to this data in the E.U. was negotiating the next revealed—is what keeps us pushing to the Netherlands, Poland, France and seven-year plan for subsidies—the gain access to this data again. One Germany, the E.U. Commission and European Court of Justice ruled that thing working in our favor is that we
48 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 The Next Generation have now established this network of (GIJN). We have continued to meet • It is essential to bring the right journalists who are cooperating and every two years or so in such places people together from different coordinating across borders. It was as Amsterdam, Toronto, Lillehammer countries, and this means doing the the farm subsidies story that brought and Geneva. We will gather in Octo- background work necessary to know us together—and now it’s keeping us ber in Kiev for a conference that is who is capable of taking on these moving ahead. being organized by Scoop, a support kinds of challenging assignments. organization I was involved in creating • Freedom of information rules and Stretching Beyond regulations inevitably vary Europe from country to country. The common ground is in During the past decade I how journalists negotiate for have also been very involved data by using the same set of with the development of skills as in their reporting, global efforts to build but also learning how to networks of investigative be precise in the language journalists. In 2000, as a they use to make requests reporter at Jyllands-Posten as they apply for access to (“The Jutland Post”), the data. largest Danish daily news- paper, I worked to build a What’s been a common nationwide network of jour- experience in forming these nalists who were focused networks and organizations on using computer-assisted is that we always face a lack reporting (CAR). At that of money and resources. time, I was also the chair- If we expect those issues man of the Danish Interna- to be resolved before we tional Center for Analytical move forward, little will be Reporting (DICAR). accomplished. But there are At a conference that also the risks that come in year I met Brant Houston, moving too fast and without who was then the executive having the right people director of the U.S.-based onboard. This can result in Investigative Reporters other kinds of problems. So and Editors. At dinner we my advice is to move ahead talked about creating an in a well-considered direc- international network of tion—being realistic about investigative reporters, and what can be accomplished before long I found myself This British daily employed sarcasm in writing its headline at the start, and then, over plunging into the task of about some of the recipients of European farm subsidies. time, expand. When the helping to organize and GIJN meets in Ukraine this launch such an initiative. fall, I expect that there will I invited the Danish Association for that provides grants and legal advice be about 500 investigative journalists Investigative Journalism (Foreningen to reporters in 13 countries in the from more than 60 countries—gath- for Undersøgende Journalistik) to join Balkans and Eastern Europe. [See ering to learn from one another and us, and soon the three of us were story by Henrik Kaufholz about Scoop figure out how to work together. n planning our first conference, which and GIJN on page 43.] took place in April 2001. More than Through these experiences in sup- Nils Mulvad is an editor at Kaas & 300 journalists from 40 countries porting global networks of investigative Mulvad and an associate professor attended and heard from 80 speak- journalists, I’ve learned some valuable at the Danish School of Media and ers and instructors and participated lessons, which include: Journalism. He was the chairman in dozens of panel discussions and and then the CEO of DICAR from hands-on training sessions, including • Giving grant money to media orga- 1999 to 2006. In 2006 he was lessons in CAR. nizations is not the best approach. named European journalist of the Two years later, a second global There are some places where this year by the European Voice news- conference took place. And by then, we has worked, but it is best to support paper and he was a co-winner of an had settled on our name: the Global the journalists directly with money Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Investigative Journalism Network and legal advice. Freedom of Information Award.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 49 Shattering Barriers | Government Pushback—In South Africa and China
Arriving at a Sadly Familiar Crossroads ‘South Africa’s crackdown on press freedom comes at a treacherous time, as numerous countries have regressed, rather than progressed, on this front.’
By Rob Rose
t was last summer, on August 4, the world, the media organizations had For months, the ANC had darkly that South Africa’s news media operated with carefree independence. threatened to install a media tribunal confronted its most sinister moment But stories of corruption—particularly to rein in irresponsible journalists, a sinceI the fall of apartheid in 1994. those of kickbacks in a $6.7 billion body accountable to politicians with the Over the last 16 years, the press had arms deal and government contracts power to jail incorrigible hacks. This, become almost complacent about its being covertly dished out to the power- while a new Protection of Information hard-won freedom. Bolstered by one of ful—didn’t impress the ruling African law was being written that would put the most progressive constitutions in National Congress (ANC). virtually all government information
After the African National Congress party proposed a media tribunal and Protection of Information bill, Zapiro drew this cartoon for the Mail & Guardian in South Africa. Reprinted with permission. For more Zapiro cartoons visit www.zapiro.com.
50 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Government Pushback behind a wall of secrecy and make criminals out of whistleblowers. Editors and journalists largely saw this as bluster, threats unlikely to be codified because the politicians would surely remember that it was a free press that helped draw the world’s attention to the plight of apartheid. Nonethe- less, the chorus within the ANC was growing stronger, fueled by Julius Malema, the brash and provocative leader of the ANC’s Youth League who had been savaged by a glut of stories about shady government contracts his companies had won.
Government vs. the Press
The heroic journalists of the apartheid era who had defied the tyrannical whites-only government weren’t in any mood to surrender their new liberties. Sunday Times editorial cartoonist Zapiro depicts President Jacob Zuma unbuckling his So on that early August day journal- pants while members of his government hold down Lady Justice. Two years after it was ists from across the board attended a published in 2008, Zuma sued the paper and the cartoonist for $700,000. The shower- special meeting at the offices of Avusa, head is a satirical reference to Zuma’s statement in court that after having unprotected sex the company that publishes the Sunday with an HIV-positive woman he showered to reduce the risk of infection. Reprinted with Times, to thrash out a response. At permission. For more Zapiro cartoons visit www.zapiro.com. that moment a cadre of 20 armed policemen arrived at Avusa to arrest my colleague, Sunday Times investigative tactics of the one it fought so hard ciaries of the illegitimate governments reporter Mzilikazi wa Afrika. against; it served to jolt the more to “the people.” It was an obvious and unnecessar- complacent into alertness. Gone were ily intimidating show of force. But the days when journalists were seen Corruption Surfaces to make it worse, the police initially as comrades. Now, clearly, knives had refused to reveal why my colleague been drawn. In South Africa, the policy that was being arrested and where he was The clamor led within days to wa facilitated the transfer of assets from being taken. This led Sunday Times Afrika’s release. Predictably, charges whites (9.2 percent of the country) editor Ray Hartley to speak grimly of were dropped within weeks. But it to non-whites was called “black eco- wa Afrika’s “detention without trial,” was a wake-up call; in a country still nomic empowerment” (BEE). Here, which recalled the tactic used gleefully bearing the visible scars of an oppres- companies were encouraged to sell and frequently by the former apartheid sive totalitarian state, South Africa more than 25 percent of their shares government. Wa Afrika’s crime, it was still subject to the Orwellian to black individuals at big discounts. turned out, was writing about cor- currents that have knee-capped many Those with the strongest “empower- ruption in the country’s northeastern post-liberation states. In other newly ment credentials” vault to the front of Mpumalanga Province, a place where democratized countries, which relied the queue for government business. rampant bribery had secured more than on the press to expose the despotic Such a strategy is necessary affirma- one dirty little contract to help build regimes of the past, the government tive action in a country crippled by a soccer stadium for South Africa’s leaders have become as much of a social inequality where blacks histori- hosting of the 2010 World Cup. [See threat to media freedom as the regimes cally were prevented from holding all box on page 52.] they replaced, lashing the watchdogs but the most menial jobs. The problem Finally interrogated at 2:30 in the for exposing home truths. has been in its implementation. BEE morning, wa Afrika was questioned Usually, these truths center on has been bedeviled by paternalism, about whether he had any involvement corruption, an often unfortunate as established ANC politicians inevi- in “discrediting senior ANC office accomplice to liberation. And it’s easy tably wound up taking the stakes in bearers.” It was a striking incident, to understand why: A key element of companies or winning government that much more so given the irony of the change in regimes is the transfer contracts in shady deals. In this way, the ANC government emulating the of assets from the tyrants and benefi- the apartheid-era white kleptocrats
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 51 Shattering Barriers
The Shady Dash for World Cup Cash
It is the world’s biggest sporting tournament, with the final game watched by an estimated 700 million people in more than 100 countries. For the country fortunate to woo the fickle attention of FIFA, the federation that governs soccer, and win the right to host the World Cup, it’s a potential windfall. But in South Africa, the 2010 host, the scrapping over tournament contracts was positively murder- ous—with hit squads set up to take out business rivals, contracts rigged, and black ownership credentials forged. This says nothing of the double-dealing among foreign companies that landed them deals with FIFA. Questions arose in South Africa about improprieties in a major World Cup soccer All of these stories were pursued— contract after it was learned that a black security guard who, on paper, was a 26 and published—by the press and to percent owner of the multimillion-dollar company lived in the brick house, above, in the regret of government officials a poor township near Johannesburg. Photo by Kevin Sutherland/Sunday Times. who preferred to turn a blind eye to these shady dealings. The African National Congress- led government spent $2.3 billion it emerged from secret documents of a man dealing in shares in a on building stadiums to host the that the city of Johannesburg would company with multimillion-dollar games so getting the right black get none of the “rental” paid by FIFA contracts? Well, no, it isn’t. ownership credentials was crucial for using the stadium—instead that Khangale told me that he did not to winning part of this business. cash would be managed by National pay a cent for those shares nor did One poignant example of the cor- Stadium SA. he still own them. After the Sunday rupted spirit of black empowerment Khangale, it emerged, is a for- Times exposed these details, the city was seen in the contract the city of mer security guard with virtually of Johannesburg launched investi- Johannesburg handed out to manage no operational responsibilities at gations. But whether or not those the $470 million Soccer City stadium National Stadium SA. He’s not even inquiries reveal Khangale’s deal to that hosted the opening and final allowed to sign any company checks. be an elaborate case of “empower- games. The 10-year management A trip I made to Khangale’s house ment fronting,” this is clearly not contract was awarded to a company in a poor township on the fringes what the rainbow nation intended called National Stadium SA, partly of Johannesburg showed that he in 1994 when it pledged to share its because its largest shareholder was lived in a neighborhood where the wealth with all its citizens. n—R.R. supposedly 26 percent owned by a average home had sold for $11,000 black man, Gladwin Khangale. Also, the previous year. Is this the home
are simply replaced with a new class those with a more legitimate claim. deals and how that cash is distributed. of black oligarchs. Boris Yeltsin’s privatization program in In South Africa, journalists, by This scenario certainly isn’t unique Russia is a notorious example. But as aggressively questioning how politi- to South Africa: Many post-liberation multibillion-dollar chunks of change cians get multi-million dollar deals, societies have some form of affirmative are shifted around, the potential for haven’t exactly endeared themselves action as assets are wrestled out of the corruption flourishes, both when it to the power brokers. Malema’s hands of the haves and transferred to comes to choosing who gets the windfall companies, for example, mysteriously
52 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Government Pushback landed government building contracts cartoonist drew Zuma in the posture point to China as evidence of why an worth $20 million despite the fact that of loosening his trousers while Malema ambitious country doesn’t need a free Malema lacks construction experience. and ANC Secretary General Gwede press. It’s scant consolation that the Perhaps most ominously, reporters Mantashe held down Lady Justice. WikiLeaks debacle shows that Ameri- vigorously pursued the former deputy In defending his plans for the media can political figures such as Senate president, Jacob Zuma, whose financial tribunal, Zuma spoke of how “a lot Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and adviser was jailed in 2005 for soliciting of pain has been caused by how the potential 2012 presidential candidate a bribe (supposedly for Zuma) from media has been reporting on certain Mike Huckabee share this same sketchy French arms firm Thomson-CSF. While individuals in the country.” (No prize grasp of the concept. Schabir Shaik was jailed, prosecutors awarded for guessing which individuals Quite how this nasty assault on press dropped the case against Zuma in he has in mind.) freedom will play out in South Africa April 2009. That month, Zuma was South Africa’s crackdown on press remains uncertain. Journalists have elected president. (This occurrence freedom comes at a treacherous time, been almost hysterical in decrying the should not suggest that South Africa as numerous countries have regressed, assault on their freedom, but underly- is a banana republic: Zuma’s rise has rather than progressed, on this front. ing this is a sense of disbelief that this been no less colorful than that of Italy’s In December Hungary’s President Pal could be happening again—in the new Silvio Berlusconi nor is the system of Schmitt signed a new repressive media South Africa of Nelson Mandela. In odious patronage entirely foreign to law. In China, party leaders don’t trifle a sense, it seems that the country is the American practice of lobbying, with unruly media: They jail them, at a crossroads, with its treatment of personified best, perhaps, by all the as the 34 Chinese journalists now in the press an indicator of which way Jack Abramoff-style perversions in prison will attest. But China’s thump- it will turn. It is of little comfort to the United States.) ing economic triumph has shown that know that many other countries are Zuma was no defender of the press. you don’t need a democracy with the at that same junction. n He had already brought a number of necessary evil of a critical press to be defamation lawsuits against various a monetary success and an emergent Rob Rose, a 2011 Nieman Fellow, is newspapers. In December 2010 he hit world leader. Speak frankly to some an investigative reporter in the busi- the Sunday Times with a $700,000 suit politicians from developing countries ness section of the Sunday Times, for a cartoon drawn by Zapiro. The like Nigeria and South Africa, and they based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Chinese Journalists Circumvent Government’s Tight Restrictions ‘Given how information from Yihuang was spread in China, this story signaled a landmark moment in contemporary Chinese media with the emergence of microblogs … as a valuable distribution tool for journalists.’
