*PROTECTING JOURNALISTS AT THE WALDORF

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The last time I was at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for a media event, I “infiltrated” a closed-door meeting with President Bush, Secretary of State Powell and a gaggle of Presidents from Central Africa. Last night I was back there to take part in, and report on, a media invasion as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ.org) held its annual International Press Freedom Awards dinner to honor journalists in trouble and raise, according to MC Tom Brokaw, $1,137,000 to support CPJ’s work.

“When we started, we were just a twelve people around a card table” one of the top agents for TV News talent told me as we entered the building. Once again, as in years past, he kidded me for not wearing a tux to a black tie dinner. I noticed he didn’t have one on either. I bought a new suit for the occasion. My old one, made in Hanoi five years ago, is starting to unravel from overuse.

He told me that he has been working more actively of late with what he called “The committee to stop the merger,” a reference to the effort by some in the business to torpedo a possible merger between CNN and ABC NEWS through the creation of a new corporate entity. Such mergers, part of the continuing trend towards more media concentration, may be bad for democracy, and to insiders it will mean fewer jobs. Hence an agent’s concern.

SCORING “THE BIG ONE”

Media gossip was in no short supply at this annual soiree, and I had my ears open for more. Not surprisingly, the buzz was about Iraq. Brokaw, I was told, was just back from Baghdad where he tried — but failed, so far — to score “the big one,” THE first interview with Saddam. You can imagine that all the big news organizations are scrambling for that one. That includes Peter Arnett, once CNN’s most favored chief correspondent — until the network unceremoniously (and many believe unfairly) dumped him. He was axed during the Tailwind scandal, an investigation of the use of nerve gas in South East Asia by US forces. (The Pentagon had denied all use of Sarin gas to discredit the report that CNN recanted. A few weeks ago, it was reported that Sarin was being tested by the military in Hawaii during the Vietnam War.)

Arnett is now reporting for Camera Planet, an offshoot of the independent Broadcast News Network (BNN). Peter was the only reporter in Iraq before Desert Storm stormed through. His experiences will be recounted in a documentary scheduled to air on Sunday night on MSNBC. One of his producers fears he will take “heat” for saying that Americans must realize that war will hurt the people of Iraq, not just its government.

Peter’s real life reports are likely to be overshadowed by HBO’s movie-dramatization of the events in Baghdad back in 1991. “You will hate it Danny,” a journo-friend told me. “They turned the conflict into a love story that I got into briefly until I realized this is a current reality, not a subject of the past, and it is fucking scary.”

Since the distinction between fiction and faction on TV News has been with us for more than a decade, it is possible that the film will attract bigger audiences than the real story. A “network topper,” to borrow a Varietyism, told me that he was told that the war is unlikely to jump off until February because the people who handle logistics for US forces told his people that they were planning to go home for Christmas.

CNN WAS THERE

There was nary a mention of the dinner or its honorees on CNN this morning, even though a CNN crew was there. They interviewed me and may decide to use my sound byte which called the function “Human Rights for a Night,” asking for more regular coverage of the issues the journalists who risk their lives to cover. To my surprise (why am I surprised?), the CNN producer challenged me by questioning whether Americans even care and cited the popularity of Fox, CNN’s main competitor. That sounded like defeatism and a rationalization of the statu quo to me.

Ironically, on its “Global Minute” this morning — can you believe, there is a global minute, (actually a steal of Murdoch’s similar feature “The World in a Minute”), CNN featured a brief mention of a Fatwa (ie death threat) that an Islamist state government in northern Nigeria has issued urging Muslims to kill the writer of a newspaper article on the Miss World contest. Oddly, CNN seemed to agree with the fundamentalists’ reporting that the report “instigated the violence.” In actual fact, the report was USED AS A PRETEXT by those who instigated the violence. This was a point made by a Nigerian journalist who spoke at the dinner, and thanked CPJ for helping her get out of jail years ago. Of course, she lamented the state of press freedom in her country.

Meanwhile OUTSIDE the US, journalists lament the lack of press freedom inside the US. That is what Canada’s CITY TV was interrested in when they interviewed me. And then there was this report–NOT MENTIONED last night from IIwantmedia.com: “Media Freedom Being Lost: ReportNews Interactive, Tuesday, 11/26/02U.S. media is criticized for its overly patriotic coverage following 9/11 in a new report from the World Association of Newspapers.”

