Transcript
The Chatham House Prize 2018: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Recipient: Joel Simon
Executive Director, The Committee to Protect Journalists
Lynsey Addario
Freelance Photojournalist
Mona Eltahawy
Freelance Journalist
Frans Everts
Executive Vice President, External Relations, Royal Dutch Shell
The Baroness Manningham-Buller LG DCB
President, Chatham House
The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the speaker(s) and participants, and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event, every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions. The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. © The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2018.
10 St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4LE T +44 (0)20 7957 5700 F +44 (0)20 7957 5710 www.chathamhouse.org Patron: Her Majesty The Queen Chairman: Stuart Popham QC Director: Dr Robin Niblett Charity Registration Number: 208223
2 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Maria Ressa
Executive Editor, Rappler
Chair: Dr Robin Niblett, CMG
Director, Chatham House
28 November 2018
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Dr Robin Niblett CMG
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Chatham House. Welcome to the 2018 Chatham House Prize Award Giving Ceremony. We’re delighted that you have come and joined us this evening. This event is quite obviously on the record and being livestreamed as well. So, I’d like to welcome all of the Chatham House members, who are not with us physically in the room, who did not brave the weather like everyone else did here, to come and join us. And I’d just like to remind you, make sure your phones are on silent and also, that you take the opportunity, as this is all on the record, to tweet away, if that’s what you like to do, with #CHPrize.
With that, I do want to get this going, ‘cause we have a long sequence of remarks and events and really want to give as much time as possible for us to be able to then engage in conversation up here on the stage, with a number of our distinguished guests. So, what I would say is Excellencies, Lords, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Chatham House and to this Awards Ceremony. I’m delighted that so many of our members are here, but also, we have members of our Council, of our Panel of Senior Advisors, and also, representatives of the very vibrant Diplomatic Business Civil Society and student communities here in London, whom you’re all representing by being with us this evening.
I want to say a special words of thanks right at the beginning to the lead sponsor and founding sponsor of the Chatham House Prize, which is Shell. They’ve supported the Prize since its launch in 2005 and are actually the longest standing corporate member of the Institute, going back to the 1920s. So, we’re especially pleased that their support would let us do justice to this very special event in our annual calendar.
The Chatham House Prize is in its 14th year and it is presented to the person, persons or organisation deemed by Chatham House members to have made the most significant contribution to international affairs in the previous year. The selection process, as I think you would expect from Chatham House, is independent, democratic and draws on the input of our Research Teams and departments across the Institute, making the prize a unique award, we think, in the field of international affairs. The Institute’s three Presidents: Sir John Major, Baroness Eliza Manningham – Baroness Manningham-Buller and Lord Darling select a short list of nominees from a longer list, which is submitted by our Research Teams, based on their areas of expertise. The recipient is then determined, by Chatham House members, on a one member, one vote, basis and the prize is presented on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, who is the Patron of Chatham House, here at the ceremony. And I’m delighted that Eliza Manningham-Buller has been able to join us this evening to make the award.
What I’m going to do, though, first of all, is just formally announce here to all of you here, as you well know, that the award this year has been presented, or is being awarded, to the Committee to Protect Journalists. And let me turn to the citation that was offered to Chatham House members in this case. The Committee to Protect Journalists is awarded the prize, in recognition of its efforts to defend the rights of Journalists to work without fear, at a time when the free press is under serious and sustained pressure in many parts of the world. A free press is an essential check and balance on Government by scrutinising policymaking and public administration and helping to promote honesty, accountability and transparency in the exercise of Executive, legislative and judicial power. But, as the rules-based liberal norms have come under increased pressure over the last decade, and as technological advances have given the world a variety of platforms to publish news opinion, so the Fourth Estate has found itself facing a number of challenges in fulfilling this watchdog role. Chief among these challenges, as recent events have tragically demonstrated, is ensuring that Journalists are not only free, but safe, to report the news without fear of reprisal. 4 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
So, Excellencies, Lords, ladies and gentlemen, it’s now my great pleasure to introduce Frans Everts, Executive Vice President of External Relations at Royal Dutch Shell, who, as the lead sponsor of the Chatham House Prize, will offer some initial words of welcome to this year’s winner. Frans, let me invite you up to the stage first [applause].
Frans Everts
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to be here. It’s an honour for Shell to be involved with this prize, especially this year, when the winner is such a strong defender of free speech, at a time when the media faces so many challenges across the world. Yes, there are now a multitude of ways to report the news, but there are now also, a multitude of ways to silence it.
And as we all know the Committee to Protect Journalists, it is fitting that we’re here, in the home or the house of free speech. Chatham House thrives on open discussion and truth telling and it has done so for close to 100 years. Shell’s been a member, as was referenced already, since 1929 and our ties are strong and we are proud to have been associated with this prize since it started in 2005. Shell believes in free speech and the rights of a free press and I say this as part of a sizeable company, whose coverage is not always favourable. We believe that the powerful should be held to account, that an individual should be able to stand up, speak out and report on facts without fear. To be healthy as a company, as countries, as a world, we all need the tellers of truth, especially when facts themselves seem to be under increasing assault these days. A society must protect its free press and ask questions when Journalists are bullied, berated and silenced, when they disappear, or when they die for their work. The Committee to Protect Journalists is just such a guardian. It steps in when there’s danger to the media or its freedom to report.
The first CPJ campaign in 1982 contributed to the release of three British Journalists jailed in Argentina. The Committee has not stopped since, logging disappearances, keeping track of the imprisoned, publishing data on the attacks on the press. And I will give you just one number from the CPJ website: 1,324. That is the number of Journalists killed between 1992 and 2018 and as the site puts it, “They were killed with motive confirmed, killed for being Journalists.” I have no doubt that the number would be even higher, were it not for the work of the CPJ. Last year, it was involved in the release of 75 Journalists. It also helped to secure convictions for the murders of six Journalists. The CPJ fights for the courageous, many of them unsung, local correspondents, working tirelessly to tell the truth that others want hidden. That is why, frankly, I’m honoured to share the stage with Joel and why I’m delighted that we can celebrate the work of such worthy winners of the Chatham House Prize. Thank you very much [applause].
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Frans, thank you very much for those very strong words and for pointing out the very important role that the Committee to Protect Journalists has been playing for so long.
It’s now my very great pleasure to invite Baroness Manningham-Buller, Chair of the Welcome Trust Board of Governors and a President of Chatham House, one of the three who put the Committee to Protect Journalists onto our shortlist, to present the prize to Joel Simon, Executive Director of the Committee, on behalf of our Patron, Her Majesty the Queen. After the presentation of the scroll, which has been signed by Her Majesty to Mr Simon and after his remarks, I’ll have an opportunity to moderate a discussion here, with a number of distinguished members of the press and we’ll have a chance to really dig inside some of their great achievements. But for now, Eliza, welcome back to Chatham House and over to you. 5 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
The Baroness Manningham-Buller LG DCB
I’ve got nowhere to hang my microphone; forgot to wear a belt. Ladies and gentleman, on behalf of Chatham House, I’m absolutely delighted to present the 2018 Chatham House Prize to the Committee to Protect Journalists. You’ve heard already, from the previous two speakers and I know you’ll hear from Joel in a minute, more about the work of this Committee, but everyone in this room will know how vital that work is.
In my lifetime, I think I’ve taken for granted a free press. I’ve taken for granted being able to listen and read and get views that don’t necessarily accord with mine, but I believe generally, are attempts at the truth and therefore, of importance to me. Those certainties have gone. We’ve seen not only the deaths, but the attacks, the criticisms, the rubbishing, the reprisals and it’s now clear that people who follow this honourable profession and people to whom we all owe a great debt. It therefore seems absolutely appropriate that this prize, won by this Committee, should also be a prize for all the Journalists in difficult parts of the world, who are endeavouring to do this task for us, the readers and absorbers of news, which is entirely an important and vital. So, it’s with great pleasure that this year’s Prize I give to the Committee to Protect Journalism [applause].
Joel Simon
Thank you [applause]. Thank you [applause].
The Baroness Manningham-Buller LG DCB
And I should add that I give the Prize on behalf of our Patron, Her Majesty the Queen, who has signed the scroll. Thank you very much [applause].
Joel Simon
Where do I put the scroll? Thank you so much [pause]. Baroness Manningham-Buller, Mr Everts, Dr Niblett, my Lords, Ladies, distinguished guests, esteemed colleagues, assembled friends and members of Chatham House, thank you very much for this award, honouring the work of the organisation I lead: The Committee to Protect Journalists. For more than 35 years we have defended the rights of Journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. This has always been critical and demanding work, but this award, I believe, recognises the particular challenges to Journalists and press freedom today.