By Ying Chan
he state of journalism in China is senior leadership, and there are already he refused to refrain from writing for bleak and exhilarating. Last year reasons for the press to be concerned. other media outlets. And the govern- journalists pushed the envelope This past January the party’s ment’s blockage of social networks Tand scored many small victories. But propaganda officials sent draconian continues, as its tools of censorship huge challenges remain. Now reporters instructions to the Chinese news media. become increasingly sophisticated and are bracing for a long bitter winter— That same month Chang Ping, one are applied with surgical accuracy to one in which cold winds will blow on of China’s most respected columnists control dissent and criticism. them even as the temperature rises— who worked for the Southern Media Still, despite the propaganda minis- as they anticipate the 18th National Group, was forced out. Several months try’s best efforts, it is discovering that Congress of the Communist Party that earlier, his editors had banned him from with more than 400 million Internet will convene in 2012. At that time writing for the Southern publications; users in China, 100 million bloggers, there will be a change in the party’s his contract was not renewed when and 850 million mobile phone users,
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 53 Shattering Barriers
China’s Propaganda Department: New Restrictions on the Press
On January 5, China’s state-run news students and faculty at the Journal- other local media on the scene] agency Xinhua reported on the annual ism and Media Studies Center at the (不连线) or direct broadcasting meeting of the media propaganda University of Hong Kong where they [of such stories] is permitted. ministers. A few weeks later, China both teach. Ying Chan is the center’s [Events in which] less than 10 Media Project editor David Bandurski founder. people die, central media will wrote on the project’s website about not issue reports. These are to the significance of the fact that a What follows is the 10-points bulletin, be reported by local media, and known hardliner had presided over as reported by Cao Guoxing. media outside the area where the the meeting. Bandurski also provided incident occurs are not to carry an English-language version of the 1. Create a favorable public opinion out extra-territorial reporting. For ministers’ 10-points bulletin with climate for the two holidays general accidents not reported by new restrictive regulations from the [including Spring Festival] and central media, local media can Central Propaganda Department. “two meetings” (NPC and CPPCC). carry out a reasonable degree The source was Cao Guoxing, a Do a conscientious job of chan- of reporting, and media outside Shanghai-based reporter for the neling [public opinion] on such the area may not do their own Chinese-language Radio France hot topics as income distribution, reporting. International, which had published the stock market and property 3. Reports on demolition and the bulletin. Posting the translated market, employment and social removal [of residents to make bulletin, Bandurski explained: “We security, education and public way for development projects] have not yet confirmed this list with health and sanitation, and safe must be “grasped safely and reli- our own sources, but we have learned manufacturing, explaining the ably,” and [media] “must not cast independently about a number of the issues and dissolving tensions. doubt on” normal demolitions orders listed in the bulletin, which 2. Strictly control reporting of disas- and removals done according to supports its authenticity. ters, accidents and extreme events, laws and regulations. No public Journalists Ying Chan and Qian and extra-territorial reporting and opinion support must be given Gang established the China Media monitoring is not permitted for to exorbitant [property] prices, Project in 2003 as a place to docu- these types of stories. For major and no reports must be made ment the process of media reform and disaster and accident reports the of “suicides, self-immolations or provide open and active discussion central news media will report public incidents” occurring in the of reform-related issues. The website on developments. No [live] course of violent demolitions and is a collaborative effort involving the reporting [via reporters from removals. Extreme isolated cases
the impact of the people’s voice is tion of a family home in Yihuang in their way to the airport so they locked growing. And journalists remain an Jiangxi Province resulted in three themselves in an airport bathroom unruly and determined lot intent on family members—a man and two and corresponded via text messages obtaining and moving information to women—lighting themselves on fire with local reporters. Phoenix Weekly the people. and jumping from the roof of their reporter Deng Fei reported the story Collusion between corrupt govern- house. Given how information from live via microblog and then other ment officials and businesspeople is Yihuang was spread, this story signaled journalists began to do the same at the heart of many of China’s tens a landmark moment in contemporary through two popular websites, Sina. of thousands of annual episodes of Chinese media with the emergence of com and Tencent.com. This rapid- social unrest. Nowhere is that more microblogs—China’s version of Twit- fire reporting catapulted the story to in evidence than with the forced ter—as a valuable distribution tool national attention and, in doing so, evictions and the seizure of land and for journalists. made Chinese news history by dem- homes to make way for development; Two family members were harassed onstrating the power of microblogging. these stories now reside at the top and threatened by local officials as These efforts by the Chinese media of the news agenda for investigative they set out to petition the Beijing eventually brought a small measure journalists. government to have their grievances of justice to the Zhong family. Last September the forced demoli- heard. Police had confronted them on What happened in Yihuang offered
54 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Government Pushback
must not be built up [with report- debate or question on the issue being internally discussed or of ing and editorial treatment], and of political reform (政治体制改 research essays by experts or concentrated or serial reporting 革), the term “civil society” may scholars [on these and related cannot be done [for such cases]. not be used, and standing on the issues]. 4. The Central Propaganda Depart- opposite side of the government 9. Reports on the [annual] Spring ment orders that various regional is “strictly prohibited.” The use Festival migration must be posi- online news portals and commer- of media opinions to “replace tive. Do not report on problems cial websites must not without and interfere with” the opinions existing during the Spring Festival, exception (一律不得) hold various of the masses is not permitted. such as “hard-to-get tickets.” national-scale selections of [top 7. A fully adequate job must be 10. The document, “Opinions Concern- influential] news stories or [top done of carrying out public ing the Further Strengthening and influential] news journalists. opinion channeling concerning Improvement of News Reports An awards event held for eight the property market. Question- on Criminal Cases,” sent down years by Guangzhou’s Southern naires on high property prices recently by the Central Propa- Weekend has been stopped as a and online surveys must not be ganda Department and the Politi- direct result of this order. done. [Media] must not speculate cal and Judiciary Commission 5. In the case of reporting of regu- about property price trends on (中央政法委), divides [criminal] lar mass incidents (群体性事件), the basis of changes in “any given cases into “significantly grievous” central media and media outside time and place” (一时一地), and (重大恶性), “grievous” (恶性), the region where the event occurs they must not build up extreme “routine” (常发) and “special” will not report such incidents, examples. (特殊), and makes a clear demand and “management” of metro city 8. No reports whatsoever are per- on how cases at various levels are newspapers must be strengthened. mitted on exchange of hukou to be reported and grasped [in In the case of mass incidents the [or “household registration”] by terms of guidance, or control]. pointing of blame at the Party and [residents of] the residential areas [These stipulations] deal with government must be prevented. of collectively-held villages [in the problem among metro city 6. The Central Propaganda Depart- urban areas or urban fringes], newspapers of reports being “too ment orders that [in reporting or concerning the exchange of frequent and too careless.” n of] cases of anti-corruption, the contracted land (承包地) for trend of “vulgarization” must be social insurance. No reports are stopped. Content may not discuss, permitted concerning questions
sobering lessons for the Chinese hide their misdeeds by blanketing areas • Guangdong’s Southern Metropolis government and the public. In recent of illegal land development throughout Daily and Caijing magazine reported years the forced requisition of land the city with black plastic netting to on another appalling situation and the destruction of homes have deceive the remote sensing satellites of involving Anyuanding, a private pitted Chinese citizens against local the Ministry of Land and Resources. security firm with strong official authorities. While party leaders in The reporting about this drew the backing from party leaders. It Beijing have repeatedly issued orders attention of central government lead- was operating a network of “black to ban such forced demolition, local ers. Following its publication, Political jails” in Beijing, which involved the government officials continue to act Bureau Standing Committee member acceptance of payments from local recklessly, and the Yihuang affair was Zhou Yongkang and Minister of Public governments throughout China to a particularly egregious example. Security Meng Jianzhu ordered an round up and lock up those petition- Last year The Beijing News exposed investigation that uncovered staggering ers who came to Beijing. Prisoners audacious land practices in Pizhou in abuses in Pizhou. in these facilities were abused and Jiangsu Province. There, the govern- There were other investigative tortured as their jailers were found ment had submerged thousands of stories in 2010 that are notable for to be acting beyond the law. acres of farmland by diverting a river. the government abuse they brought • When a fire tore through a high-rise Then government officials attempted to to light, including these: residential building in Shanghai in
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 55 Shattering Barriers
Investigative Reporting in China: Progress, Setbacks and Surprises
In her introduction to a book about its quest to cover the story, divided investigative journalism in China, its reporting staff into three groups Ying Chan traces the progress and and sent each out on a mission. setbacks of news reporting under One group went from hospital to Communist rule, a history that has hospital, the second focused on the actually seen some hard-hitting scientists investigating the origins stories published in government of SARS, and the third examined organs. legal questions, such as those sur- The book, “Investigative Journal- rounding China’s Quarantine Law. ism in China: Eight Cases in Chinese Caijing published four special Watchdog Journalism,” was edited issues about SARS. In one of them, by David Bandurski and Martin writers and scholars suggested that Hala and published in 2010 by SARS, as the book states, “presented Hong Kong University Press. a historic opportunity for China to Ying Chan identifies a number learn from its experience and move of themes in her brief history of more confidently toward reform.” journalism in the Communist era, Yet hopes that the nation’s leaders including the pioneering role that would do so were dashed when the party media, especially on the Central Propaganda Department national level, have played in investi- decided—just as Caijing was prepar- gative reporting. China Youth Daily, ing the last of its special issues on the flagship newspaper of China’s SARS—to clamp down on the media. Communist Youth League, and the ment’s seesawing between openness In many ways, the book continues, China Economic Times, published and censorship is the case study the SARS case “signaled the begin- by a policy think tank of China’s that looks at reporting on the ning of the present-day debate over State Council, are among the party government’s cover-up of SARS access to information in China,” newspapers that have published in 2003. Caijing, one of China’s with party leaders forced to come noteworthy investigations. leading business and current affairs to grips with the “extraordinary Typical of the Chinese govern- magazines, rebuffed by officials in costs of secrecy.” n—Jan Gardner
November, Century Weekly maga- issues—in the face of government offi- 2010 than can be summarized in this zine, led by former Caijing editor in cials’ attempts at censorship and efforts brief story. What is exciting to report chief, delivered an in-depth report to suppress bad news, whether the is that in a year filled with intense about the causes of the tragedy. The story involved an oil leak or a disaster pressures and tightening restrictions story revealed that the redevelop- in a gold mine. Public health issues on journalists, reporters from party-run ment project never went through remain a frequent target of journalistic media and the market-oriented press an open bidding process. enterprise, such as the reporting that made important inroads and did so revealed the deaths and disabilities of with professional grit and idealism. In the wake of Hu’s departure, Cai- children after the use of tainted vac- Yet the challenges journalists con- jing has tried to keep up its reputation cines in Shanxi and brought to public front remain daunting. As state power of hard-nosed reporting. For example, attention the melamine that had been expands, it often is applied arbitrarily. it did a special report on 120 corrupt put in milk and infant formula that Editors who step out of line are fired officials who were found guilty over a led to thousands of children becoming as the propaganda ministry tightens 23-year period, ending in 2010. The sick and some dying. its control of the editorial decision- magazine’s relentless probing for the making process. All of this is done with underlying causes of China’s ubiquitous Microblogging: The People’s an ongoing lack of transparency. As corruption has amounted to an indict- Power commercial pressures increase, more ment of the political system. Chinese avenues of professional corruption journalists also continue to report There was more vital investigative work open up for reporters. Two paid-for on the country’s many environmental accomplished by Chinese journalists in cover-ups on the rise are the red
56 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Government Pushback envelopes containing cash given as a reward for cooperation and “shut-up fees” for not reporting news. On the positive side, technology is serving journalists well. Our new communications tool—the microblog— releases news in real time and at high speed. Because the microblogged story is told in fragments as information becomes available, it is difficult to censor. It is fair to say that Chinese journalists are now universally aware of the power of the microblog. Chi- nese new media expert Bei Feng has described the medium as “fragmented and decentralized communications.” Journalist and blogger Xiao Shu has said that “observation is a power unto itself, capable of changing China through all-encompassing attention.” Qian Gang, my co-director at the China Media Project, launched his microblog on QQ.com this past May, and within five months had 1.7 mil- Phoenix Weekly reporter Deng Fei is a leading microblogger. Photo by Ying Chan. lion people following what he posts. Some of those 1.7 million readers will share his posts with other people so at newer restaurants, or people use 3G nearly 2.45 million followers, and the this means that his broadcast power to get online at an affordable monthly number of those signing up for his surpasses that of many newspapers. charge of less than $20. posts continues to grow. In January, a call went out through We live in an era when we receive and As market competition intensi- two of China’s major microblog- dispatch news anytime and anywhere, fies, investigative journalism is now ging platforms—QQ.com and Sina. a time when the human spirit and regarded as a shared value among com—asking people in China to share information flow like running water, national and regional newspapers. photographs of children working as gathering and dispersing with warp A reporter’s job is to expose corrup- street beggars. The idea is to enable speed. How can bureaucrats suppress tion and to uncover the dark forces families to locate abducted children such forces of nature? of society, my friends agreed, and a by recognizing them, or the children Sober, but feeling confident, my newspaper has to do these kinds of could be identified through police friends talk about how they compete deep investigations to establish its databases. This is another example while also sharing news tips and reputation among the people. There of how microblogs are becoming a watching out for each other amidst the is no going back. n dominant method of spreading word hazards of reporting. The camaraderie about sensitive topics. they experience and the pride they feel Ying Chan, a 1996 Nieman Fellow, are palpable. Last year Deng dug into established the Journalism and Value of Exposure stories such as the spread of AIDS Media Studies Center in 1999 at the from Henan to neighboring provinces. University of Hong Kong, where she On a balmy winter day in late Decem- A few years ago the province’s largely teaches. She also set up its master of ber, I met the intrepid journalist Deng unregulated blood-selling operations journalism program, launched Hong Fei and three other reporters over lunch led to roughly one million people Kong’s first fellowships for working in a restaurant in Sanlitun, Beijing’s being infected, and at the time the journalists, and forged extensive ties latest trendy hangout. We mused about government made intense efforts to between the University of Hong Kong the media scene, their work, and the prevent reporters from telling the and the news industry. She received odds we face in doing these kinds of story and police intimidated those who a George Polk Award for coverage stories. As we chatted, Deng checked tried. Deng also used microblogging during her time working at New the news with his computer, answered to investigate the wave of suicides York’s Daily News and an Interna- phone calls, and sent short messages among migrant workers at the elec- tional Press Freedom Award from the with his phone from @dengfei. In tronics manufacturing plant owned Committee to Protect Journalists. Beijing, free wireless is now common by Foxconn. His words reached his
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 57 Shattering Barriers | Press Danger and Freedom: Presidents, Drug Traffickers, and Sheriffs Exposing Corruption When Illegal Activity Is Business as Usual ‘Unveiling corruption throughout Latin America awakens dreadful instincts in powerful politicians while judicial systems … have repeatedly turned their backs on journalists or, in some cases, even helped to suppress them.’
