“Freedom of the Press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
A. J. Liebling (1904-1963) of The New Yorker (1935-1963)
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
George Orwell. (requoted in the New York Post)
Worldwide, bloggers are being lauded as the new wave of journalism; Bloggers are recognised as Citizen Journalists. Simultaneously bloggers are decried as unremittingly polemical and irredeemably abusive. This by Governments and judiciaries wordwide. Bloggers are accorded none of the privileges of the established media with the inherent right to keep secret he identity of their sources. If bloggers offend the wrong agency they are jailed and killed outright.
What do the countries of Egypt, China and Iran New Zealand and some U.S states have in common with regards to adherence to tenets upholding the ‘Freedom of the press’?
All are hostile environs for bloggers to file both opinion pieces and stories based on information provided by primary sources.
From the sublime:
New Zealand: Is Whale Oil a journalist?
“A blogger (Cameron Slater of whale Oil Beef Hooked) who broke the Len Brown sex scandal story has been ordered to reveal confidential sources after a judge ruled his site was not a “news medium.”
(NZ Herald)
To the ridiculous:
Alabama:‘I’m not some whack job’, says jailed Alabama blogger Roger Schuler
“An Alabama blogger who continued to write about the alleged extramarital affair of a prominent lawyer despite a court order was arrested and jailed last week. He was still being held without bond as of Tuesday, according to reports”.
(Thinkprogress)
And the downright insidious:
Iran:
Sattar Beheshit, Iranian blogger was beaten in prison according to prosecutor.
“TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s state prosecutor has confirmed for the first time that a blogger who died in police custody last month had been beaten.”
Eygypt:
Egyptian blogger arrested in widening crackdown:
(Reuters) – “A prominent Egyptian blogger said on Tuesday he had been arrested, the latest political activist to be detained in a widening crackdown on dissent by the army-backed government.”
US research and data backs up the theory that bloggers and freelance writers are being persecuted and killed in growing numbers:
From the World Information Access Project:
WIA Blogger Arrests around the World