This is certainly one of the most deadly, dangerous and difficult times for Journalists in modern history. A record number of Journalists are in jail around the world, 262 at the end of 2017. We expect there will be a similar number in jail at the end of this year, when we complete our annual tally. Among them, among the jailed Journalists are Reuters Reporters, Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone, who are imprisoned in Myanmar. They are convicted of violating the Colonial Era Official Secrets Act, while investigating mass killings of Rohingya men in Rakhine state. The Egyptian Photojournalist known as Shawkan, who has been in prison since 2003, when he was arrested, while covering clashes between Egyptian Security Forces and supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. And Mehmet Baransu, a Former Columnist and Correspondent for the daily Taraf in Turkey, who is accused, among other crimes, of obtaining secret documents related to a former coup attempt. He’s accused of insulting President Erdoğan and being a member of a terrorist organisation. 6 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
The number of Journalists killed, covering war around the world, has declined slightly, from highs we saw at the peak of the Syria and Iraq conflicts, but the number of Journalists targeted for murder actually rose sharply in 2018. Among those killed recently were European Investigative Journalists, Daphne Caruana Galazia, blown up in a car bomb in October 2007 – 17, and Ján Kuciak, shot in February, along with his fiancé, in Slovakia. In June, four Journalists and a media worker were gunned down at the Capital Gazette, outside Washington D.C. Then last month, of course, Saudi Journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. This brutal crime perpetrated against the Washington Post Columnist, who had been forced into self-imposed exile, due to his critical writing about Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, has sparked an unprecedented global outcry. New and shocking details about the crime seem to emerge every day.
In the United States, according to data compiled by the US Press Freedom Tracker, a joint project of CPJ and other groups, eight Journalists have been arrested, 42 Journalists have been attacked, and 20 have been subpoenaed. That’s this year. Damaging rhetoric, including the recent White House statement on the Khashoggi murder, clearly drafted by President Trump himself, which essentially conceded that those who do significant business with the US are free to murder Journalists with impunity, that kind of rhetoric has undermined US influence on autocratic regimes, who are persecuting Journalists as never before. Britain, of course, has become more inward looking, consumed with the tumulted turmoil surrounding Brexit. Europe is facing its own press freedom challenges, with serious backsliding in Poland and Hungary and violence against Investigative Reporters on the rise.
All this raises the question: which Governments and Western leaders are still standing up for press freedom and the rights of Journalists on an international level? In fact, many Western leaders seem more concerned with the rise of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, false news and hate speech, which are undermining access to reliable information and therefore, the ability of citizens to make informed decisions about their lives. To be sure, there is a crisis. Russian propaganda and misinformation seek to manipulate elections around the world. Information is being weaponised by Governments and business operations, fuelling political polarisation. Trolls and bots are dominating online conversation, influencing perceptions, hounding critics into silence and, in some cases, inspiring violent acts. Around the world, social media platforms have been hijacked by brutal and radical political forces to spread virulent hate, promulgate terrorism, recruit foot soldiers and even incite genocidal violence, as occurred in Myanmar, where members of the country’s military use Facebook to whip up hatred towards the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority.
Concern about these phenomena is not limited to political leaders. Foundations, tech companies, the news media, academic institutions, and others have been pouring energy and resources into combating these problems. With proposals ranging from fact checking collaborations, to trust initiatives, these are voluntary efforts to increase the visibility and reach of reliable media organisations, to applying pressure on tech companies to better regulate content through algorithms and more moderation. When Tech Executives testified before the US Congress this year, the questioning largely reflected these concerns.
There have been countless summits, meetings, retreats, declarations, about the problem of fake news and access to reliable information. The most recent one, developed by my friends at Reporters Without Border, and a range of international experts and endorsed by the French Government and other world leaders last month, in Paris, is called the Declaration on Information and Democracy. It seeks to promote democratic Government, free speech and access to reliable information and knowledge. And aside, of course we know that many world leaders, who are lashing out at fake news and disinformation, have no interest in ensuring access to reliable information, but instead, are looking to discredit and, in some cases, jail their critics. Around the world the number of Journalists jailed, on false news charges, has shot 7 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
upward, in the last few years and laws criminalising fake news have been proposed or enacted in a number of countries.
Clearly, we are confronting two crises of monumental proportions. On one hand, press freedom is under attack as never before and Journalists are facing unprecedented levels of violence and repression. At the same time, powerful forces are seeking to subvert global information systems on which we all depend. While these seem like related problems, I argue that conflating them has dangerous implications for our work. The best hope for addressing these issues is not to combine them, but to put them on two separate tracks.
At least as far as CPJ is concerned, this is a moment to reaffirm our principle commitment to press freedom and freedom of expression. Free speech can have negative consequences and right now, what is happening around – given what is happening around the world, they are particularly acute. We want responsible speech and reliable information for all, but our historic mission is to defend press freedom in the broadest sense and that will not change. Standing up for Journalists becomes more difficult, however, when the underlying principles – principle of free expression is under attack from multiple directions. The challenges to that principle directly mirror the two threats to our information ecosystem that I outlined previously. Governments around the world have become increasingly antagonistic towards the press, but outside of Government longstanding distrust of media leaks on one hand, and the concerns about the pollution of the information ecosystem on the other hand, have led to a convergence, a deep scepticism of the value of free expression. There has long been a maxim in the United States that the only thing on which the left and the right could reliably agree, was the sanctity of the First Amendments – Amendment. Now it seems their only agreement is that it’s no longer serving either of their interests.
At a glob – at the global level, this era of political upheaval has caused some to wonder about the utilitarian benefits of a free press. In his book, Free Speech, Timothy Garton Ash described, “The triple linkage between free speech, democracy and the attributed result, good Government.” He described this as a central tenet of Western liberal democracy. But in the age of Trump, Bolsonaro and Duterte, many citizens don’t see this connection. They are expressing doubt about the fairness or wisdom of a system of largely unregulated discussion and the so-called marketplace of ideas. Like any marketplace, they note, “There will be those with more or less capital.” Shouldn’t the scales be tilted free speech sceptic ask, in favour of those with less power? At a time when partisanship, nationalism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism seem to be on the rise, do we really want to quote the Former US Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Freedom for the thought we hate”?
Free speech expert and Columbian University Professor, Lee Bollinger, has argued that a free press “tests our ability to live in a society that is necessarily defined by conflict and controversy. It trains us in the art of tolerance and steals us for its vicissitudes.” Whether or not you buy this argument that encountering noxious ideas can promote diversity, limiting the circulation or publications of these ideas, still presents a slippery slope that we descend at our own peril. Curtailing speech can protect marginalised groups from expressions of hate, but it can also limit the ability of these same groups to fully articulate their views, particularly when they adopt a radical perspective. Ultimately, as the ACLU’s David Cole wrote last year in the New York Review of Books, “It’s easy to recognise inequality, but it is virtually impossible to articulate a standard for suppression of speech that would not afford Government officials dangerously broad discretion and invite discrimination against particular viewpoints.”
In the press freedom context, the inequality debate has played out for decades. Viewing Western media as beholding to capitalism and free expression as a tool of imperialism, the Cuban Constitution, for example, recognised freedom of the press, but only in accordance with the goals of a socialist society. In more 8 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
recent years, the Governments of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, exploited legitimate opposition to oligarchic media ownership that had long meddled in politics, in order to dismantle the critical press. This is not to argue against reasonable regulation of media ownership and concentration, which has become a huge problem, not just in the developing world, but also, in fully developed democracies. It’s only to warn that without proper checks and balances, these arguments can all too easily be captured and used to advance the agendas of Governments against their critics. In the US, we are already confronting this challenge. The free expression group, PEN America, cited the Trump administration’s opposition to a merger between Time Warner and AT&T, which it alleged was in retaliation for its subsidiary, CNN’s critical coverage, as partial grounds for its recent free speech lawsuit against the President.
Meanwhile, this wider societal reckoning, with free expression doctrine, has provided the perfect opportunity for those who seek to undermine our values. The Russian Government, in particular, appears to be seeking to use free – press freedom as a wedge to expose the hypocrisy and hollowness at the principals at the heart of Western democratic tradition, with the Russian funded international news organisation, RT, as its tool. Like many state sponsored media organisations, RT serves Russian state interests broadly defined. It uses journalistic content to achieve these objectives, which appear to be focused on undermining public confidence in democratic institutions. RT’s coverage, whether in the US, Spain, Venezuela, or elsewhere, tends to be polarising and divisive. In the past two years, the outlet has come under scrutiny over alleged efforts to influence the 2016 US Presidential Elections.