By Fernando Berguido
a Prensa was able to publish a network of payments that benefited laundering charges against former series of articles on casino licenses an intimate circle of one, if not two, President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, granted in 1999 by Panamanian former Panamanian presidents. who served from 1994 to 1999. If the Lgovernment officials, but only after its On October 8, 2010, District Attor- trial does take place, it will be the first investigation took a decade to com- ney Jose Ayu Prado’s criminal inves- time that a Panamanian head of state plete. Still, when we broke this story tigations—inquiries that only started will face justice for money laundering, in 2009, the initial installment cast after stories appeared in La Prensa corruption or similar crimes. only a blurry picture of what ended up (“The Press”)—concluded that there Pérez Balladares is a clever, Whar- becoming an exposé about an intricate was enough evidence to press money- ton-educated politician who modern-
La Prensa investigated corruption during the presidency of Ernesto Pérez Balladares. Photo by Scott Dalton/The Associated Press.
58 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Press Danger and Freedom
Freedom of Information Laws in Latin America
Aristotle insisted that “by doing just activities. I was shocked. Given the acts we come to be just; by doing Freedom of Information uphill battle many Western journal- self-controlled acts, we come to be Laws in Latin America ists in developed nations faced in self-controlled; and by doing brave Year approved investigating government corrup- acts, we come to be brave.” Trans- tion—when they had the backing parency in the actions of powerful Mexico 2002 of freedom of information acts—for officials can only be attained when Panama 2002 reporters and editors in Panama, citizens become zealous protectors Peru 2002 trying to do these stories was an of the public’s interests. Access to Ecuador 2004 impossible proposition. information that is held too tightly While we were pushing our Honduras 2006 by government officials must be initiative through a lengthy and opened to citizens; this is paramount Nicaragua 2007 difficult process before a reluctant to accountability, and transparency Uruguay 2008 Congress and an adverse executive, is the most effective tool to prevent Chile 2008 the interim government of Valentin corruption. Guatemala 2008 Paniagua of Peru—in place after the In 2000 I became president fall of President Alberto Fujimori— of Panama’s chapter of Transpar- El Salvador * issued in 2001 an executive order ency International. Aware that my Brazil * that for the first time in our region country lacked effective legislation * Legislation is pending. set forth comprehensive freedom to secure public access, I contacted of information norms. A law was several press and law organiza- Source: Right2info.org passed the following year. tions throughout the continent as Since then we’ve seen important I searched for a model law from progress in the push for account- which to draft ours. I could find A few regulations here and there ability. It’s about time. After all, not one comprehensive legislation hinted at rights that permitted Sweden adopted the first Freedom authorizing freedom of information. citizens to be informed about certain of Information Law in 1766. n—F.B.
ized Panama’s economy by privatizing More than a decade ago, the first porations. But this kind of regulatory public utilities and obsolete state- tips reached reporters in our newsroom. pressure did not last long. The Moscoso owned enterprises. From the outset, They indicated that behind Pérez Bal- administration ended up granting Cirsa his administration was plagued with ladares’s efforts to modernize gambling, additional licenses to operate gambling rumors about dishonesty. He wasted no there was a hidden and more personal facilities, mainly more modest slot time in co-opting the Supreme Court interest that should be investigated. machine houses to be set up close of Justice by filling it with obedient Flashy, Las Vegas-inspired casinos to transportation hubs and shopping appointees and blazing a shameful mushroomed in Panama City and centers in low-income neighborhoods path imitated by other presidents other metropolises. Even though a on the margins of the capital city and who followed. By the time his term few tourists might be spotted inside, in rural towns. was coming to an end, casinos were the usual gambling crowd consisted of Until 2002, Panama had no Free- privatized. The fact that the Consti- middle- and low-income Panamanians. dom of Information Act (FOIA), as tution mandated that gambling and Gambling revenues burgeoned from remains the case throughout most of games of chance could only be run less that $200 million in 1999 to $1.25 Latin America. [See accompanying box by the state was no impediment for billion in 2010. about Latin American transparency securing a law allowing licenses “for the Opposition candidate Mireya laws.] Unless they received leaked management” of casinos and gaming Moscoso succeeded Pérez Balladares information, journalists had virtually houses through a Congress controlled as president from 1999 to 2004. Her no way to gain access to relevant by his party. A provision was enacted, administration’s initial investigation documents. For two years prior to the however, requiring that ownership revealed that the JCJ had requested law’s enactment, a coalition of civil of the private companies licensed to Spanish gambling conglomerate Cirsa, rights and international organizations operate casinos be fully disclosed to one of the licensees, to disclose the demanded transparency and free access the Gaming Control Board (Junta de ownership of an obscure 24 percent to government records. By the end of Control de Juegos, JCJ). belonging to some anonymous cor- 2001, they had succeeded in getting
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 59 Shattering Barriers
a FOIA passed by the Congress, in addressed. This meant the newspaper Tempting Danger large part because the opposition party gained access to some of the JCJ’s files. controlled the legislature. At last we would be able to cast Walter As philosopher Louis O. Mink once Moscoso was reluctant to sign the Lippmann’s “beam of a searchlight” wrote, “Stories are not lived but told FOIA bill until a major corruption into the darkness of the casino license … There are hopes, plans, battles and scandal erupted in Panama. Then she situation in Panama. ideas; but only in retrospective stories had no recourse but to sign Law 6 of From the start, the documents made are hopes unfilled, plans miscarried, 2002—known as the “Transparency it evident that ownership checks and battles decisive, and ideas seminal.” Law”—as a way to diffuse the public due diligence requirements were not The casino case is just one of several outcry over serious accusations of met and that a clear interest existed high-profile, retrospective investiga- bribery by several politicians on both for covering up official oversights. tions La Prensa has taken on in recent sides of the aisle. Reporters started to do what an array years. In the process of working on This new legislation—intended to be of authorities was meant to do—they them, reporters have faced many the first in Latin America to regulate began to go after the paper trail. threats made against their lives—and full access to public documents with Each of the casino companies was not once have government officials or provisions on how to petition for access investigated. Public records gave us security agencies stepped forward to and stipulating penalties for refusing enough leads to follow as we traced guarantee their safety. Groundless legal to deliver information requested— what transpired with former officials, actions initiated against independent proved to be too much for those lawyers and businessmen. We pub- media have accrued and are left hang- who held political power at the time. lished stories and because of those ing for years. In the middle of her term, Moscoso stories, additional sources emerged. Unveiling corruption throughout introduced an executive order—upheld By this time, even JCJ officials—feel- Latin America awakens dreadful by the Supreme Court—that added ing the heat of public scrutiny—were instincts in powerful politicians while an inscrutable barrier to petitioners pressuring casino operators to fill in judicial systems—meant to protect lib- seeking access to public documents: gaps in licensees’ files. erty, promote accountability, and make Now the petitioner needed “to prove a On August 3, 2009 La Prensa’s lead possible a free press—have repeatedly legitimate interest,” and only someone story unveiled a key link: Pérez Ballad- turned their backs on journalists or, “related” to the matter in question ares’s son-in-law, Enrique Pretelt, and in some cases, even helped to sup- was regarded as having this right. one of his closest friends and former press them. This legal tactic prohibited Panama- cabinet members, Roosevelt Thayer, Investigative reporters throughout nians—with journalists being a main were shown to be on the payroll of Latin America travel paths that are target of this executive order—from companies previously unknown to the always delicate and dangerous. Politi- requesting public information because public. To follow the money trail (or cians visit our newsrooms and promise it was determined that they lack a a fraction of it) proved harder. At the to defend freedom of the press and legitimate interest regarding affairs end of our investigation, we assembled information, total openness, and trans- of the government. enough information to certify a con- parency. Once in power, their promises When Martin Torrijos became nection with the final beneficiary of turn to silence. We remain convinced Panama’s president in 2004, he fol- the casino profits: Dividends paid by that exposing acts of corruption is a lowed through on an electoral prom- Cirsa, after a circuitous route, ended duty from which we cannot waver—a ise: He would eliminate Moscoso’s up paying for the yacht, plane and daunting obligation in underdeveloped executive order and the Transparency credit cards of none other than Pérez countries, yet a responsibility that is Law would become a genuine tool of Balladares. paired with unceasing recognition that public scrutiny. Even then, however, It took two months for the attorney journalists will end up in jail, and the news media were denied access general’s office to launch a full inves- that circumstance might prove mild to some of the most important public tigation. Threats and attacks from compared to other possibilities. n documents—those showing who were members of Pérez Balladares’s and the real owners of casino licenses. Moscoso’s political parties against La Fernando Berguido, a 2011 Nieman Five full years elapsed. Torrijos’s Prensa and defamatory charges against Fellow, is a lawyer and the publisher election slogan of “Zero Corruption” its reporters started earlier—and have and editor of La Prensa, Panama’s became a national joke while thou- not ended. Pérez Balladares once wrote leading newspaper. He was a sands of dollars from Cirsa’s profits to a journalist who was not involved in Fulbright scholar at the University were being diverted every month to this investigation: “Thanks for not tak- of California, Los Angeles School a close group of friends, and even ing part in disgracing me. But believe of Law, where he earned a Master family members, of Pérez Balladares me, no matter how long it takes, once of Law degree. He also is a former and Moscoso. I am done with legal matters, it will president of the Panama chapter of In 2009, a formal petition by La be payback time,” referring to those Transparency International. Prensa’s investigative unit was finally uncovering this case.
60 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Press Danger and Freedom
Intimidation, Exile and the Exhilaration of an Investigative Story Being Published ‘Panama’s La Prensa and [Enrique] Zileri’s Caretas [in Peru] were exceptional places where investigative journalism was encouraged and defended, though both had to pay a price for doing it.’