As Government agencies and the US Congress grapple with the proper response to Russian meddling in American politics, RT emerged as an easy target. In September 2017, the US Justice Department informed RT it would have to register as a foreign agent under the 1938 FARA Law, which was originally created to combat Nazi propaganda and was amended in 1966 to focus on political activities, such as lobbying by foreign Governments. Two months later the Congressional Radio and Television Correspondents Galleries, the body that accredits Journalists to cover Congress, unanimously voted to stream RT of its credentials. Entities registered as foreign agents are required to attach a public disclaimer to any information they distribute. They’re also supposed to disclose any contact with Government officials or the US media, a requirement which, if enforced against individual Journalists, would make it impossible for RT to conduct confidential supporting.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, this move did not provoke any international outcry or inspire a global press freedom campaign. Who would want to associate with, or defend, the likes of RT? Well, at CPJ we did. That is because, while Governments have a legitimate interest in tracking the lobbying efforts of foreign states encountering propaganda, a vague provision to compel registration of Government funded media organisations is far too prone to abuse. Allowing any Government, especially the current US administration, to determine what is journalism and what is not is a terrible, short sighted idea, that could have far reaching consequences. The most immediate repercussion was a retaliatory measure from the Russian State Duma, which passed a law requiring that any news organisation operating in Russia and receiving foreign funding, comply with the restrictive and far reaching registration requirement.
Russia does not need a pretext to crack down on the media, but it’s always willing to exploit opportunities. Compelling RT the register under FARA, perfectly fits the bill. But the potential ramifications of this move extends far beyond Russia. Granting Governments the authority to define journalism has real world implications, ranging from implications about military targeting of Journalists covering the battlefield, to protection and confidential sources under shield laws. To the extent that RT is an instrument of the Russian Government’s information war, its role is to expose Western hypocrisy, particularly the selective defence of the principals that define democratic culture. By compelling RT to 9 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
register as a foreign agent, the US Government played directly into Russia’s hands, furthering RT’s mission more effectively than a thousand polarising stories.
The first existential threat to the international press freedom community is the direct attacks, the jailings and killings of Journalists engaged in critical reporting. The second is brought into focus by RT’s roles and can be defined as scepticism of the value of the mission from within. This uncertainty stems from a rise in fear of what internet commun – and communications scholar, Yochai Benkler, has dubbed, “The network public sphere,” the sense that it’s spinning out of control. And that fear is understandable, given that many of the major political crises, in the current moment, have been linked to the pollution of our information ecosystem.
In the United States, a field of emerging research is looking at the correlation between increasing polarisation and the phenomenon of filter bubbles on social media. Studies in Myanmar and Germany have tied attacks on refugees and religious minorities to the use of Facebook. The spread of fraudulent news on WhatsApp reportedly assisted the election of Far Right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, in Brazil. In this increasing techno dystopian environment, many freedom of expression organisations are asking whether they should be defending, not just the right to report the news, but also, the right to receive reliable and diverse information. Some have decided that in order to respond to the urgency of the moment, they must expand their mission to include efforts on media literacy, breaking down echo chambers and creating healthy media ecosystems. Protecting free expression is now being combined with initiatives from groups, like Reporters Without Borders, and PEN America, to promote media pluralism, accountability in foreign debate and facilitating dialogue across polarising differences. These are vital efforts and some have been successful.
But we at CPJ believe that, in terms of our own mandate, that conflating efforts to create a healthier media environment, with the defence of free expression and press freedom, risks undermining some of the core principles of our work. Take, for example, the debate about misinformation. There are two reasons why this discussion is treacherous territory for press freedom advocates. The first is how effectively the disavow of ‘fake news’, has been co-opted by Governments in places like Egypt, Myanmar and Libya and yes, the United States, to discredit and justify suppression and legitimate criticism.
The second is because well intentioned efforts to regulate our way out of this dilemma in places like France and Germany, risk undermining the core free expression principles that when we limit offensive speech, we threaten all speech. US Supreme Court Justice, Lewis Brandeis, famously maintained that, “Fitting remedy for evil Counsels is good ones.” Timothy Garton Ash offered a more European expect – perspective, writing that the only way to live together peacefully in our interconnected global world is to have “more and better free speech. We need a culture, a more robust civility,” he argues, “but also, thicker skins.” Garton Ash also enumerated the reasons that free speech is protected in the Western intellectual tradition, which range from “the realisation of individual humanity to enabling societies to find truth and good Government.” This last utilitarian benefit of free expression is why freedom of the press gets enshrined in constitutions and international covenants, and why the philanthropic sector is increasingly stepping in to offset dwindling media revenue. An independent and robust press can foster accountability, strengthen democratic governance, fuel investment and limit corruption.
But none of these outcomes are assured and when we insert press freedom into the realm of politics, we play into the hands of repressive Governments and endanger our central tenets. In fact, if we solely define journalism by its public service role and prioritise its contribution to a healthy media ecosystem over all else, we risk opening the door to unwanted oversight and regulation. Here’s an example. Speaking at a conference on Global Press Freedom at Columbia University in 2010, Singapore Home 10 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Affairs Minister, K Shanmugam, explained how his country’s laws defined what kind of criticism is permitted and provide a framework to ensure that the press plays its proper role. Press freedom, Shanmugam argued, “exists in order to ensure free and open debate about issues of public interest.” Because the media is increasingly partisan, irresponsible and sensational, however, this idea is seldom realised, including in Western countries. The media, Shanmugam argued, should be “a neutral medium for conveying news, with commentary clearly separate from news. It should report fully and fairly what goes on. The media can probe, asking convenient questions and expose wrongdoing. It should not join the political fray and become a political actor. It should not campaign for or against a policy position.” Sounds reasonable and in fact, not so different from the critiques made by opponents of The New York Times or Fox News. But following this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, press freedom that does not serve the public interest, unless the media is guided by responsible Government. Governments who – Journalists who, in the Government’s view, failed to meet these standards, can be subjected to legal action, including prosecution, under Singapore’s punitive libel laws.
The problem, then, with any press freedom argument, based on positive outcomes, is that it opens the doors for Governments to impose restrictions if the desired outcomes are not achieved and meanwhile, blame the failure to achieve those results on poor performance by the media. While efforts to improve media performance are absolutely essential, they can thus, be easily subverted by Governments themselves. This is the trap I am urging the press freedom community to avoid. Those fighting for global freedom of expression, should resist being drawn into debates with Government on how to ensure that the medias responsible or that the information circulating on social media is accurate, or truthful, or constructive. That would mean engaging with Governments on their own terms and it would risk – and it risks legitimating state intervention on end control. We should encourage other constituents and civil society to improve the health and quality of our media ecosystem. This is crucial work. But we must not forget the defending freedom of expression doctrine is the underpinning that allows the rest of this work to flourish. The quality of one’s speech, or one’s reporting, is irrelevant, without the invaluable right to speak and report in the first place.
I recognise that defending traditional free expression principles, in the current climate, may seem quaint anachronistic, an 18th Century ideal, unfit to contend with 21st Century reality. But as imperfect as the tools of liberal democracy doctrine may be, as tainted as they are by the unequal and discriminatory historical context of their conception, I have seen no convincing or satisfactory alternative. In CPJ’s work in Venezuela, in Turkey and Hungary, in many other places, we have seen all too clearly what happens when these precepts are weakened, in the name of advancing some other purported social good.
This is increasingly relevant, both to your country and mine. Former Guardian Editor and current CPJ board member, Alan Rusbridger, once described his agreement back in 2010 with The New York Times, Bill Keller, to publish the first batch of WikiLeaks documents as, “You’ve got the First Amendment, we’ve got the memory stick.” In his acceptance speech, upon receiving CPJ’s 2012 Burton Benjamin Award, Rusbridger elaborated. He said, “In a network where all citizens in repressive countries can use the kind of solid protections you enjoy here in America, to publish truths that would be forbidden in their own countries.” The next year, in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, in which Rusbridger and the Guardian again played a crucial role, CPJ published its first ever comprehensive report on press freedom conditions in the United States.
We received a bit of pushback in some circles at that time. Were CPJ’s limited resources really best used to critique conditions in the country with some of the strongest protections for press freedom in the world? Wasn’t it a bit overblown to compare the policies of President Obama to stop leaks and control information with those of Richard Nixon? Besides the validity of our critiques, we maintained it was 11 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
essential to hold President Obama to the same standards as anyone else. Whatever you thought of his style of leadership or his policy positions, any backsliding on press freedom norms would set the dangerous precedent for administrations to come.
I’m not sure we ever imagined that this theoretical argument would be brought to bear so soon. In the past two years the Trump administration has brought two espionage acts prosecutions against individuals accused of leaking information to the media. This, compared with eight during President Obama’s eight years in office, which, at the time, was more than double the total of all previous administrations. These aggressive steps are occurring in the context of President Trump’s inflammatory and dangerous anti-press rhetoric and moves like barring CNN’s Jim Acosta from White House press conferences.