By Gustavo Gorriti
wrote my first investigative story disgrace. information. Of course, this ought to on a sturdy Olivetti typewriter, In later years I would learn through be what every editor does, and yet it thoughts pounding into the paper personal experiences and those of my is a rare newsroom in Latin America Iwith an irregular staccato that would colleagues that the greatest hazard a lucky enough to have such an editor. slow down as night approached dawn. Latin American investigative journal- That was back in early 1982. I was a ist faces is an internal one. It is the Hazards of Reporting reporter at Peru’s Caretas (“Masks”), a censorship and sabotage that emanates weekly newsmagazine, already grasp- from the top of the enterprise—the In covering the Shining Path’s bloody ing the fundamental dynamics of owners and managers—trickling down insurgency during the 1980’s, for much of Latin American investigative through pliable editors until it settles instance, my weekly task was straight- reporting: Publish, try not to perish. into frequently corrupted newsrooms. forward—to find out and report what I was fortunate to work with a great As editor at Caretas, Zileri stood out was happening in the fast growing editor—the talented and brave Enrique as a valuable exception. In this case, scenarios of violence. With the sur- Zileri. He was the magazine’s hard he was also the publisher of Caretas. real expressions of the Shining Path’s driving director (or executive editor), There is no telling what an experi- Cultural Revolution kind of Maoism who could inspire or terrify Caretas’s enced, relentless editor can accomplish and the lethal schizophrenia of the eclectic group of journalists with a by pushing, spurring, cajoling, and Peruvian government’s repression in simple, binary alternative: Produce a sometimes even praising reporters play, reporting was admittedly arduous, scoop or suffer temporal but stinging into bringing back the best possible though within the expected hazards of journalism. I found the obstacles and perils in the field were nicely counterweighted by fear of failure were I ever to return empty-handed to the newsroom. Reporting was defined differently at other news organizations in Peru. Jour- nalists there were expected to gather allegations that would support their publication’s ideology or to concoct reports that were more exorcism than information. For a long time, Peru’s newspaper of record almost didn’t report on the raging internal war, as if disdainful silence would dissipate it into oblivion. Reporting on high-level corruption was close to impossible in most of Peru’s publications. Early in my journalism career I found out why; corruption was not aberrant but systemic, with networked nodes interlinked in some- Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, right, and Vladimiro Montesinos, a chief ad- times surprising ways. In late 1983 I viser, were the subjects of investigative reports for decades. Photo courtesy of La República. wrote my first exposé on Vladimiro
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 61 Shattering Barriers
Montesinos, who fled the seized by the new regime. This country because of the story’s The owners of almost all of prompted investigations by a publication. But then he came number of official anticorrup- back and piggybacked his way the nation’s TV companies, tion entities whose zeal would into power by being a secret its most important radio soon ebb. But the dozens of adviser to people in power with videotapes remained a valuable much greater ambitions than station, and many of Peru’s contribution of Montesinos to capabilities. The fact that he the field of corruption studies. was a natural as a spy didn’t newspapers received They were minimalist theater at hurt either. His path to influ- editorial instructions its best: same room, furnished ence was fraught with crimes with a Third World bureaucrat’s but eventually he found himself from [presidential notion of official opulence; as the adviser in the shadows same interlocutor—a usually to the insecure newly elected adviser Vladimiro] silky Montesinos (perhaps more President Alberto Fujimori. Montesinos. intimidating because of that)— This was in 1990. In slightly buying, bribing and conniving over a year, Montesinos purged Here he is, on the with a long parade of captains of and secured control over the industry and finance, politicians, military, police and, chiefly, tapes, telling them what judges, prosecutors and, last but the intelligence services. He and how to report—a not least, media owners. also developed a close rela- The owners of almost all of tionship with the U.S. Central lesson in disinformation. the nation’s TV companies, its Intelligence Agency (CIA) that most important radio station, was to last through the decade, and many of Peru’s newspapers even as he assumed informal received editorial instructions control of the primary activity from Montesinos. Here he is, on of organized crime in Peru—drug Fujimori, no matter how meticulously the tapes, telling them what and how trafficking. (This was not the only I had researched them. (In the 1990’s, to report—a lesson in disinformation. such case in Latin America of these coverage of them was usually quite There are videos of owners being overlapping connections—Panama’s complimentary.) handed piles of cash, money they took Manuel Antonio Noriega comes to What was solid, well-documented at times with a greed bordering on mind—but Montesinos was by far investigative journalism—which lust. Today, a few of the less powerful the smarter crook.) In less than two would have been seen as such under ones are in prison; one is a fugitive, years he and Fujimori carried out an normal circumstances—was dismissed living comfortably in Switzerland internal president-led coup d’état that as crusading journalism or even with his son now in control of his TV when the dust settled left them with conspiracy-theory journalism when station. Most are even better off than undisputed control over all branches the subject was Montesinos. But they were then. They retain control of government. that is not the point of this story. of their media companies, banks and In the process, I was seized and “dis- It is that as a good spy Montesinos businesses, and have increased their appeared” by the Army’s intelligence documented almost everything that large leverage over economic activity, service, and then I reappeared thanks could be of use to him later on—dirty political discourse, and, to a large to their poor operational planning. deals, transactions, betrayals. Before extent, media output. Eventually I found myself unemploy- his time, East Germany’s Ministry for able; even some longtime friends were State Security, known as the Stasi, had Presidential Corruption in afraid of being seen with me at the pioneered overdocumentation of both Panama time. Facing these pressures, I had to surveillance and espionage. Mostly leave Peru some months later. through videotape, Montesinos did the I also lived through those sorts of Soon I would find out that using same, clearly with the thought that dynamics at work in another latitude. journalism to expose the actions of the information would be perpetually In 1996, I was hired to be the deputy Montesinos abroad, especially in the under his control. In that presumption, director of Panama’s La Prensa (“The U.S., was almost as difficult as it was he was wrong. Press”). My task was straightforward— in Peru, though for different reasons. to strengthen the paper’s investiga- Editors were fine with publishing a What the Tapes Revealed tive journalism. La Prensa’s founder story or an op-ed I wrote on many Roberto Eisenmann and I were Nie- Latin American subjects, but they When the Fujimori regime crumbled man Fellows together in 1985-86 and refused to even consider publishing in 2000, a significant though incom- through the years we encouraged each investigative stories on Montesinos or plete set of Montesinos’s tapes was other as we confronted autocrats in our
62 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Press Danger and Freedom respective countries, he with Noriega, exposing many more cases of corrup- investigating high-level corruption is me with Fujimori and Montesinos. tion. A number of them implicated exceedingly small. It is noteworthy, In structuring the ownership of President Pérez Balladares. As a result therefore, how many important inves- La Prensa, Eisenmann was visionary. of one story, he was stripped of his U.S. tigative stories have been published in Given the dictatorship in place and visa, a major embarrassment for any Latin America since the 1980’s. Yet knowing that any major investor would member of that country’s elite. After these represent just a fraction of what have his arm twisted in no time by this story was published, Panama’s is needed if journalists, as the public’s government officials, La Prensa spread attorney general made a point by watchdogs, are to have a substantial its ownership widely. No person could indicting and suing me and the other and sustainable impact on corruption. own more than one-half of 1 percent of members of the investigative team, Since this past February I have been the newspaper’s shares. That way, its just as he had after the publication at IDL-Reporteros (http://reporteros. board and its editors were able to do of other significant exposés. pe), a small, Web-based, nonprofit independent journalism. Confronting The support I received from Juan investigative publication in Peru that I first Omar Torrijos and then the far Arias was crucial in enabling me to co-founded and direct. The equivalent more vicious Noriega, La Prensa held do these investigations. But after to our publisher is Peru’s foremost strongly to its values, paid a pain- nearly five years he decided to step human rights organization Instituto ful price in that struggle, and after down. At that point, Ricardo Alberto de Defensa Legal (IDL). Our financial Noriega’s downfall reopened with great Arias, now no longer foreign minister, support is from the Open Society Insti- prestige, soon becoming profitable and led a laborious drive to win enough tute, which is the principal funder for the newspaper of record in Panama. shareholders’ votes to take control of an expanding crop of Latin American This was a newspaper that any the paper. He took over La Prensa in nonprofit investigative journalism reporter would be proud to work for, 2001. I had left Panama a few months units. We are part of a Latin American as I was. I put myself energetically to before and returned to Peru, but excel- and global effort to stem and reverse the task of doing investigative report- lent journalists who had worked with the decay of investigative journalism. ing—with no better place to start than me were exiled to minor positions at Ours is a pioneering approach with the country’s financial sector. The the paper as Ricardo Alberto Arias striving to find a sustainable model first investigation I led was on the tried and for a time succeeded in while trying to do and publish the fraudulent collapse of a bank. As long neutralizing its investigative power. best possible investigative journalism. as those brought into the limelight What the crooks couldn’t do from It is too early to know which of the were foreigners or relative unknowns, outside, they were now able to do trails we are blazing could become there wasn’t a problem. But in time (as from within. well-traveled roads and which might would be the case in all other major The situation had a positive turn be abandoned. Digital media present investigations) the corrupt bankers of events, which to this day holds. us with exhilarating possibilities for led to an important Colombian drug Fernando Berguido, a 2011 Nieman ushering in a new era of significant trafficker, then to people with high Fellow, became La Prensa’s publisher investigative journalism. But whether influence in Panama’s regime, then in 2004 and put it back on track. [See a thoroughly investigated exposé that to the president’s son-in-law. story by Berguido, publisher and edi- makes it harder for powerful crooks President Ernesto Pérez Balladares tor of La Prensa, on page 58.] A top to steal, extort or intimidate comes decided to expel me from Panama. I Panamanian investigative journalist, from a typewriter or is produced on a decided to resist and a standoff ensued Rolando Rodríguez, was appointed digital tablet, its existence—then and for several months. The paper’s board, associate director, and he steered La now—represents success. n especially its president, Juan Arias, Prensa into uncovering cases of cor- firmly supported me, which made a ruption, old and new. He eventually Gustavo Gorriti, a 1986 Nieman huge difference. But support for me was reported on the house arrest, however Fellow, is the founder and director of far from unanimous at the newspaper. brief, of Pérez Balladares as part of the IDL-Reporteros, a digital, nonprofit One of La Prensa’s founders, Ricardo prosecution for past, let’s say, misdeeds. investigative publication in Peru. Alberto Arias, was at the time Panama’s Last year the Ibero-American New foreign minister, and he sided strongly The Digital Path Journalism Foundation (FNPI) with the president. At one point in the honored him with its CEMEX+FNPI midst of swiftly aborted direct talks, Panama’s La Prensa and Zileri’s Caretas New Journalism Prize in recogni- he told me that he believed that only a were exceptional places where inves- tion of his outstanding career as an person with at least three generations tigative journalism was encouraged investigative journalist. of ancestors buried in Panama’s soil and defended, though both had to should be allowed to do investigative pay a price for doing it. All over Latin reporting in the country. America, the number of newspapers, In the end I was able to stay. I magazines and electronic media that continued my work there for five years, have an uncompromising approach to
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 63 Shattering Barriers
The Mexican Press: At the Crossroads of Violence Last year ‘we declared ourselves war correspondents in our own land.’
By Elia Baltazar and Daniela Pastrana
raphers and even editors shoulder the mourn its dead victims by themselves responsibility for their own security. and who faced a total lack of interest And the government moves at a snail’s for its kidnap victims. pace to develop a mechanism for the For the first time, journalists’ social protection of journalists that does not networks from all over the country even encompass representatives of spawned a movement still active organizations that defend freedom of on Facebook and Twitter. With a expression, making the argument that hashtag as a prefix, we baptized the these individuals are not part of the movement Los Queremos Vivos (“We profession. Nor has any mechanism of Want Them Alive”) and we used this doing so involved media companies, slogan to generate a protest with which up until now have set them- the participation in Mexico City—by exican journalism today is selves apart from the daily risks that our count—of some 2,000 marchers, an extensive compilation journalists face. including journalists, citizens, students of anecdotes about violence The national press has observed and even some government officials. inM a climate of corruption. For most the attacks on the regional and local Other protests took place in 14 cities journalists, the days pass in terms of press with scorn, and its passivity has throughout the country. As of today, simple math: One has to add up the only been overcome in a few cases that Los Queremos Vivos has become the sums of the murdered and the injured, involve it directly, such as the July 2010 trademark for the denunciation of the executed, the civilian casualties, kidnapping of three journalists from attacks against the press. Journalists the drug traffickers, the police officers Televisa and Milenio TV. That event from civic organizations and every and military soldiers killed in con- stirred up the collective indignation of state share information in the spaces frontations or ambushes, the forcibly a profession that up to this time had to on social networks that have become disappeared. In this tally, however, the numbers of journalist victims are not particularly taken into account. Journalists in Mexico have been as- sassinated, kidnapped or held captive for a few hours, a few days, or even months. Some return, and we are still looking in vain for others. Almost nothing is known about the journalists who have been murdered, forcibly disappeared, or kidnapped. Files about them accumulate in neglected government drawers, and their cases are slowly forgotten because journalists in Mexico have to take responsibility for their own fate and security. Even now, in the worst violence that the Mexican press has ever faced, there are very few who maintain an interest and even fewer who make timid efforts to guarantee the free exercise of journalism, freedom of On August 7, 2010, protesters left pictures of dead and missing journalists at the Interior expression, and the right of citizens to Ministry in Mexico City as a display of their anger at the killing and disappearance of re- be informed. Thus, reporters, photog- porters, editors and photographers. Photo by Christian Palma.
64 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Press Danger and Freedom a virtual wall of warnings and debates Mexican journalists, many of whom about the violence. work long hours and with extensive This movement—propelled by social multimedia duties that keep them on Statistics on Impunity media—has come to fill a vacuum in an endless rolling deadline filing for professional organizations. But it is the newspaper, Internet, television 2010 has been a violent year not a formal representation of the and radio. Moreover, many of them for journalists in Mexico in profession nor does it pretend to be; have no job security; in Mexico, we terms of murders and attacks. it is merely a symbol of unity dem- lack even basic information about the A report by the Center for onstrating our own integrity, dignity labor conditions of journalists. And the Journalism and Public Ethics and rights as journalists. media are not particularly inclined to (Centro de Periodismo y Ética sponsor professional training programs Pública) recorded attacks Pending Tasks nor are there journalists’ organizations against 139 journalists and that promote it. Everyone does what he 21 media organizations—13 of The first steps taken by Mexican jour- or she can with the support of offer- which involved guns or explo- nalists in their own self-defense have ings at some universities and nonprofit sives—in 25 states throughout aroused other concerns and needs. organizations such as Journalists on Mexico. In addition, that Today the priority is life: To survive in Foot (Periodistas de a Pie), the Press report, “State of Freedom of those parts of Mexico where violence and Democracy Foundation (Prensa Expression in Mexico 2010” is escalating, some journalists have y Democracia, Prende), and the Inter (Situación de la Libertad de bowed to pressure from the cartels American Press Association (IAPA). Expresión en México 2010), and stayed silent about the drug trade Others look for training outside the affirmed that two journalists and corruption it spawns. The locals country if their newspaper’s resources were forced to flee the country call this “narcojournalism.” permit. after receiving death threats. However, it is not fair to talk about Given the lack of support and According to the Com- self-censorship. Journalists keep quiet professional capacity to undertake mittee to Protect Journalists in many regions because organized investigative journalism, which only (CPJ),“Ten [Mexican] journal- crime obliges them to do so or an a few reporters manage to do and ists were killed, at least three investigation could cost them their often it is done outside of office hours, in direct relation to their work.” lives. And they do so because journal- narrative journalism is the vehicle that Arrests have been made in ists vary in their abilities and level of many bet on. But it is not enough. only one case. professional development. In spite of Until now, cases of corruption exposed Although the lack of legal this, there are individual and collective by journalists have been very few and investigations makes it hard efforts by the media, with reporters have taken limited advantage of tech- to find accurate figures, the and photographers determined to nological resources. Let it be stressed National Human Rights Com- break the imposed silence and con- that there are exceptions to this rule. mission (Comisión Nacional tinue their work, training themselves If we wish to guarantee the quality of de los Derechos Humanos) in both self-protection and the use of democracy in the future, the problems reports that 36 journalists have investigative tools. of Mexican society demand a type been murdered in the course Since last year when we declared of journalism that reveals and pulls of their work since President ourselves war correspondents in our information out of the structures of Felipe Calderón took office on own land, we have captured the atten- illegal power and corruption. n December 1, 2006. tion of international organizations that While it is difficult to track have supported our training efforts. Elia Baltazar is co-editor of Excel- the disappearances of journal- But it has not been easy. Journalistic sior, a newspaper, and Daniela ists, a continuing and painful investigation finds its path blocked by Pastrana is a correspondent within expression of the violence is organized crime and even worse, by the Mexico for the Inter Press Service. that nine journalists remain government itself, which has invoked They co-founded Journalists on missing. The earliest case its ability to keep information secret Foot (Periodistas de a Pie), which dates to 2005; three journalists and to mark it as classified, limiting promotes the professionalism of disappeared in 2010, accord- the reach of federal and local laws that journalists, and Los Queremos Vivos ing to CPJ. n—E.B. and D.P. guarantee transparency. Information is (“We Want Them Alive”), which gives increasingly classified as confidential journalists a platform to speak out as a matter of national security. about freedom of expression and to Appeals to force the government to denounce attacks against journalists. open up their files are also increasingly They were involved in organizing the June Carolyn Erlick, editor in chief common. These procedures can take protest demonstration of journalists of ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin weeks, but time is at a premium to in Mexico City on August 7, 2010. America, translated this article.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 65 Shattering Barriers
Asking Questions in Small-Town America Can Be Dangerous ‘I knew we’d get a backlash for our reporting, which was far more aggressive than most small-town papers are willing to stomach. But the news media’s role as watchdog is vital in communities with a long-standing culture of corruption.’
By Samantha Swindler
… I was running an understaffed considering we had a drug-related arrest story in nearly every edition of newsroom … and accusing the our 6,000-circulation daily. At best, this was shoddy record- sheriff of stealing guns and keeping. At worst, perhaps he really drugs was not something to was selling guns from the back of his barbershop. print lightly. We needed deep But I was running an understaffed newsroom of two reporters and accus- research and multiple sources. ing the sheriff of stealing guns and I went through three reporters drugs was not something to print lightly. We needed deep research and before I found one with a nose multiple sources. I went through three went to Bud’s Gun Shop to pick reporters before I found one with a out a pistol because, quite frankly, both skilled and hard. nose both skilled and hard. I thought my reporting might get Adam Sulfridge, a Whitley County meI killed. It was January 2010, and native, was a 20-year-old college stu- for the past month, the newspaper dent when he started as a part-time I worked for, the Times-Tribune in writer in the summer of 2009. Over Corbin, Kentucky, had been running to interview him, he was shot through several months, he dug through thou- an investigative series on evidence a window at his house and killed. sands of handwritten arrest citations to and money missing from and a lack No one was ever charged. determine what evidence should have of prosecutions by the Whitley County That sort of thing happens around been in the sheriff ’s custody. Since he Sheriff ’s Department. there. And for a while after we started was a local boy, people trusted him. As Anyone who knew then-Sheriff reporting on Hodge, I wouldn’t sleep word spread about what we were doing, Lawrence Hodge and the recent his- near a window. courthouse workers began discreetly tory of Whitley County would know slipping him scraps of paper listing this purchase wasn’t an overreaction. Discovering Danger case numbers worth investigating. Since I had moved to Corbin to edit We found that guns that should have the paper in August 2006, I had seen Our investigation into the sheriff been in the sheriff ’s custody weren’t. cops and elected officials arrested on started with a joke—literally. I heard Our big break came after we sent a charges related to drugs, vote buying, our sportswriter joke about people records request about the whereabouts the theft of public funds, and violent buying guns out of the back of the of 18 particular guns. Days later, before retaliation. It is not unexpected that a sheriff ’s barbershop. (It’s a county of we received a reply, the sheriff ’s office political term ends in an arrest. about 38,000, and the sheriff worked was “broken into” and Hodge claimed When I bought the gun, I was as a barber.) On a whim, I sent an 78 guns (including the ones we asked thinking about the 2007 murder of open records request to view the about), drug evidence, and paperwork the recently fired road supervisor in sheriff ’s evidence logs. He refused to were stolen. adjoining Laurel County. In the days show them to me but after an appeal It certainly seemed convenient. before his death, he told me things to the state attorney general, I got The next day the Bureau of Alcohol, were “not right” in the department, and them. I found there were months when Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives several sources said he was ready to nothing—guns, drugs or money—was contacted Adam and me as it began start talking. But before I got a chance recorded. That was quite unusual, an investigation into the department.
66 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Press Danger and Freedom
We kept digging, fueled by tips from to Adam’s house on a dead-end street that arrest finally came. I wanted citizens and readers. We found that when Adam was standing outside. vindication in the community. Most drug evidence wasn’t being submitted His passenger walked silently toward readers appreciated our coverage, to the crime lab for testing and was Adam. When Adam flashed a pistol, the but we weren’t without critics. The nowhere to be found. State audits men claimed to be looking for scrap weekly paper and several anonymous revealed that hundreds of thousands metal and drove away. That driver was bloggers accused me of trying to influ- of dollars were missing from the arrested a week later on a 10-count ence an election, harboring a personal department. federal indictment for distributing vendetta, and tampering with a police The sheriff ’s department retaliated cocaine and painkillers. investigation. by refusing to give the I knew we’d get a Times-Tribune informa- backlash for our report- tion on even basic traffic ing, which was far more accidents. Instead, the aggressive than most department fed stories small-town papers are to a competing weekly willing to stomach. But newspaper—a tactic the news media’s role that backfired. The com- as watchdog is vital munity was in an uproar in communities with a after we reported that long-standing culture charges were dismissed of corruption. Everyone against a man arrested seemed to know some- for operating a meth- thing wasn’t right. But amphetamine lab near nobody—not even the an elementary school federal authorities until because deputies failed we started pushing the three times to present issue—was willing to evidence before the do anything about it. grand jury. We might The indictment of Sheriff Hodge, in handcuffs, on 21 counts of abuse of Allen Trimble, who is have missed that case public trust and evidence tampering came after a investigation by the the commonwealth’s if the sheriff hadn’t Times-Tribune in Corbin, Kentucky. Photo courtesy of the Times-Tribune. attorney for the state’s bragged about the arrest 34th Judicial Circuit in the other paper and (which oversees Whitley posed for a photo with the evidence. The Arrest and Its Aftermath County), told The Rural Blog, published I wasn’t totally surprised when by the Institute for Rural Journalism federal investigators told Adam that On May 20, 2010, days after Hodge and Community Issues, that our “very the sheriff had made comments about lost a hotly contested primary elec- persistent” reporting “was a very sig- “taking care of ” him. He was known tion, a petition was filed to impanel nificant influence on me.” to have a temper and had told Adam a special grand jury to investigate Hearing him say this was both to “go fuck himself ” after the break- his department. The Times-Tribune’s amazing and a little bit sad. It tells in. The sheriff wasn’t charged for his reporting and “numerous citizen me that there is a great need for alleged threats, but we were advised complaints” were cited as the reasons. good investigative journalism in rural by investigators to stay within the city On November 8, 2010, the sheriff was America. Young reporters tend to think limits where deputies had jurisdiction indicted and arrested on 21 counts they need a byline from The New York but rarely patrolled and not to let a of abuse of public trust and evidence Times to make a difference in the world. deputy pull us over. tampering. Additional federal charges If they really want to have an impact, Everywhere I went friends, attorneys are pending. get a job with a community paper, and and even my optometrist warned me By the time of his arrest, I had start asking the tough questions that to be careful, but I didn’t get spooked already left Kentucky for a community no one ever asked before. n until a State Police trooper came to my newspaper job in a town along the coast office one day just to say I was doing a of Oregon. Adam stayed in the area, Samantha Swindler was managing “brave thing.” City cops started telling but he had quit the Times-Tribune and editor of the Times-Tribune in me the same thing. And that’s about lived in an out-of-town hotel during Corbin, Kentucky for four years. In the time I went out to buy a pistol. the weeks the grand jury was meeting. July 2010, she moved to Oregon and Only once did either Adam or I use He said he couldn’t continue to report is now publisher of the Tillamook a gun in any way. A man we suspected and avoid the sheriff and his deputies. Headlight-Herald. as part of a group of drug dealers While I never doubted the accuracy associated with the sheriff drove up of our sources, I was relieved when
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 67 Nieman Notes A Journalist’s Letter From Academia Making the switch from full-time journalist to tenured professor is more challenging—and rewarding—than one might think.
By Jon Palfreman
fter a long career as a the campus, I was interviewed, ists are looking longingly at the broadcast journalist work- gave a presentation to the faculty academy. Celebrated reporters, ing for the BBC and PBS, about my work, and was observed who once assumed they would AI had time when I became a Nie- teaching classes. I was offered finish their careers doing what man Fellow to contemplate my the job and I accepted. I wasn’t they love, are weighing options future—and I concluded that it sure if I would like university such as teaching. was precarious. As an indepen- life or be successful in this chal- dent documentary producer, I was lenging new world. I couldn’t tell Practical Matters competing each year for one of the if this move marked the end of increasingly scarce commissions my professional career or a new You might think that the nation’s at “Frontline,” PBS’s flagship cur- chapter in it, but the University j-schools would be lusting to hire rent affairs program. Audiences of Oregon seemed like a place seasoned journalists sporting and budgets were falling. Then where I could make a contribu- Pulitzers, duPonts and Emmys. a big documentary project I had tion and earn an honest living. Journalism is a practical business been counting on fell through. Job security in journalism has so who better to inspire the next So in 2006 toward the end of continued to plunge. According generation of journalists than a my Nieman year, on a whim, I to the Pew Research Center’s professional who has made it applied for a job as a professor 2010 State of the News Media in the real world. But the view of broadcast journalism at the report, newspaper newsrooms inside the academy is different. University of Oregon. have shrunk by a quarter in the While professional success is Over the course of two days on last three years. Many journal- admired and respected, other metrics influence faculty hiring, promotion and tenure. If you’re planning to make the jump to university life, there are a few things to watch out for. First, there is the issue of advanced degrees. Even the most accomplished professional jour- nalist will have trouble landing a job at most colleges or universities without a master’s degree. And in a disturbing and somewhat perplexing trend, job descriptions increasingly say, “PhD preferred.” Fortunately, I had both degrees. Then there is the issue of teaching experience. Since a big part of your job will be teaching students how to report, write, shoot and edit, faculty search Extensive travel to Asia, Europe and elsewhere to produce the documentary “Sick committees want some evidence Around the World” required journalism professor Jon Palfreman to take a term off of your classroom skills. So it’s from teaching. Photo courtesy of “Frontline.” a very good idea to try your
68 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Nieman Notes hand at teaching. Out of curiosity, I York Times, it isn’t immediately clear term. He graciously agreed. had taught a few courses at Boston how she will continue to demonstrate The result was “Sick Around the University and Suffolk University as excellence by winning Pulitzers and World,” the first of three “Frontline” an adjunct instructor. The money is find time to do the extensive research, programs I have produced since enter- meager—generally between $3,000 reporting and writing required. My ing the academy. While it hasn’t been and $4,000—but working as an adjunct situation was similarly challenging. easy to balance teaching, service and will reveal two things. You’ll discover The documentaries I produce for professional practice, it has proved very if you like teaching and you will learn “Frontline” are demanding undertak- rewarding. These three programs not (via student feedback) if you are any ings—each requiring four to eight only formed the basis of my tenure good at it. months of work and several weeks of case but also reaffirmed that I was Teaching, by the way, can be very travel, plus a brutal editorial review. still a working journalist—albeit a rewarding. It’s not just the satisfac- How was I going to find time to do more financially secure one. Each tion of giving back to the journalistic this while fulfilling my duties in the year I teach five courses, serve on my enterprise you love or the energizing academy? share of committees, and spend the experience of interacting with young rest of my time pursuing my form of people. It’s also the intellectual pleasure Tenure Strategies journalism. Thanks to the flexibility that comes from designing courses, a and understanding of my j-school col- process that forces the professional I don’t know how I convinced my leagues, I have not only gained tenure journalist to reflect on his craft. interviewers to hire me, but the but also fashioned a model where I Having a brilliant résumé, a master’s truth is that when I started teaching can continue my journalistic career, degree, and some teaching experience at the University of Oregon’s School which I am sure makes me a more should be enough to get you short- of Journalism and Communication, interesting and credible role model listed for an instructor vacancy. But I had no clue how I was going to to my students. the higher paying academic jobs are gain tenure. Initially, I focused on If you’re thinking of applying for a tenure-track positions requiring faculty my teaching—normally five courses job at a j-school, my advice is to decide to do research as well as teach. This is a year—and service obligations such whether you are doing so as a way to where things get complicated. In my as committee work. But like it or not, continue practicing journalism or as interview for a tenure-track professor- my tenure clock was ticking. a means of escaping from it. If, like ship, the skeptical questions did not Talking to my j-school colleagues, me, you see it as a means to continue focus on what I had accomplished, a group that included several former the work you love, then I encourage but rather what I planned to do after professional journalists, I learned that you to apply. In today’s competitive entering the academy. there were various proven tenure strat- environment, you will certainly need Tenure-track jobs—which include egies. Some faculty had won tenure by not only a stellar résumé but also teach- assistant professors, associate profes- writing textbooks or scholarly articles ing experience and at least a master’s sors, full professors, distinguished about journalism. These routes did not degree. Yet your ultimate success in professors with endowed chairs, and appeal to me. But other colleagues had the academy will depend less on your deans—are the most sought-after fac- built their tenure cases by continuing to celebrated professional past than on ulty positions. A tenure-track faculty work as journalists, writing important a vision of your journalistic future. n member is not only expected to teach, magazine articles and trade books. By but also to generate a body of scholarly getting major pieces of work published Jon Palfreman, a 2006 Nieman or creative work. Based largely on the by a nationally recognized magazine or Fellow, is KEZI Distinguished quality of this body of work (usually book imprint, these professionals had Professor of Broadcast Journalism at completed over the first five or six survived an editorial process at least the University of Oregon. A veteran years), the university or college will as grueling as academic peer review. of both U.K. and U.S. television, grant the new professor indefinite Their portfolio not only demonstrated he has made more than 40 BBC tenure—effectively a job for life—or that they were still top-notch journal- and PBS one-hour documentaries ask him to leave. ists but made them worthy of tenure. including the Peabody Award- The tenure system was designed for So in the spring term of my first winning series “The Machine That career academics, not seasoned profes- year, I approached my dean and told Changed the World,” the Emmy sionals. A young PhD, appointed as an him that I was in discussions with Award-winning NOVA program assistant professor in, say, philosophy, “Frontline” to make a film about health “Siamese Twins,” and the Alfred I. seeks tenure by publishing research care systems around the world. The duPont-Columbia University Silver in important peer-reviewed scholarly catch: this would require a month- Baton winner “Harvest of Fear.” journals. Now how is this supposed to long filming trip to Japan, Taiwan, work for an award-winning investiga- Germany, Switzerland and the United tive reporter? If she no longer works Kingdom in October so I would have at The Washington Post or The New to be relieved of teaching in the fall
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 69 Nieman Notes
1957 said, “Anyone seeking evidence of the a Navy employee who was dismissed profound implications and enduring as a security risk without being told importance of the First Amendment the nature or source of the charges Anthony Lewis received a lifetime need only look at the life work of Tony against him. Lewis’s reporting led to achievement award from the New Lewis. He is the embodiment of the Chasanow’s reinstatement. England First Amendment Coalition five freedoms, a giant upon whose He won a second Pulitzer, also for this past February. The group, which shoulders we stand as we survey the national reporting, in 1963 during his includes journalists, educators, librar- new media landscape stretching out 50 years at The New York Times. That ians, historians and First Amendment before us. Tony’s steadfast passion, one was for his coverage of the U.S. lawyers from the six New England intellectual rigor, and uncommon cour- Supreme Court, especially the court’s states, was founded in 2006 to defend, age are simply the standard by which decision on reapportionment and its promote and expand public access to all others—journalists, educators and consequences for many states. government and the work it does. citizens—should be measured.” Lewis is the author of five books, In announcing Lewis’s selection Lewis won the Pulitzer Prize for including “Freedom for the Thought as the recipient of the inaugural National Reporting in 1955 when he That We Hate: A Biography of the lifetime achievement award, coalition was a reporter for the Washington Daily First Amendment” and “Make No president Thomas Heslin, executive News. It was for a series of articles Law: The Sullivan Case and the First editor of The Providence Journal, he wrote about Abraham Chasanow, Amendment.”