While the debate on WikiLeaks has evolved significantly since Rusbridger offered his memory stick to Keller, we are concerned, by recent reports, that the US Justice Department may have secretly filed charges against WikiLeaks and the organisation’s Founder, Julian Assange. The charge of aiding the enemy against private manning, for leaking classified cables to WikiLeaks, was deeply worrying back in 2013 and in a moment, in which the US press has been labelled by the President as enemies of the people, we must continue to protest any potential prosecution that construes publishing Government documents as a crime. No matter how you feel about WikiLeaks in the current context, this would set a dangerous precedent that could harm all Journalists, inside and outside the United States.
Supporting unsavoury allies and a free, and “free irresponsible press,” to quote the title of a 2011 academic article on WikiLeaks by Yochai Benkler, is the cost we pay to have a global structure that is supportive of free expression and press freedom. There is a deliberate strategy underway to tempt the freedom of expression community and liberal democracies more generally, to betray our principles. Adopting an ends justify the means rationale to limit free expression only gives solace to tyrants and empowers those who seek to set this trap.
Clearly, the lives of Journalists around the world are threatened as never before, but so too is the framework that allows us to resist repression and fight back the principle, grounded in history, refined in practice and sanctified in international law, that freedom of expression is sacred and invaluable. The polarising impact of free speech, supercharged by technology on a global level, can be frightening, but this is not the time to compromise on press freedom. We need to stand firm. At CPJ, that’s precisely what we intend to do and I ask that all of you stand with us. Thank you very much [applause].
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you very much, sir [applause]. Grab a seat here [applause]. Ladies and gentlemen, let me invite our panellists up onto the stage as well, when you will frame our other three guests, who will come up here. Yes, Maria, Mona, Lynsey, when you…
Mona Eltahawy
Where do you want us?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Seat along the middle. In whichever order you arrive on the stage will be fine. I’m glad you made it.
12 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Maria Ressa
Thank you.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah. Thank you very much indeed, Joel. Just to let you catch your breath, because I think it will be…
Joel Simon
Just had some water.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, some water would be good. I think it will be interesting for I think us on the stage, as well, to engage a bit with Joel’s quite important – well, very, and that’s a very British way of putting it, quite important, a very important statement, this non-conflation of freedom of expression with the question about the freedom of the press and as you said, the freedom to be able to say things that people don’t necessarily appreciate hearing. And once you throw, you know, Wikileaks and Julian Assange in there, protecting, you know, the right of Russia today, to be able to do it, you can almost feel the mood in the room, you know, going, oh, hold on a minute, you know, I thought – so, I think this is worth digging back into in a minute.
But before I do that and, as I said, to give you an opportunity to capture your breath a little bit, I do want to do a quick set of introductions, so everyone knows who’s joined us up here on the stage, for the next half an hour/35 minutes. Maria Ressa, immediately on my right, is the CEO and Executive Editor of rappler.com, which is the largest online news organisation in the Philippines. But she’s been a Journalist for over 30 years, CNN’s Bureau Chief for Manila and Jakarta, CNN’s Lead Investigative Reporter, focusing on Terrorism in South East Asia, published a number of books, has won a number of awards. And I would just note, this year the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the Royal Association of Newspapers, and importantly, the CPJ’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.
Immediately to her right is Lynsey Addario, who is an American Photojournalist, has been covering conflict humanitarian crises in the most difficult places in the world, in particular, the Middle East and Africa, for The New York Times, National Geographic and Time Magazine. And I note here, Lynsey, that since 9/11 you’ve covered Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Darfur, South Sudan, Somalia and the DRC, which is quite – I think, give people a sense of the danger she’s put herself into, as well as the very important venues that she’s reported from and appropriately, has won a Pulitzer prize, and a number of Emmy nominations and a McArthur Fellowship.
And Mona Eltahawy, who is an award winning Columnist, international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues, based, as we were discussing earlier, between Cairo and New York, although somewhat in Montreal currently. But she’s a contributing Edi – Columnist to The New York Times and Washington Post, has written a number of very successful books, very importantly, was a very active player during the revolution that toppled Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, and paid the price for your role at that time as well, having been held in jail and assaulted, quite directly, over that period, and has also won a number of awards for her work. 13 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
So, that’s the group that are here and I’m – what I want to do is ask you, in a minute, just to have a thought, ‘cause I want to throw a question, first of all, to Joel. But I’d like you, if you don’t mind, if I could ask the three of you whether you have a question for Joel as well, on this distinction that he’s made, because I – Joel, if I can take it back to you for a second, at the core, I thought, of your argument was the fear – the extent to which we start to think of press freedom as synonymous with providing a public utility or a public good that must be judged as such.
Joel Simon
Correct.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
We are on a slippery slope, as much as we all may want to feel that we want to be there, we’re on a slippery slope to giving tools and ammunition to those who’d like to control the press and bound it, not only in the kinds of countries that we associate with a lack of freedom of expression and a free press, but also in our own. And, you know, with that distinction, I think what you’re telling me is there are some of your colleagues in your community who don’t share that view. I mean, could you play back to me what their viewpoint is, what’s the – at the hub of the disagreement between CPJ and, let’s say, some of the other groups, and you mentioned Reporters Without Borders, as well?
Joel Simon
I don’t think it’s an active disagreement. I think it’s a slightly different perception of what our mission and role is. I support the work that our other groups are doing, to engage around this very important issue, but I think there are risks associated with that particular approach. I think what gives us ammunition is the – you know, free press and free speech are easy to defend, when you agree with the perspectives being voiced. But the damage that’s being done by actors, which have penetrated the information space and are seeking to undermine democracy, fuel genocide, and basically cower their critics into submission, are so dire and so severe that I think people, you know, powerful institutions and Governments are looking for a way out of that problem. That’s a real problem. That’s what I acknowledge and we have to address it and Governments have a role.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
So, how…?
Joel Simon
It’s just, what is the role of press freedom groups? Is it our role to, sort of, stay on the side lines and raise our hand and say, you have a legitimate interest in controlling and managing this speech, but this is a step too far, and here’s why?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
So, how far are you comfortable with regulation going? Because certainly, in the online space and we just saw it in a hearing that took place in Parliament yesterday, there is an absolute call now to regulate Facebook as a news provider, which – and Facebook being one of the absolute purveyors of a broad range of views, including some that I think you would say should be allowed out there and people should be able 14 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
to distinguish for themselves. So, where would you want to see Government drawing the line? Where do you think regulation is effective and where does it tip over the line and not become fair? I know it’s a very broad question, but maybe you give us an example of where you think it’s gone too far and where you think it is fair enough?
Joel Simon
Well, I think the problem is, it’s – drawing the line is incredibly difficult and I don’t want to draw it in a specific place. I mean, I think there’s a debate about where the line is and how it’s enforced, but what I’ve seen is that the balance of the discussion has tipped towards defining this as a problem of regulating and controlling online speech and that the other side of that argument, about the risks of doing so to press freedom and free speech more generally, are not percolating up through that discussion, and I think that’s our role. Rather than sitting at the table and saying this is where the line is, I think our role is to stay on the side lines, and let his debate happen, it’s an important, value debate, and jump in and contribute when we see proposals or specific actions that we believe threaten the rights of Journalists or press freedom.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
So, throwing it to our panellists here, did any of you, sort of, want to jump up at a point and say, well, hold on a minute, I don’t entirely agree with that, or I do completely agree with the distinction that Joel was making? I mean, Maria, you’re going to come in.
Maria Ressa
So, I agree with the fundamental principle that Joel made, but I disagree with the fact that we continue doing what we used to do, precisely because exponential lies have poisoned the public sphere and those exponential lies have been enabled by social media platforms, driven by commerce, without any kind of care or protection of the public sphere, where democracy takes place. So I think that – I think CPJ, I think the press freedom groups, must continue to push for press freedom and great respect for all the work that they do. But at the same time, as we’ve seen, part of what’s turned everything upside down and enabled authoritarian style leaders to come up exponentially, much faster, right…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Exactly, than the previous.
Maria Ressa
…is precisely because of the social media platforms. So, for me, there are two things and that is commensurate with the experience that we’ve had. We were attacked two and a half years ago on social media. We are a Facebook country. 97% of the Filipinos on the internet are on Facebook and Facebook determined the quality of our democracy. We’re living through that and because of that I could face ten to 15 years in prison.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Now, hold on, why could you face ten to 15 years in prison? Just give us the link up.
15 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Maria Ressa
Sorry, I just jumped it altogether, didn’t I? Well, I’ve…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Give me that last link and then I’ll take it down.