Max Hall, 1910-2011; Longtime Editor at Harvard and Author
Max Hall, NF ’50, died January ing editor at Harvard magazine, had migrated North into academia. 12th in Cambridge, Massachusetts. described Hall as “a superb editor; I didn’t know it at the time, but He was 100 years old. a careful, clear, and economical there were other Southerners in A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Hall writer; and a charming, kindly Max’s club as well—people like his worked part time on the sports desk man, generous with his time and author Tom McCraw at the busi- of The Atlanta Constitution prior to willingness to be helpful.” ness school, where Max served as graduating from Emory University Susan Wallace Boehmer, editor editorial adviser to the division of with a bachelor’s degree in English in chief of HUP, has fond memories research after leaving HUP. With literature. After teaching high school of him. She writes: “The skills Max Max’s editorial help, Tom wrote English for a year, he returned to brought to editing—which many a Pulitzer Prize-winning history, the world of journalism, working of his authors have written about which HUP proudly published in at The Atlanta Georgian and the eloquently—extended not just to 1984.” Two years later, HUP pub- Daily Mirror in New York City manuscripts but to the people he lished Hall’s book about the press, before moving to The Associated worked with. Speaking in a soft simply titled “Harvard University Press where he stayed for nine years. Southern accent that he made a point Press: A History.” Following his Nieman year, he not to lose, he was charming and After he retired at 66 from the worked for the federal government charismatic but also self-effacing— business school, Hall was a regular for six years and then was named interested in what others had to say, contributor to Harvard magazine, editorial director for the 10-volume in drawing them out, hearing their where he served on the board of New York Metropolitan Region stories, and establishing a personal directors. His book “The Charles: Study, which was published by bond of some kind. In my case, it The People’s River,” published in Harvard University Press (HUP). was our Atlanta upbringing and 1986, grew out of an article he wrote In 1960 he published his first book, education at Emory. We made this for the magazine. He published “Benjamin Franklin and Polly Baker: connection in 1973, when I was first “An Embarrassment of Misprints: The History of a Literary Decep- walking in the door at HUP as a Comical and Disastrous Typos of the tion,” and was hired as HUP’s first young editorial assistant and Max Centuries” in 1995, 34 years after social sciences editor. In that role, was leaving the press after serving he wrote an article about printers’ he helped decide which books in 13 years as editor for social science. errors for Nieman Reports. history, economics and government Despite the disparity in our ages and Hall’s wife of 40 years, Elizabeth, the press should publish. life experience, Max immediately died in 1974. He is survived by two Christopher Reed, a former made me feel part of a secret, special daughters, one son, eight grandchil- colleague at HUP and a contribut- two-person club—Southerners who dren, and six great-grandchildren. n
70 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Nieman Notes
Foundation’s Secrecy and Journalism Conference Is Global Event
“I don’t regard Julian Assange as a most popular re-tweets. kindred spirit. If he’s a journalist, Kathleen Carroll, executive editor he’s not the kind of journalist that at The Associated Press, opened the I am.” event with her speech, and panel members included Walter Pincus, This comment about the founder of national security reporter for The WikiLeaks by Bill Keller, executive Washington Post; David Kaplan, editor of The New York Times, director of the International Con- struck a nerve this past December sortium of Investigative Journalists; during the first live-streamed and and Maggie Mulvihill, NF ’05, live-blogged conference in the his- senior investigative producer at the tory of the Nieman Foundation, New England Center for Investiga- “From Watergate to WikiLeaks: tive Reporting. Secrecy and Journalism in the New Drawing on the wealth of voices Media Age.” the Nieman Fellowship brings Taking a leadership role in to Harvard, the conference also exploring the ramifications of the featured a panel of international topic for journalists, the Nieman Nieman Fellows, who brought Foundation invited Keller, along important global perspectives to with other journalism leaders and the discussions. Talking about the veteran national security reporters, push for accountability in their to explore how secrets are investi- New York Times editor Bill Keller at the respective countries and the role gated, shared and filtered (or not) secrecy conference. Photo by Lisa Abitbol. of technology were Alejandra in the current environment. They Matus, NF ’10, a freelance jour- discussed how changes in technolo- reporting, what is the role of the nalist in Chile, along with fellows gies are affecting journalism in the journalist? Who, in a constantly Stefan Candea, co-founder of the United States and abroad. changing mix of sources, publica- Romanian Center for Investigative Keller’s keynote was scrutinized tions and publishers, is considered Journalism; Kevin Doyle, editor in carefully since the Times had a journalist? chief of The Cambodia Daily; and partnered with The Guardian and The Nieman conference brought Rob Rose, an investigative reporter Der Spiegel to publish thousands a capacity crowd to Lippmann for the Sunday Times, based in of classified U.S. documents made House and attracted more than 700 Johannesburg, South Africa. available by WikiLeaks, bringing online viewers, who tuned in from Videos and blogs from the con- a number of uneasy questions to India, Croatia, Ecuador and France ference sessions are available on the profession. For example: In throughout the day. The event also the Nieman Foundation’s website an era of whistleblowing websites, generated more than 1,000 tweets, in the news and events section. self-publishing and social media with Keller’s quote being one of the n—Stefanie Friedhoff
1965 grandfather was an editor. He was a 1970, he was hired by WBAL-TV and two-time winner of the Heywood Broun WTOP-TV in Washington, D.C. He Award; in 1957 he won for coverage returned to newspapers and worked Arthur W. Geiselman, Jr. died on that led to community reforms, and at The Philadelphia Bulletin, the December 21st after he fell in the nurs- in 1963 he was recognized for stories Philadelphia Daily News, and The ing home where he had been living in leading to the prosecution of housing Washington Times. Sykesville, Maryland. He was 85 and code violations. He spent more than a decade at the had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s After his Nieman year, he worked Albuquerque Journal, where he ended disease in 1999. at The Evening Sun in Baltimore for his half-century career in journalism A Navy veteran of World War II, five years where he reported on prison in 1998. Geiselman began his career as an conditions and secret intelligence files He is survived by his wife, Helen, investigative reporter with The York maintained by the police department. four daughters, seven grandchildren, (Penn.) Gazette and Daily, where his When the Sun staff went on strike in and one great-grandchild.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 71 Nieman Notes
1971 Rio de Janeiro. He has been fighting individual, from his thick Charleston for journalists’ rights for nearly as accent to that slightly mad, conspira- long, having been arrested and briefly torial, insinuating grin that explodes Jack Schwartz is a mentor in the detained as a high school student for out of his scruffy red beard at the nonfiction program of the Writers’ trying to form a media association. least provocation. He’s certainly not Institute at the City University of He worked at Jornal do Brasil (“Jour- the standard-issue CEO type that one New York Graduate Center for the nal of Brazil”) for 23 years, serving expects in the commerce job. No man spring semester. He also is an adjunct as a reporter, foreign correspondent, in the gray flannel suit is he. I feel professor at the Columbia Journalism and editor. In 1994, he helped make confident he’ll grab hold of commerce School, where he supervises master’s it the first newspaper based in Brazil with both hands, and make something students during a yearlong project available online. Since 1996 he has happen or bust a gut in the attempt.” reporting and writing a 5,000-word held the Knight Chair in International magazine piece. Journalism at the University of Texas Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize- Schwartz, who spent nearly 50 years at Austin, where in 2002 he founded winning columnist, has been elected in the newspaper business, retired in and continues to direct the Knight to the Pulitzer Prize Board, which is 2005 from The New York Times where Center for Journalism in the Americas. in charge of judging the awards. He he was an assistant culture editor. “The tribute to Rosental is a most joins Ann Marie Lipinski, NF ’90, just recognition of a journalist who on the board. The rules for this year’s 1974 has contributed so much to raise the Pulitzer contest have been modified standards of the profession in Brazil to allow entries to include videos and and other countries,” said Fernando databases as well as multimedia and Paul Bichara con- Rodrigues, NF ’08, ABRAJI president, interactive presentations. A 30-year tributed to a new in a statement. veteran of The Washington Post, edition of “Chaban- Alves helped establish ABRAJI Robinson became an associate editor Delmas,” a biogra- and other Latin American journalism and began writing a twice-weekly phy of the former organizations and serves on the boards column for the paper’s op-ed page in French prime min- of the Ibero-American New Journal- 2005. In 2009, he won the Pulitzer ister by Jacques ism Foundation and the International Prize for Commentary for his columns Mousseau. Like the Consortium of Investigative Journal- about the presidential campaign and first edition, the ists, among others. The first Brazilian election of Barack Obama. new one is written selected for a Nieman fellowship, he is in French. It was published by Perrin a member of the Nieman Foundation’s 1989 this past year to commemorate the advisory board. 10th anniversary of the death of Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Bichara explained Bobby Hitt became South Carolina’s Peter Richmond’s that he was asked to contribute to the secretary of commerce in January. book “Badasses: new edition because he was an unof- He was appointed by Governor The Legend of ficial foreign policy adviser to the Nikki Haley in December—her first Snake, Foo, Dr. prime minister as well as a friend. He appointment after taking office—and Death, and John called Chaban-Delmas, who was mayor was confirmed by the state Senate Madden’s Oakland of Bordeaux for nearly half a century, the next month with the unanimous R a i d e r s ” w a s “a unique case of longevity in approval of the Labor, Commerce released this past politics.” and Industry Committee. Prior to his S e p t e m b e r b y appointment, he had been the manager Harper. It chroni- 1988 of corporate affairs for BMW Manu- cles the Oakland Raiders of the 1970’s, facturing Company since it opened in one of the last teams to exhibit the Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1993. character of the “mud-and-lunchpail Rosental Alves will be honored in Previously, he worked for South era” of the sport, before it became the July for his career achievements. The Carolina’s largest newspaper, The State, entertainment behemoth that it is Brazilian Association of Investigative and its sister paper, The Columbia today. Journalism (ABRAJI) will recognize Record. He left the company after 17 During the six seasons from 1972 Alves’s contributions at its sixth annual years in 1991, having spent the past to 1977, the Raiders won more games International Investigative Journalism four years as the managing editor of than any other team in the NFL, made Congress. The State. five consecutive appearances in the Alves got his start in journalism One of his former newspaper AFC championship game, and won in 1968 when, at the age of 16, he colleagues, Brad Warthen, wrote of Super Bowl XI to cap off the 1976 wrote for his school newspaper in Hitt’s nomination: “Bobby is a unique season. But in the greater history of
72 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Nieman Notes
Dexter Filkins, Veteran War Correspondent, Delivers Morris Lecture
Dexter Filkins, NF ’07, and it could all collapse who has covered the wars tomorrow. But it hasn’t.” in Iraq and Afghanistan As far as Afghanistan’s during the past decade, future, Filkins said, the offered his perspective challenges remain tre- on the region’s past and mendous even though the future during the 30th United States has now annual Joe Alex Morris, had a military presence Jr. Memorial Lecture at in the country for almost the Nieman Foundation 10 years. It’s difficult to on February 3rd. make clear distinctions “If I’ve learned anything between the government, over the past—I can’t the drug traffickers, and believe it’s 10 years—cov- Dexter Filkins, NF ’07, said Iraq was a changed place the Taliban, he said. The ering these two American when he returned in 2008. Photo by Lisa Abitbol. Afghan government is, wars ... [it’s that] the as one American official truth is there and it’s to be found, Times in 2000, left the paper this told Filkins, a “vertically integrated and you can find it,” he said. Yet past December to become a staff criminal enterprise.” the challenge of reporting in such writer for The New Yorker. In his Filkins and a colleague at the chaotic and deadly places is huge. 2008 book, “The Forever War,” he Times shared the 2010 George Filkins said metaphors can help told the stories that he most vividly Polk Award for Military Reporting convey what it’s like. One war cor- remembered, the ones he would for their behind-the-scenes look respondent he knows compares the share with friends when they asked at the war in Afghanistan. The job to putting together a puzzle what it was like over there. announcement said their disclosures when a lot of the pieces are miss- He barely recognized Iraq when “subsequently altered public percep- ing; another said it is like trying he returned in 2008, two years after tion of the conflict.” to identify shapes looming in the he left. “The scars were still there,” The Joe Alex Morris, Jr. Memo- distance during a blizzard. Filkins he said, and there were 2 million rial Lecture honors the Los Angeles said the metaphor he prefers is refugees in Jordan and Syria, but the Times foreign correspondent who that of a kaleidoscope. “It was all quality of life was vastly improved. In had reported from the Middle these pieces of colored glass swirling 2006 the park in front of the heavily East for 25 years before he was around and just when you thought barricaded house where he had lived killed while covering the Iranian ‘I think I know something,’ all the as a reporter for the Times was a Revolution in Tehran in February glass would rearrange itself again. place no one—except someone with 1979. Each year, the Morris Lecture There was never any moment when a death wish, he said—would visit. is given by an American foreign you could sit back and say ‘I finally Two years later, people were out in correspondent or commentator. n understand this place,’” he said. the streets. “It’s a lot better than it —Jan Gardner Filkins, who joined The New York was,” he said. “It’s extremely fragile
the NFL, Richmond writes, the team’s Hells Angels and Black Panthers, and “magnetically drawn to the guys whose accomplishments during the decade dancing on bars, to name a few—but hair flapped out of their helmets, whose are overshadowed by the Miami played the game with a youthful exu- mustaches and beards and eyeblack Dolphins, Pittsburgh Steelers, and berance missing in the modern NFL. loomed like warrior makeup behind the Dallas Cowboys, which each won The players Richmond interviewed the face guards …” more championships and “represented spoke of the team as a family and “Badasses” is Richmond’s fifth book, excellence of a very specific kind: credited its success to that attitude. and, as he told The New Yorker, it is simple football excellence.” Richmond, a child of the East Coast something of a follow-up to 2008’s Meanwhile, the Raiders became waging his own private rebellion at “The Glory Game: How the 1958 notorious for their off-the-field antics— Yale University when he became a NFL Championship Changed Football tailgating with fans, befriending the fan of the Raiders, writes that he was Forever,” which he wrote with New
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 73 Nieman Notes
Saul Friedman, 1929-2010; Covered Top Political Stories and Wrote ‘Gray Matters,’ a Column About Aging
Saul Friedman, NF ’63, a longtime having driven back from New York the paper instituted a paywall reporter and columnist, died on to be with me for the occasion. I online, Friedman took his column December 24th at his home in was overwhelmed. No matter what to TimeGoesBy.net and The Huff- Edgewater, Maryland from stomach crazy things he did, he always made ington Post. His last column was cancer. He was 81 years old. sure I was all right.” published a week before he died. Friedman, who spent more than For the past 14 years, Friedman In addition to his wife, he is 50 years in journalism, covered many wrote “Gray Matters,” a column survived by two daughters, five major political stories, including the about aging and senior issues that grandchildren, and one great- civil rights movement, the protests first appeared in Newsday. After grandchild. n against the Vietnam War, and the resignation of President Richard Nixon. In addition, Friedman had the distinction of being named to Nixon’s White House enemies list. He wrote a series of articles for the Fondly Remembering a ’63 Nieman Classmate Houston Chronicle that, according to his wife Evelyn, helped improve conditions at a public hospital that By Allister Sparks mainly served black patients. He also was part of the team at the This remembrance was read at right side, then stomach cancer, Detroit Free Press that won the 1968 Friedman’s memorial service. which eventually proved fatal. He Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting kept on writing and he kept on for coverage of race riots in the city. A mighty tree has fallen in the fighting—fighting his ailments and In 1985, he joined Newsday’s redwood forest of those who tower fighting injustice. He was the truest Washington bureau, where he spent above the crowd in their caring adherent I have ever known to the 10 years covering the State Depart- about the state of the world and old adage that the journalist’s job is ment and Congress. of humanity. Saul was my oldest to comfort the afflicted and afflict After retiring as a reporter in and dearest friend, a friendship the comfortable. His own afflictions 1995, he spent time in South Africa that we sustained across half the he fought mightily. He spent his teaching journalism with Nieman world for more than half a century 80th birthday walking through the classmate Allister Sparks. from our first meeting as Nieman African bushveld, with his gammy Speaking at the funeral service, Fellows at Harvard in the class leg and his cane, stepping over the Friedman’s wife recalled that, during of 1963, a friendship grounded in droppings of wild elephants. Then in his Nieman year, he was in New shared values and shared passions a final magnificent gesture of defi- York visiting family when a major about our respective countries which ance he bought himself a powerful, snowstorm swept through the area shared so many historical issues to bright orange sports car. on New Year’s Eve, stranding him stir those passions. He was a man who loved as there while she was in Cambridge Saul was a larger-than-life figure strongly as he loathed: He loved with their sick child. in every respect—a big man with the sea, he loved boats, he loved “So I called all the other Niemans,” a big voice and big ideas and a traveling, he loved the wild, he she said, “and told them what was big heart. A courageous man both loved journalism, he loved politics, happening and would they bring morally and physically, whose voice he loved good food, he loved good some food and come to help me would boom out against injustice music, he loved to talk, he loved celebrate since I couldn’t leave and inequality, prejudice and preten- his country, he loved his friends, the child. They did. They brought sion, greed and the abuse of political and above all he loved his family. much food and wine and whiskey power, and who fought every physi- And I loved him. Especially the and we were having a good party cal disability that came his way with sheer size of him. We shall not see when a loud knocking came at the the courage of the lion-hearted. He the likes of him again. To Evelyn, back door. suffered a stroke that affected his Lesley, Lisa and their families, know “It was Saul, covered in snow, speech and partially paralyzed his that I grieve with you. n
74 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Nieman Notes
Somali Journalist Mohamed Olad Hassan Receives Lyons Award
S o m a l i r e p o r t e r Hassan’s peers recognize Mohamed Olad Has- him as the voice of the san, who has endured voiceless in Somalia. repeated death threats Hassan started his and a shrapnel wound, career writing for the was awarded the Louis Xog-Ogaal newspaper in M. Lyons Award for Mogadishu in 2001. The Conscience and Integ- following year he became rity in Journalism in the Somali Television November. Network’s chief Moga- Nieman Fellows in the dishu correspondent Class of 2011 selected and in 2003, he began Hassan, a senior corre- reporting for the BBC spondent and writer for World Service and The the BBC World Service Lyons award recipient Mohamed Olad Hassan of Somalia was Associated Press. and The Associated nominated by Gwen Thompkins, NF ’11, East Africa corre- In 2007, he was Press, in recognition of spondent for NPR. Photo by Lisa Abitbol. wounded by a mortar his courageous reporting explosion near his home. from a perilous region Two years later, Hassan and for his enduring commitment and in a real sense the voice of the narrowly escaped with his life when to the people of Somalia. country. For that we honor him.” a bomb exploded at a graduation In announcing their selection, the While a number of journalists ceremony he was covering, killing Nieman Fellows said, “Journalists and media professionals have been two dozen people, including a col- face increasing pressures in many killed on the job in Somalia and league who had just taken Hassan’s parts of the world, but Mohamed others have been forced to flee the own seat. Olad Hassan stands out in a crowd country, Hassan has persevered. The Nieman Class of 1964 estab- of worthy candidates. We admire Despite efforts by the government lished the Louis M. Lyons Award his intrepid reporting in the face and radical insurgent groups like in honor of the Nieman Foundation of mortal danger. We appreciate al-Shabob to silence the media, curator who retired that year after his determination to carry on in an he has chosen to stay, citing his leading the institution for 25 years. environment so hostile that almost “desire to inform the world, to tell The award honors displays of con- no one else will. He has become the the truth and help bring peace and science and integrity by individuals world’s eyes and ears in Somalia democracy to my own country.” or groups. n—Jan Gardner
York Giants Hall of Famer Frank followed by subzero weather. But Tulsky, a veteran investigative Gifford. That book prompted the that didn’t dissuade me from feeling reporter, most recently was investiga- question—“What was the last great tremendous excitement about this tions editor at the San Jose Mercury football team that played the sport endeavor. Medill envisions the center News. In 1987, he and two colleagues for love and camaraderie, not money producing journalism that will make a at the Philadelphia Inquirer won a or fame?”—that set the new book in difference, and the details have been Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Report- motion. A former newspaper writer, deliberately left vague to give us the ing for their exposé on city trial courts. Richmond spent 13 years on staff at chance to shape it in whatever way At Medill he will lead the develop- GQ magazine. makes the most sense. It’s exciting that ment of a center for watchdog and as more and more places are trying to accountability journalism that will Rick Tulsky joined Northwestern develop a model to do reporting to hold involve students, faculty and local University’s Medill School of Journal- officials—public and private—account- organizations in identifying systemic ism as director of its new watchdog able, that Medill recognized the need problems in government and public initiative. He writes: “My first day of and has thrown its support behind it. institutions and providing citizens with work was February 1, arriving just I feel as if I died and went to heaven. information that will lead to making in time for the historic snowstorm Well, if there were snow in heaven.” improvements.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 75 Nieman Notes
Nieman Fellows Find a Home in ‘The Princeton Reader’
From Gaza to between 2000 and 2010. John NF ’99, (“Trevor Manuel and the South Africa and McPhee and Carol Rigolot are co- Liberation of Nelson Mandela”); and Paris to Wash- editors. In his introduction, McPhee, Ken Armstrong, NF ’01, (“Curtis ington, D.C., who has been a Ferris professor Williams—Victory and Ruins”). essays by Nie- since 1975, notes that most visiting In addition, a number of contribu- man Fellows in journalists who teach at Princeton tors to Nieman Reports appear in “The Princeton stay only one semester. the anthology, including Charles Reader” hop- The Nieman contributors are Lewis, founder of the Center for scotch across the Mitchel Levitas, NF ’59, (“The Public Integrity. His essay was first w o r l d . T h e Renaissance of the Marais”); published in the magazine’s Spring “Reader,” published this past Decem- Gilbert Gaul, NF ’83, (“Internet 2008 issue. ber by Princeton University Press, Gambling”); Athelia Knight, NF Other recent Nieman Reports is an anthology of nonfiction pieces ’86, (“McKinley High School”); Julia contributors in the anthology are by 75 journalists who have held a Keller, NF ’98, (“The Lure of the Barbara Demick, Barton Gellman, Ferris, McGraw or Robbins profes- Frozen Lake”); Chris Hedges, NF Roy Gutman, Kay Mills, and Evan sorship at Princeton University ’99, (“A Gaza Diary”); Pippa Green, Thomas. n
1992 with trustees and staff. Board mem- ing substantive issues in the media, bers also teach Poynter courses. He moving beyond Starr’s love interests, joins Melanie Sill, NF ’94, who was but still having fun with characters Mark Seibel is now chief of cor- named to the board in 2010. Riley like sexist journalism professor Harry respondents in McClatchy Newspapers’ is the managing editor of the newly Groper, celebrity commentator Vanity Washington, D.C. bureau. A veteran launched Bloomberg Government, Puffington, and Rat Sludge, a thinly of foreign news, he most recently had which he wrote about in the Winter veiled caricature of Matt Drudge. been managing editor of McClatchyDC. 2010 issue of Nieman Reports. Schmich wrote, “I was especially fond com. In announcing Seibel’s new posi- of publisher B. Babbitt Bottomline, tion and other changes in the bureau, 1996 who once cut costs by staging an Anders Gyllenhaal, vice president for ‘American Idol’-style contest in which news and Washington editor, wrote readers got to vote reporters out of “Mark’s years of experience in world Mary Schmich, who for 25 years The Flash newsroom.” news, and deep knowledge of our wrote “Brenda Starr,” has retired from In an e-mail, Schmich wrote, “When business, make him well suited for the funny pages. The last comic strip I was a Nieman Fellow, Bill Kovach the double duties of running our featuring the red-headed reporter was [NF ’89], then the Nieman curator, foreign bureaus and devising ways of published January 2nd. Tribune Media did a cool painting of the Brenda expanding and rethinking approaches Services, the syndicate that owned Starr postage stamp for me and had to providing global news. At a time with the strip, decided to end it rather all my fellow fellows sign it. I still so many important stories developing than replace Schmich and artist June have Bill’s painting of Brenda—and around the world, we will look for ways Brigman, who also decided to retire. now that she’s officially retired, I cher- of augmenting our foreign bureaus Schmich was a young reporter at ish it all the more.” She added, “And with partnerships, foundation funding, the Orlando Sentinel when her editor I’m taking mandolin lessons with my and other innovations.” recommended her for the writing job. Brenda time!” At its peak in the 1950’s, the seven- 1995 day-a-week strip about a “girl reporter” 2001 appeared in 250 newspapers around the world; toward the end, it ran in Michael Riley has been named about three dozen papers. Jingcao Hu directed “Liang Sicheng to the Poynter Institute’s National Writing late last year in one of her Lin Huiyin,” an eight-part documen- Advisory Board. The board provides three-times-a-week columns in the tary broadcast in China about the feedback to the institute’s president Chicago Tribune, Schmich told how she lives of Liang Sicheng, a pioneering and meets each January to consult put her mark on the strip by address- architectural historian, and his wife