Maria Ressa
So, that link is the attacks first came, the lies first came on social media and then, about a year later, they surfaced as legal cases that were then filed against us by the Government. And most recently, I guess about a week and a half ago, the Government has announced, without even giving us the legal documents, that I would be indicted for tax evasion. Ludicrous cases, I’ve actually run out of synonyms for ludicrous, ridiculous, you know, but at the same time, we face this.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
But then the accum – what you’re saying is the accumulation of, I’ll use the phrase, ‘fake news’, about work that you were doing…
Maria Ressa
Changed the reality.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…has suddenly become the reality that courts then feel, well, we have to respond to this. At least you’ve got to be taken…
Maria Ressa
I think these are new normals, right? And we’ve normalised violence in the Philippines, we’ve normalised killings, we’ve normalised attacks against the press, especially against women. The level of misogyny and sexism that we have to deal with, this is now part of the oxygen we breathe. And that has an impact on values, including – well, I guess the last point is, and I’ll shut on this one, really, it’s free speech, that principle is being used to attack free speech. The very tools of our profession are turned against us and certainly, our Government will not jump in to help. It’s being used by our Government.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
So, it’s almost an assumption that we lived in a world in which there were certain norms that were just not broken by Governments, because of the fear they might come back to them, and also, in the end, a lot of these conversations about policy were pretty elite conversations. Now they are conversations that engage far larger groups of citizenry and the Government’s become much more involved and concerned ‘cause there’s a feedback group, which affects them and then you get drawn in.
Let me go to Mona next. I mean, is this about – well, I’ll let you ask, if you have a question to Joel on this, or if you want to come back, support or not, but is this about platforms? You know, in a way, the CPJ is there to protect Journalists, yeah? And it sounds to me like we have maybe a debate between the 16 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
platforms on which journalism and non-journalism takes place and the rights of individuals who are reporting news to be able to do so with freedom. I mean, do you think this is a question about regulating platforms, but still leaving space for individuals? I mean, how does one create that division?
Mona Eltahawy
Right, well, I don’t like the word ‘regulation’ generally anyway, being an anarchist, being an Egyptian, being a feminist, being so many things. And I also have to say that because I’m a contributing opinion writer to various places, but I don’t work full-time anyway, and that is by choice, because I want to have the freedom to say fuck Trump. I want to have the freedom to be as profane as I want to and have people go, because it is part and parcel of what I do as a feminist, as a Writer, as a Journalist. And I say all of this, you know, with a very good friend of mine, called Wael Abbas, who is in prison in Egypt right now, accused of fake news.
Now Wael – I’m so glad you mentioned Shawkan, who is the Photojournalist, who was arrested during the Rabbi massacre in 2013. Now, I think of both of them, but especially, I will talk about Wael, because you spoke about Shawkan and I’m grateful for that. Wael, for me, represents, kind of, the most beautiful example of why regulation – why we must resist regulation, because Wael is a Blogger, Wael is a Journalist, Wael is a human rights activist, and as far back as 2006, he was shaming the Mubarak regime for their torture of citizens. He would post videos that were leaked out. For example, there was one of the sodomy of an Egyptian bus driver by Police. They actually filmed it. I mean, for fuck’s sake, how can you do that? But they do that. And he posted it on his blog and managed to get, you know, a three-year sentence for one of the Police Officers, because he was put on trial. So, I’m thinking of someone like Wael, who is now being regulated because of our fake new – our media law in Egypt. And this media law says that if you have 5,000 followers or more, and I have almost 300,000 followers on Twitter, Wael Abbas has exponentially more, you are considered a media organisation, yet, at the same time, you don’t have the protections of a media outlet, not that we have that many in Egypt anyway.
So, there are so many of us who fall between all of those cracks, and I think that when we talk about Twitter and when we talk about Facebook, ‘cause I live on Twitter and Twitter saved my life twice. Twitter saved my life when I was arrested by Egyptian Riot Police in November of 2011, almost exactly seven years ago. I was beaten. Egyptian Riot Police broke my left arm and my right hand. They sexually assaulted me. I was threatened with gang rape by their Supervising Officer. I was held by the Interior Ministry for six hours, for another six hours by military intelligence, blindfolded and interrogated. And during this entire time, when I disappeared, what saved me was that an activist came into the Interior Ministry and I saw his smartphone and I asked him if I could get onto Twitter and I tweeted out, “Beaten, arrested, Interior Ministry” and his phone died. But I found out later that that generated a global campaign to release me and I’m grateful for that.
And so, for people like me, who don’t work with major institutions, who don’t have institutional backing, those kind of platforms are really important, because I am the institution on Twitter. I am the one that people have now learnt to trust. Now, I recognise that there’ll be others who are not so trustworthy, but how different is that from the so-called real world? Because we talk about Twitter and Facebook as the so-called virtual world, but they’re very real, and they’re very real worlds. So, IRL, virtual world, but how different, I’m asking you, are the attacks that we experience online from the attacks in the real world? My arms were broken and I was sexually assaulted in the real world and since then, the columns that I write for The New York Times and The Washington Post and other places, as soon – for example, 2000 – the end of 2016, when there was a terrible attack in Sinai that blew up a mosque, I wrote a column for The New York Times that day and I was on BBC Newsnight, talking about the failure of the Sisi regime to 17 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
contain, essentially, a civil war in Sinai and how the regime was making it worse. And that same regime has imposed a media blackout on the atrocities that it is committing in the Sinai peninsula. Within three or four days, an Egyptian regime talking head spent ten minutes on a very popular show calling me a whore, saying that I was bought, “Who pays for this woman?” and, “A dog has more honour than she does.” Within days of me writing on the inaugurate – the – when Donald Trump was inaugurated, I wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times. They did a roundup of their contributing Writers from around the world and I called Donald Trump the American Sisi, because he reminds me of Sisi and they’re best friends and fake news here feeds the fake news there. And, again, within days, I was put on the front page of an Egyptian newspaper and it was the picture of when I had my arms in a cast, so the message is very clearly, we did this to you before, we can do this to you again. And it was a banner headline on the front page and I was called a sex activist, which is code for whore and I said, “Okay, fine, I’m a whore, I’m a slut, and then what?” So, they’re using the real world and the virtual world to attack us, so how does regulation help me here?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, well no, I mean, I think you’ve made an absolutely essential point, in a way, a person, as you said, with one million or two million Twitter followers, in a way, is a media organisation and is certainly seen by such as – by Government, will think of you entirely that way, in which case, they then can’t regulate or put pressure on the organisation, they put pressure on the person. So, it – you know, we are in a completely different world, it strikes me, from the kind of one that even Timothy Garton Ash, Joel, who you mentioned, wrote in before.
Let me come right now to Lynsey. You know, you’ve been, as a Photojournalist, in a different, I imagine, space, to the two conversations we’ve had here. You know, in the year in which we have a film out about Marie Colvin being targeted and so on, there are some much direct ways that Photojournalists, as well as Journalists, can find themselves in direct line of fire. Do you get a sense that at the moment Governments have been able to identify individual Journalists, Photojournalists or actors, in a very targeted way, rather than the organisations? Is it individualised much more, which I think is what Mona was saying as well, around individual people and you lose, in a way…
Lynsey Addario
Sure.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…the protection of the big organisation within this platform world?
Lynsey Addario
I mean, I think it has become – we have become more targeted over time. I know that when I first started out, you know, I can move around under the radar a lot. In 2011, I also was kidnapped in Libya and there was a moment, I remember I was with Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell and Tyler Hicks and there was a moment when we were first taken and we were all told to lie face down in the dirt and we each had a gun put to our heads. And we were all, sort of, staring down the barrel of this gun, just begging for our lives. And the Commander of the Libyan Forces, loyal to Gaddafi, walked over and said, “You cannot kill them, they’re American.” Now, that’s really interesting, because that would never happen, I don’t think, now, in 2018, because we have a President who says, “Journalists are the enemy of the people.” And so, you 18 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
know, Gaddafi at that time was saying, you know, “All Journalists are spies, so if you see Journalists in Eastern Libya, kill them.” So, of course, you can’t blame these soldiers, because they knew – they didn’t have any other information. That’s all they knew was what they were told by Gaddafi. So, we were very lucky to escape that.
I think now, I’ve been doing this work for 23 years, I’ve been working in warzones for 19, there are many countries I can’t get into. I’ve been blacklisted from Iran, from Syria. It took me two years to get into Yemen. Now, I don’t know if that’s just coincidence, or if it’s, you know, the fact that my work is more known, you know. But I – you know, last year I got a call from the FBI saying, “You’re on a wanted for arrest list and do not go.” And I said, “Why? I’ve barely even worked in Syria.” You know, I said, “I’ve gone in, okay, I’ve gone in four times, but not – my work certainly doesn’t rival some of my colleagues’ work that has been astonishingly amazing,” you know. And so, he said, “I don’t know. It could just be that your work is more high profile.” So, that’s where we’re at and I think that, you know, it does speak to what Mona was saying, it does speak to, you know, the more well-known you are, even as a Photojournalist. No-one ever used to look at the by-lines of Photographers...
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Hmmm, no, yeah.
Lynsey Addario
…ever and now they do.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah. Joel, when you hear this changed world, because it does strike me that the big media organisations, which, in a way, provided a veneer of protection, have, in many cases, also turned their Journalists into individuals, because more clicks, more hits.
Joel Simon
Right.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
The business model, in a way, has had to adapt quite fundamentally. I remember talking to Journalists who said, “You filed one story a week and that was fine.”
Joel Simon
Sure.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Now you’d better be on and being noticed all the way through, or you might find your job is taken by somebody else. Is there a way in which media is changing, and has changed quite fundamentally in the last ten years, that is changing the nature of what the role of the CPJ is? 19 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Joel Simon
Absolutely, I mean, we’re a completely transformed organisation. Everything about what we do is transformed. The Journalists that we defend, the ways in which we defend them, the framework that we think about has also shifted. I mean, I think that, you know, the other thing that’s a – it’s a by-product of this is, you know, that one of the things that kept Journalists safe in these high risk environments was a, kind of, collective information monopoly, you know. If you wanted to communicate with the world, your only opportunity was to engage with the media. Whether you were a Government or a guerrilla group, or even a criminal organisation, your communication with whomever you were trying to communicate was mediated through Journalists and that’s what kept Journalists safe. Every Journalist, who’s like Lynsey, who’s had this kind of career, has probably been in a situation where you say, you know, “f you kill me, who’s going to tell your story?” That argument gets you nowhere. That argument is simply…
Mona Eltahawy
It used to...
Joel Simon
…off the table.
Mona Eltahawy
…get us somewhere.
Joel Simon
Well, that’s what I mean, that argument is off the table. So – and it’s true with Governments as well. And Governments, I mean, the other thing that’s – you know, I sort of mentioned this when I talked about RT, and RT is considered a provocation, but of course, Governments have become media organisations in their own right and they’re asserting their rights, as media organisations, to free speech, because what’s the difference? If they are communicating through these media entities that they’ve created, again, that’s the trap that we confront. I also think that, you know, what Mona mentioned, I think the Egyptian Government is Exhibit A on how these dialogues that we’ve having about, you know, responsible media, which is important, and regulated speech online, which is important, we have to figure out a way to do that. But when you have those conversations within a free speech framework, you give perfect ammunition to the Egyptian Government, which has criminalised fake news, when you say well – and as Mona said, extended that, basically, and making individuals with more than 5,000 media outlets – 5,000 followers, turning them into media outlets and criminalising speech that the Egyptian Government deems to be ‘fake’. And then when people like us push back against that, they say, “Well, what’s the problem? President Trump has declared fake news to be a problem.” We’re doing something about it.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maria, I know you wanted to come in one more time, Maria, and I want – we’ve got some 15 minutes or so to go, so I do want to get questions and comments in from all of our guests here.
20 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Maria Ressa
There’s so much. I mean, I think the first fundamental thing is we really are individually attacked, right? We’re – it’s – as distribution have splintered, so have the attacks. They have splintered and they’re individual. In 2014, Demos says “Women were targeted three times more than men online.” Well, our data now shows minimum of ten times targeted, women ten times targeted more than men.
The second part is that it’s not just the Government’s right to do it, but the fact that they manufacture reality online, right? So, the exponential attacks that we each get, I think what’s new is that this psychological attack on each individual Journalist is brand new and that’s something that we didn’t really ever have to deal with before. It was far easier, and I’m not sure if you agree with me on this one, but I thought it was far easier to be a Warzone Correspondent, a Conflict Reporter, than it is to navigate this world of exponential lies.
I was receiving 90 hate messages per hour for a month and trying to figure out what’s real and since I run an organisation that, by the way, understands the best of social media, social media for social good, that’s how we started. I drank the Kool-Aid, you know. But I – we were also first targeted and part of what happened then was for us to then say, “Alright, so how do I protect my young Reporters? How do we protect them? When does it sneak out of the virtual world, into the real world?” And then you look at the United States and in one weekend they had Pittsburgh, they had Kentucky, they had the guy who sent the pipe bombs and four domestic terrorist attacks, based on the exponential hate on social media.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
I mean, right, let me open it up, ‘cause there’s so many good points have been raised here. And I do want to add in one additional point as well, which you had in your remarks, the business about, you know, breaking the law, yeah, because in the end, if people leak, in many cases, they are breaking laws and you said, “That must be defended.” Now, that’s always been the tradition and we think of it in the Watergate context, you know, because the Government was hiding a bad thing. And then you find, you know, some leaks might simply be to embarrass a political leader, or to cause, you know, some type of ruction and I can see a lot of citizens going hold on a minute, but maybe that’s fair enough to criminalise Journalists for taking leaks that are wrong. I mean, it…
Joel Simon
Well, I want to be clear, I’m defending the right to publish the information. The leaking, depending on the circumstances, may or may not be criminal. But acquainting it with espionage is my concern. So, if you are a Government employee and you leak a confidential document, you are going to face very significant consequences, but leaking it to the press is not espionage. That’s what concerns me and publishing that information that is Journ – stock in trade. I mean, if you criminalise the publishing of Government secrets, Journalists are out of business.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Right, please put your hands up, introduce yourselves, let’s get some questions. There was one here and one here. So, let’s start on the side and we’ll come to the middle. Yeah, Majid, yeah.
21 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Majid H Jafar
Thank you. Majid Jafar, Member of the Panel of Senior Advisors of Chatham House. Two quick ones. I know, Joel, you said it’s difficult to draw the line, but if I can push you on that, and there’s clearly somewhere inciting violence, terrorism, religious or ethnic intolerance, racism. Are there some guidelines that you, as the committee, do have on best practice on where to draw those lines? And the other point I wanted to raise, which was alluded to, but not tackled, is the business model for media. I mean, I’m a businessman and the problem I see is that it’s fundamentally an advertising model and all the advertising money is going to these social media platforms, where Facebook and Google is just dominant. So, what that means is what’s left of traditional media either needs a Government sponsor, like RT, or a rich benefactor, like the Washington Post. And is that really sustainable, if those are the institutions that you’re relying on?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Exactly.
Majid H Jafar
And does something need to be done about that, because you won’t have the institutional backing, as we heard from one of you, just on Twitter alone, as one of thousands.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, a question here in the middle.
John Wilson
John Wilson, I’m a member of Chatham House and a Journalist. You’ve quite rightly criticised Russia and RT for their bias and censorship, but is not what is going on in China, even greater menace to free speech?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah and, you know, you often find that places where there wasn’t the free speech and where you don’t lose it, people don’t talk about it. But where there’s a sense that there’s backsliding, people pay a lot more attention to that, as you can imagine.
Any other points we can get in before I bring these two?
Mona Eltahawy
There’s one hand all the way at the back, yeah.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Oh good, well done. Well spotted, ‘cause I couldn’t see.
22 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Mona Eltahawy
And it’s a woman, too, so...
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, I know, and doubly well spotted.
Mona Eltahawy
I’m looking out for women.
Laila
Thank you so much. Laila from the Canadian High Commission here. My question is about democracy and how to properly defend it. It was, I think, very quickly pointed out that democracy itself and its openness is being exploited and, sort of, it’s being fed on by its own openness. So, how do we address that, while keeping our societies open and democratic and yeah?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
So, yeah, you’ve got that question as well, yeah? So, why don’t I run it down? But let me start in the middle, as you just spoke, but Maria, do you want to go first? No, sorry, actually, Lynsey, why don’t you go first, Lynsey?
Lynsey Addario
Which question, ‘cause there were…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Well…
Lynsey Addario
…quite a few?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…would you – I’m trying think the one about is there a place where you draw the lines, because that is…
Lynsey Addario
Sure.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…you know, yeah, and what is free speech?
23 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Lynsey Addario
I think…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
I mean, this was your – you were defending, in a way…
Lynsey Addario
Sure.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…almost the room not to defend lines, but yeah.