76 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 Nieman Notes
Lin Huiyin, a writer and architect. high-adrenaline, high-risk war report- issue of Nieman Reports, she wrote The couple’s friendship with John ing, he wants something completely about her plan to leave the BBC King Fairbank, the American scholar different.” David Remnick, editor of and launch a startup. With Latitude, and historian of China, and his wife, The New Yorker, said, “I’m over the Balinska will approach international Wilma Fairbank, lies at the heart of moon.” [See story about Filkins deliver- journalism by exploring connections the documentary for which Hu drew ing the Joe Alex Morris, Jr. Memorial between Americans and the rest of heavily on the foursome’s voluminous Lecture on page 73.] the world and promoting a deeper correspondence from the 1930’s and understanding of how the U.S. fits 1940’s. In an interview published on 2008 into the global news narrative. The China Beat blog, Hu said she hopes As a recipient of one of the inaugural that viewers “will see, looking in full Women Entrepreneurs in the Global at the lives of these two intellectuals, James Baxter is founding edi- Digital News Frontier grants, Balinska the steep price that husband and wife tor and publisher of the Canadian will be coached by new media leaders both paid for the art to which they political news site iPolitics.ca, which on the IWMF’s Advisory Committee. were so devoted.” launched this past November. In an interview with Digital Journal, Baxter 2011 2003 said iPolitics is for “people who live, drink and breathe politics.” The site promises daily coverage of the “legisla- J.S. Tissainayagam accepted a Bryan Monroe is editor of CNNPoli- tive, regulatory, political and policy 2009 International Press Freedom tics.com, a newly created position. developments that matter most to Award from the Committee to Pro- Based in CNN’s Washington, D.C. businesspeople, professionals, politi- tect Journalists this past November. bureau, Monroe is leading the edito- cians, public servants, political activists He was in prison at the time of the rial planning and content strategy for and the more politically aware.” awards dinner in 2009. An ethnic CNN’s political coverage online. In addition to covering the federal Tamil journalist in Sri Lanka, Tissain- In an interview with BlackAmeri- and provincial governments, the site ayagam was taken into custody when caWeb.com this past January on the will provide a venue “where this coun- he visited the police station in March day he started his job, he said, “I’m try’s unique political personalities and 2008 to inquire about a colleague who really fortunate and happy to be in policy issues are reported on fairly, had been arrested the day before. He this position, a chance to work with discussed by experts, and debated in was held without being charged for some of the best political brains in an open arena, all in a timely and six months. In August of that year he the business.” Monroe added that his efficient manner,” Baxter wrote in an was charged with inciting “communal new role will allow him to marry the online message. disharmony” for articles he had written network’s “broadcast legacy with the Access to content from outside news nearly three years earlier. In August digital currency of today.” providers is free but a subscription 2009 he was sentenced to 20 years A frequent contributor to CNN, to stories and content developed by in prison; he was released on bail the Monroe most recently was a visiting iPolitics staff is $15 a month. following January and landed in the professor at Northwestern University’s United States this past June. The Sri Medill School of Journalism. He has 2010 Lankan government has granted him held executive positions at Ebony a presidential pardon. and Jet magazines and at the San In his acceptance speech, Tissain- Jose Mercury News and other Knight Maria Balinska has received a ayagam said, “Governments which Ridder newspapers and has helped a $20,000 grant from the International systematically suppress freedom of number of media companies develop Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) expression understand that while their presence online. to launch a new media enterprise. journalists can be silenced by inflicting Latitude, the international news service physical violence on them, there are far 2007 she conceived, is one of three projects more powerful and subtler deterrents the IWMF selected for funding from to achieve the same end. I am referring more than 100 proposals. Key criteria here to labeling. I remember only too Dexter Filkins, a reporter at The for selection included innovation in well how the Sri Lanka government- New York Times for a decade, has delivering the news and a plan for controlled newspapers, television and joined the staff of The New Yorker. In achieving sustainability beyond the most of all the government websites, an e-mail to The New York Observer, year-long grant program. mounted a campaign vilifying me. Bill Keller, executive editor of the Balinska, a veteran foreign journal- … They did not bother to meet the Times, called Filkins “a huge talent,” ist, served as editor of the BBC’s World legal arguments put forward by my adding, “We’ll miss him a lot, but I Current Affairs Radio from 1998 to lawyers—they only publicly denounced totally understand that after 10 years of 2009. In an article in the Fall 2010 me as a terrorist.” n
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 77 End Note An Abundance of Images: Is It Leading to a ‘Trivialization of Photography’?
Words and Photographs by Pablo Corral Vega
s in the iconic scene from raphers. Photography is the This radical democratization of “The Wizard of Oz,” the undisputed language of the 21st photography is not happening curtain obscuring the se- century, but it is increasingly only in developed countries; there Acrets of photography has been difficult to be a professional are large populations of people pulled back. The wizard, the photographer, to make a living with limited means in India, alchemist, the powerful conjurer from photography. We lost our Africa and Latin America using of images, the artist of light and monopoly on the image, the these cell phones. shadow is shown to be just a secrets of its magic. According to Ramesh Raskar man. His old tricks no longer Never before have so many and his team of scientists at amaze anyone. people had access to a camera. the Massachusetts Institute of This is an extraordinary There are now billions of cameras Technology, in less than a decade moment for photography but built into cell phones—a phenom- only a few professionals and seri- a terrible moment for photog- enon that only began in 2000. ous amateurs will use dedicated
Celebrating the Day of the Cross in Chiquipata, Bolivia. Photo by Pablo Corral Vega.
78 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 End Note cameras because improved quality people. This limited the uses and the But this process will necessarily lead in cell phones will make almost all potential viewership of the images. Now to the trivialization of photography. We traditional cameras obsolete. we can make endless digital copies of are already inundated with images, and Prior to this proliferation of digital our files. We can send our photos via it is difficult to recognize the few that imagery, professional photography was e-mail, put them on Flickr, add them evoke or transform, the pictures that the stronghold of a few who possessed to Facebook, or create exhibits with have something to say, that are loaded expensive equipment that was difficult online gallery spaces like deviantART. with meaning. There are many such to handle. Only those who knew what Of course, now we can also make images, without question. But now sort of film to buy, how to expose it prints in sizes and on surfaces that it’s easier to view and share photos. correctly, and which specialized labora- were previously unimaginable. There are many more of us helping tories would develop it properly could This tumultuous change is remi- to create this visual heritage. But to produce truly high-quality work. The niscent of what happened after the find those extraordinary images, which floor has fallen out from under profes- invention of the printing press in have the capacity to become personal sional photographers; the zealously Europe. Before, only a few could read or collective symbols, a sort of quiet is guarded advantage held by those with and write. Printing democratized the needed. That quiet is, itself, becoming arcane know-how simply disappeared. written word, pulling it out of the increasingly scarce. It is easier to save Anyone can now buy the same reason- erudite confines of the monasteries. every photo, share every photo, even ably priced camera professionals use, Writing came to be used for countless if we end up flooded, overwhelmed and without significant effort achieve everyday purposes. by the excess. technically similar results. The language of the image, which As professional photographers, The most radical transformation was dominated by a few, will come to we must use this crisis to regain our isn’t the way we capture images, but be used in unexpected places and to humility and ask ourselves a basic how we share them. Previously we fulfill unexpected social functions. Its and urgent question: Why do we take had to print pictures on paper—an increasingly widespread use will bring photographs? Money or fame certainly expensive process—and then we had more power and vitality to the image will not be reasons to follow this path. to get the physical object to other and to society. I wonder how many professionals will
Beside the colonial church of Chiquipata, Bolivia. Photo by Pablo Corral Vega.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 79 End Note
On the last day of Carnival in Oruro, Bolivia, families bring Virgin Mary statues to the church to be blessed.
be able to continue making a living with this work. Most of us take pictures because we want to remember, affirm affections, and leave a record of our connections with others, visible proof that we were, we loved, we celebrated. Some take photos to show beauty, asking others to look with amazement at this complex world—at once painful and wonderful. We take photos because we want to share, because we want to tell others, “Look, pay attention, my eyes enrich yours.” My reasons for taking photographs are quite simple. I take pictures because it makes me happy. Photography has taught me the immense value of being present, being where I am, and paying attention to what happens around me. The camera is a bridge that connects Costumed dancers perform at Carnival in Barranquilla, Colombia. me with everyone else, a passport that allows me to enter other cultures, other worlds. no powerful equipment or secret It is a way to recognize one another, The magic of photography is perhaps alchemy. It is a language, like others, to remember the importance of seeing simpler than we thought. It requires to talk about what it is to be human. with kindness and poetry. n
Photos by Pablo Corral Vega.
80 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 End Note
‘to promote and elevate the standards of journalism’
Agnes Wahl Nieman the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation
Vol. 65 No. 1 Spring 2011 Nieman Reports The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
Campesinos return home after a fiesta in Chiquipata, on the shores of Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca. Bob Giles | Publisher Melissa Ludtke | Editor Pablo Corral Vega, a 2011 Nieman Jan Gardner | Assistant Editor Fellow, is an Ecuadorian photo- Jonathan Seitz | Editorial Assistant journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic and The Diane Novetsky | Design Editor New York Times Magazine. He has published six books of photography, including “Andes,” for which he traveled the length of the mountain Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Editorial range and took many of these in March, June, September and December Telephone: 617-496-6308 photos. He is founder and director of by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, E-mail Address: Nuestra Mirada (www.nuestra One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. [email protected] mirada.org), a network of Latin Subscriptions/Business Internet Address: American photojournalists, and Telephone: 617-496-6299 www.niemanreports.org organizer of Pictures of the Year E-mail Address: Latin America Visual Journalism [email protected] Copyright 2011 by the President and Contest. This essay was translated Fellows of Harvard College. from Spanish by Ted O’Callahan, a Subscription $25 a year, $40 for two years; add $10 freelance writer and translator as per year for foreign airmail. Single copies $7.50. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, well as an editor for the Yale School Back copies are available from the Nieman office. Massachusetts and additional entries. of Management’s Qn magazine.
Please address all subscription correspondence to Postmaster: Music and dance fill the streets during Carnival in Barranquilla, Colombia. One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 Send address changes to and change of address information to Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108. P.O. Box 4951 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Manchester, NH 03108
Photos by Pablo Corral Vega.
Nieman Reports | Spring 2011 81 Re Niema n
Nieman Reports p o
One Francis Avenue r t Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 s Nieman Reports
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University V ol. 65 No. 1 SPRING 2011 l. l. V o 65 No. 1
S P R I N G G 2011
S HA T T E R I N G B G A R R I E R S
T O
R E VEAL
C O R R U P T I O N Shattering Barriers to Reveal Corruption
“In every newsroom, censorship and reporters’ self-censorship was widespread—and it was aimed squarely at the work of The Niema The investigative reporters. So common was this expectation that we came to anticipate the first question we would be asked n
Fou whenever we talked with targets of our investigation: ‘Who n d
a is paying you (or your boss) to attack me?’ The next words t i o n
we would hear was a promise from them that our newspaper a t
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a would not publish our story. That is when the pressure points r v a r
d would be tapped, and the most effective ones involved politi-
U n i
ve cians and their partners in business.” r s i t
y – Stefan Candea, co-founder of the Romanian Center for
Investigative Journalism in Bucharest, Romania