Lynsey Addario
I mean, I think that’s the fundamental problem, because obviously, the general public has no idea how to curate their news source. I mean, they believe everything they see on social media, and so, I think that leaves us Journalists and people who have dedicated their lives to telling and documenting the truth, completely powerless, because suddenly, anyone has a voice and that voice is credible. And so, I think that is, sort of, what I struggle with. I see it all the time, things are retweeted, reposted, as if they’re fact. And of course, we live in a very different time, where we have, you know, I, as an American, a President that doesn’t always abide by fact and so, we’re playing on a very different playing field. So, I don’t know how to answer that question. I think, you know, is there a way to, sort of, teach people they need to curate their news source and understand that, you know, some people are credible and some people aren’t? I have no idea.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, and you wonder how much of this goes back to the individual’s capacity and the trust in the individual’s capacity to sort one from the other. But when we know how you can manipulate large groups of people, especially emotionally, go online, and we haven’t even got to all the fake videos and all that sort of stuff…
Lynsey Addario
Sure.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…there’s things to come. Mona?
Mona Eltahawy
I want to throw into the mix, as – by way of, kind of, answering several questions at once, but also, I think an important point that we have to remember. One of the best things about social media, I believe, is what we saw in Egypt, in the run up to the Revolution, which is why I talk about blogs a lot and people like Wael Abbas, is that they gave a platform to people, who were always marginalised and kept out of so- 24 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
called traditional, mainstream legacy media, call it whatever we – whatever you want. And it gave people an ability to say, “I count,” that didn’t exist. We had a host of especially young people, women, men, people of various minorities in Egypt, who in the run up to the Revolution, found the power of saying, “I count,” through Facebook, through blogs, you know, as much as we are reassessing Facebook now. And I see it in the Middle East and North Africa especially now, and various parts of the African Continent, with queer communities that were always kept out of the mainstream media. I see it in the United States with black women, for example, and it’s especially important in the United States as newsrooms, kind of, scramble to tackle the Trump phenomenon. It took mainstream media so long to call Trump what he was, which is a racist, which is a misogynist, whereas you had various communities, who are not always represented, in those newsrooms. ‘Cause, you know, we’re holding, kind of, the newsrooms up, you know, and of course we should elevate the newsrooms.
I was a Reuters Correspondent for many years. But who did those newsrooms keep out for so long and what was the consequence of keeping those people out for so long? And those people now include me, who is a Freelance Journalist, who are finding a voice on those platforms and now we’re saying, let’s regulate those voices. What is that going to do for them? Because you’re still not letting them into the newsrooms of the mainstream media, where they can call Trump what he is, which is a racist and a fascist and a misogynist. So, keep in mind those people who have always been – you know, you had gatekeepers and you’re now trying to talk about a new kind of gatekeeping, who is it going to keep out? And I’m thinking of black women and minority women and queer women.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Okay, yeah, Joel.
Joel Simon
So, let me, first of all, take – make a point about the day-to-day work that CPJ does. It’s defending the Journalists on this panel. So, we are a very – we are very – the day-to-day work is very practical. But I – what I wanted to do today is think about what is the best way to achieve, to be successful in that day-to- day work? What is the framework that we should be applying? I believe, the press freedom framework and the free expression framework is the right one, rather than fighting to create, sort of, a pure information environment.
But let me address the question about why – you know, how do we regulate Facebook? First, I wonder, you know, if we’re asking the right question. There’s starting to be debates around – is this about regulating the existing reality, or is it about changing the reality? Is this really an anti-trust issue? And there’s a very important new book from Tim Wu that, kind of, argues we should really be trying to regulate our way out of this and in terms of regulating speech, we should be thinking about do the platforms themselves have too much power? Which is not a freedom of expression issue, by the way, it’s a much broader issue and I would suggest that maybe that’s a framework we should consider. But looking at the day-to-day reality in which we’re living, obviously, Facebook, Twitter, these are private companies, they have a tremendous amount of discretion, it’s – they’re beholden to shareholders, they have to make a profit and yet, they become quasi-governmental – it’s like a public realm. So, they’re really in a difficult position. I think at a minimum they have to conform to International Human Rights Law and human rights standards in every country in which they operate.
There’s an organisation called the GNI, the Global Network Initiative, and they – their role is to ensure that the companies abide by human rights standards and rather than enumerating and enunciating the 25 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
specific frameworks, that I would say the International Human Rights Framework just needs to be applied to the social media companies. But the broader question I would ask is, should we thinking – should we be thinking about how do we regulate them, or should we be asking the question about do they have too much power, more broadly, and what do we do about that?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
And just on that point, the business about whether the business model is one where you could end up trusting more state-owned media organisations in certain countries, or is that almost the antithesis? I suppose it depends how the state is regulated itself and how its run. So, you know, if you end up banning RT, you could – you know, the BBC then, I suppose, a state-owned thing.
Joel Simon
World Serv – BBC World Service and it’s a very reliable, and obviously the gold standard. So, I mean, it’s not – it’s a – is it the state ownership, or is it the prospective of the state that’s the problem?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
And have you been involved, at all, in China?
Joel Simon
Well, yeah.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Well, yeah.
Joel Simon
Of course, and if you defend the rights of Journalists in freedom of expression, you’re going to be involved in China, because China is perennially the world’s leading jailer of Journalists. Turkey has surpassed it, in recent years, but that’s – historically, China has been the world’s leading jailer of Journalists. And of course, the kind of, framework that China – the previous Government in China enumer – enunciated, you know, the press is, sort of, the watchdog of the people and helping the Communist Party keep an eye on corruption. And, you know, that’s out the window, obviously. There’s a new and much more repressive framework in China. And China’s vision is regulating the domestic space, asserting control over the global internet and using its media properties to change global perceptions of China. So, they’re active on all three fronts.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah?
Maria Ressa
I want to pull up together a few of those strands, right? So, the first is the gatekeepers. That’s actually what was taken away from Journalists, right? The world’s largest distributor of news now are social 26 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
media platforms. From video, it’s YouTube, for Facebook, it distributes all of our news, once instant articles came in. Not a fan of legislation, because I don’t think our Governments understand the technology well enough and on almost every part of the world. So, I continue to work with the social media platforms and push for something that comes from South-East Asia, enlightened self-interest. It is in their self-interest to actually become better gatekeepers and put this trash out. And then, how do we push Russia and China together? I think of it this way and this is the threat to democracy, I think Russia is a B to C manipulation and China is a B to B, right? The very last – the last Freedom House report said this and again, it’s a rollback of democracy globally. November 2017, the very first academic reports came out that showed you that cheap armies on social media are rolling it back. So, it’s – it all comes together, once we lost our gatekeeping powers, we became individually vulnerable and the public became far more vulnerable.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Let me see if there’s a last set of questions, ‘cause now, of course, typical, lots of hands go up. I’ve seen four hands, and I’m going to take them all very quickly, ‘cause we’re here, two at the front here, one lady there and one lady here, all women, in this case.
Bénédicte Paviot
Hi, Bénédicte Paviot, Correspondent – UK Correspondent, France vingt-quatre in French and English around the world, ex-BBC, for disclosure. I’m also President of the Foreign Press Association in this country and we had the Secretary General of Reporters Sans Frontières, Reporters Without Borders, on Monday. I would – one fact, one sentence: the people who are putting the most money in channels and in Journalists, I can tell you, as President of the FPA, are states. We are living in a world waging an information war. Journalism, as I said in my speech on Monday, is not a crime and Journalists are not enemies of the people. Whether Mr Trump wants to look in the barrel of a camera or Mr Robinson wants to do the same outside the Old Bailey.
And finally, I just want to turn to the future. We haven’t spoken about the future. We need to look at young people across the world. “Who is curating?” you ask, extremely eloquently. Indeed, we need to help young people. Anybody under 25 today is not looking at mainstream television, to my great disappointment, and I’m sure Lisa’s, and others. But the point is, they’re actually on social media, so we need to information in schools, let’s get started, so that they can curate that themselves.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you. Just pass the microphone to the person next to you and then we’ll go here.
Hilde Rapp
Oh, actually, Hilde Rapp, Centre of International Peace Building. You’ve taken the wind out of my sails, thank you.
Bénédicte Paviot
Oh no.
27 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Hilde Rapp
No, no, that’s wonderful, because I thought if we take it down a level, left field question. If we go into schools, wherever we’re allowed to, as you know, and help children to understand what evidence is, how just to sort facts from fiction, become Scientists, do proper research, we will create a new population, gradually, that will understand better how to, kind of, see what they’re reading and understand what they’re reading in a new light. So, I think we can only protect Journalists, if we bring up a new generation that can think more freely and think more intelligently.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you very much. Microphone there and then we’ll go there.
Member
Hi.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, please, you’re next, yeah.
Member
Hi, I’m a Journalist from Turkey, but now a student at University of Oxford. Authoritarian regimes makes you an academic, so – at a very good place. So, I just wanted to say that I think we need to define two relationships. For us, Journalists, we have a relationship with the state and, as Journalists, we are any time majoritarian organisations, the same as, for example, a university. So, we will not have a peace with the state, that’s for sure. What we need to redefine is our relationship with the public, and I do disagree with Joel that we need to go back to zero and say that we are here for the public good and that is a dialogue that we need to do with the public. I am not for a regulation by the state of the social media. It can only be about a business model, because I used to run a journal, you know, and I was the Editor in Chief of a newspaper. We were thinking about this business model and because we couldn’t find one, the newsroom fell apart. And I do disagree with Mona, I think newsroom filter is the most essential thing against fake news and it is not how do we, you know, save the news to find a business model for a good newsroom? The filter of a good newsroom will save journalism.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Like the editing and all of that. Right, last lady there, please keep your hand up, last point and then I’ll give you all a chance just for a two minute closing intervention.
Rebecca Vincent
Hi, Rebecca Vincent, Reporters Without Borders. Since we’re here in London, I wanted to put to the panel what you think about the UK’s role in all of this, are we doing enough here, actually, to counter the Sisis, the Dutertes, the Trumps, of the world, or are we part of the problem? What should our be – Government be doing differently?
28 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Ah, Britain, you know, home of the BBC and all those places and a big believer in – an upholder of free speech, going back many – a long, long way. And Joel, I’ll give you the last word, ‘cause I think that’ll be fair. So, why don’t I run down the side here, which means I’m starting with you, Maria. So, which – there’s a number you could pick up, states putting the most money into journalism, I thought a very important point there. Who does the curating, the relationship with the state, the newsroom filter element, that role that news is, in a way, defined, partly, by its capacity to be edited and filtered, and the UK role, have you got a thought? Any of those.
Maria Ressa
Agree with information warfare and that is part of the reason I think it’s a completely different ballgame, because they are manufacturing reality, which, actually, manipulates people, right? And the – I agree with the newsroom filter. I think that, you know, when I look at Freelance Journalists, I know we need – newsgroups have to become stronger and in order to become stronger, we need to find business models that work and that, again, requires renegotiating with the tech platforms, American tech platforms, which have really turned everything upside down. And then I think the very last part of this was in terms of the UK.
I think you have to come to terms that you’ve also been manipulated. I mean, you know [applause], look back in 2016, and I’ll push it back to the when instant articles brought all of us in, right, the newsgroups into it. And Duterte was elected in May, a month later you had Brexit, then, you know, we had all the data by August, and I gave a lot of that stuff to the social media partners. The platforms were our partners. And I think the last part, RSF, Reporters Without Borders, Joel mentioned the initiative to try to come out with a declaration, right? I’m part of that Commission. There are 25 of us from 18 different countries, and part of the reason I’m part of that is precisely because I feel like this is a whole other world, like after World War II. We need to come back and look at the internet and say this has changed everything.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Exactly.
Maria Ressa
This is like Inception, it’s flipping the real world and what are our principles and values? How do we save it for humanity? What are those things, right? And I think that’s – sorry, I’ll shut up now.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
No.
Maria Ressa
That is the main point, ‘cause everything else, we’re playing Whac-A-Mole.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Exactly. 29 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
Lynsey Addario
I think, as a Freelance Journalist, I’ve worked, okay, 18/19 years for The New York Times, but I’ve maintained my status as freelance, like Mona, so I have the freedom to work with different publications. What I’m seeing now with social media is that I have almost a bigger following, and with my own Instagram and Twitter and whatnot. So, I do these stories for The New York Times, recently, in Yemen, I did a cover story for the New York Times Magazine. But what I can do is use social media to put out all the things that didn’t make it into the story and perhaps the things that are often too sensitive to make it into certain stories. So, it does give us authority to use our voice, in a much broader sense, than just the publication we’re working for. I think it is very important to teach younger people that they have to be aware of where they’re getting the news. No-one talks about that and that’s a very important discussion that we all need to be having openly.
I also think what can the UK be doing? I think people, in general, not only in the UK, people need to stand up to Trump and tell him – and call him out when he tells a lie and say, it’s a lie, because no-one is doing it and everyone’s, sort of, glossing over it and, you know, going to all these meetings. And I think at some point that’s why it’s all been normalised and that’s a very big problem.
Lastly, I think everyone in this room needs to stand up when a Journalist is killed and in prison and I think that that is something that, you know, it keeps happening and it just gets brushed under the rug, it just becomes a statistic. And, you know, CPJ can put them out as much as they do and thank God they do, but we need to stand up and call it a crime and no-one is doing that.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Well, yeah, and I think part of the environment at the moment is people are being maybe re-awakened, but they could just as easily be – start to think this is the new normal, in that sense. But just a very important point I want to pick up that you said there, in a way, the business model may be your business model. You are your own business model and that – you know, ‘cause you write the book on the back of the piece, on the back of having the occasional contributor piece, maybe, for The New York Times. There’s a different business model, which is emerging much more individualistic…
Lynsey Addario
Sure.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…in this internet driven world, than the, kind of, organisation structures we had before. But just a thought that struck me when you were saying that. Mona?
Mona Eltahawy
So, usually, my role in life is to make white men uncomfortable, and there are many white men in this room and by extension, one of the reasons that I became a Journalist is to question power. So, whether it’s the power of white men, or it’s the power of media organisations, or state-owned media, or Jeff Bezos and his ownership of The Washington Post, I want what we take away today to be, how do we question power? Because I think that so many of us, who worked in other parts of the world that weren’t considered so powerful, so when I was a Reuters Correspondent, you know, we had almost like a two-tier 30 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
system in the newsroom, because we had those who were sent in from London and back then, it was, you know, mostly, kind of like, old white boys club, and us local hires. And it was us local hires who were most at risk from the Egyptian regime, and this has always been the case. And then, when I moved to the US in 2000 and I saw the US media coverage of, excuse me, the Iraq War, I was horrified at how US media, how US Reporters, just believed everything that their Government told them. It’s like what the fuck are you doing? You do not believe what the Government tells you. They would sit there in the briefings and I was like, oh my God. And now, finally, they’re beginning to get it, because Jim Acosta had his press card, you know, taken. My press card was taken by the Mubarak regime, so many people’s press cards were taken by the Mubarak regime. And this is why I keep saying, it is now that those of us who did not have power before, who are speaking back, who are here to make you uncomfortable, and who are here to remind you that we have been uncomfortable, for such a long time, welcome to the discomfort and use it to question those with power [applause].
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
I don’t think it’s only white men who’ve been abusing power. I think, you know, it’s a lot more equal opportunity here. But turning to Joel now and thought – Joel, you get the last word.
Joel Simon
Yes, thank you for that.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Exactly.
Joel Simon
Well, I think…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
It’s almost you’re uncomfortable…
Joel Simon
Here’s…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…when you start here, so…
Joel Simon
I’m not uncomfortable at all. I’m delighted to – and I think that this panel, I think – I don’t think it’s an accident that this – you’re looking at the media. This is the media. It’s not, you know, these giant buildings anymore. It’s not, you know, their – I mean, it’s a completely obsolete image of, you know, somebody running around a warzone in a vest. We are completely transformed, and I think what this panel and this discussion has made clear is just what’s at stake. And we have to get back – we’ve had a 31 The Chatham House Prize: The Committee to Protect Journalists
very interesting discussion about the challenges, but I think what we need to do is reaffirm and recommit to defending the people. At the end of the day, journalism is done by people. It’s – and these – and it can’t be done by retweeting, it can’t be done just by searching online. You’ve got to go out and you’ve got to observe and that is the small end of the funnel and then, it branches out and we get that information we shared. And that’s, you know, that’s, frankly, what we, as an organisation, need to do, what anyone who cares about global affairs, what anyone who’s a Chatham House Member, what anybody, who’s involved in foreign policy, anyone who cares about the world, we must defend, not just journalism, but the Journalists who bring us the news. So, much is at stake. I think it’s been brought to – into crystal foc – just crystal clear focus, just how vulnerable Journalists are, not just the individuals, but the systems that bring us the news. And so, that’s really what I want to leave people with, is just a recommitment and a reaffirmation to the importance of local Journalists – local journalism, a recognition that those – and they’re the frontlines and that the whole global information order depends on the work that the folks on this panel do.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Joel, thank you very much for those rousing and powerful last words. I think two of my big takeaways from this is the extent to which the internet has changed everything. I mean, I knew it, theoretically, if you see what I’m saying, but just hearing the way all of you have talked about it today has made me rethink this. You know, journalism and the role of it is so changed and therefore, the way that we think about, the way we work with it, is different.
But the last point, as well, is we have to engage young people in this conversation. They’re going to have to take much more ownership of the news. They need – you know, they will be less uncomfortable, but they will also be more challenging, and I think it’s a responsibility we all carry here to be able to make sure that they’re as engaged in these conversations as possible, and we will certainly do that bit at Chatham House. But can you please give a very strong hand to a great panel and to the CPJ [applause].