THE WAR ON TERROR AS A WAR ON MEDIA

Happily, there were some — but not enough references — to the threats to press freedom in our country. Various speakers including Thomas Glocer, an American securities broker who is now CEO of Reuters, expressed worries about the way the war on terror threatens media access to covering the US military and its wars overseas. A video, produced by NBC, interviewed Dave Marash of ABC’s Nightline and Christianne Amanpour of CNN to the same effect It shows that there is still a conscience and sense of mission beating in the hearts of many in the business who have seen the degradation of the news business over the years.

Tom Brokaw said they were there in “solidarity” –a word you don’t hear much on his broadcasts or anywhere — with press freedom everywhere. There was a moment of silence for the ten journalists who have died so far this year and the 118 in jails worldwide. Everyone said the risks to press freedom are greater in other countries, which often cite US policies as a justification for cracking down on their own media.

Listening to — and meeting journalists from other parts of the world is still a thrill to me. There were ovations for Kazakhstan’s Irina Petrushova, who fled her country to Moscow after getting several death threats; for Tipu Sultan of Bangladesh, whose arms were crushed by thugs tied to a local politician and Ignacio “Nacho” Gomez of Columbia, a former Nieman Fellow, who exposed corruption and death squads tied to the drug wars. An appeal was made for Fesshaye Yohannes, who “disappeared” with 16 colleagues in some hellhole in Eritrea for daring to challenge its “revolutionary” government.

I missed Mariane Pearl, wife of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl whose eloquence and grace I admired on many broadcasts, who accepted an award for her late husband. A book of Pearl’s vivid writing was given to all of the attendees as they left.

MIXED FEELINGS

I have mixed feelings about these annual dinners. They evoke a mix of pride, anger and envy. I am proud to be part of an industry that does honor real heroes, and supports media freedom with dedication and dollars. That is needed! It does get me angry when this same industry with so much power and so many resources does so little, day after day, in informing and educating its readers, listeners and viewers about the world they say they care about.

I am also envious to see so many donors spreading so much cash on what is really a rather “safe issue” even though it concerns dangerous work. There is a sense in which the Committee functions as a political insurance policy for media companies in the sense that it will lobby for any of their people when they get in trouble. As Dave Marash, whose work I respect so much said–in reference why CPJ is needed–”When we saw what happened to Daniel Pearl, we realized ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’”

I guess appealing to self-interest is not that bad, but surely more of these media mavens can do so much more to upgrade news coverage of the world.

As the editor of this web site, that fancies itself a COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURN( ALISM), and reports on press freedom issues every day, I do also get a bit envious when I see so many rich people and companies NOT supporting our work. Unfortunately, we don’t have the fundraising machine that they do — or the celebrity “big names” on our roster. And, frankly, we need expertise and HELP on this front.

THE WORDS OF WALTER CRONKITE

Nevertheless, the hosts of the first of these CPJ dinners, former TV newsanchor Walter Cronkite, recognizes the deeper challenge and has been a supporter of our work. In statement (and video) that appears on Mediachannel, he says:

“We have all been supportive for years of dissidents around the world who take great risks to stand up for what they believe in. But here at home, in our own industry, we need to make it possible for people to speak out when they feel they’ve been wronged, even if it means shaming newsrooms to do the right thing. Journalists shouldn’t have to check their consciences at the door when they go to work for a media company. It ought to be just the reverse…

We’re always ready to speak out when journalists are at risk. But today we must speak out because journalism itself is at risk. That’s why I’m speaking out and reaching out to you tonight, to tell you that I like the idea of the Media Channel and want to encourage your participation. And that’s the way it is.”

Yup, that’s the way it is.

COVERING IRAQ IN PRAISE OF THE BBC

All I saw in the news this morning was reports on the Inspectors. Fox News was reporting on events in Baghdad from Jordan. They did offer an amusing report on how there was a mad scramble by the media in covering the first inspections. Apparently it was chaotic, with inspectors losing their Iraqi counterparts and the media getting in the middle. An Air raid siren went off in the middle of the madness and no one seemed to know why. CNN actually said it didn’t know something — a first. Chief UN inspector Hans Blix is on with Christianne A. today at 3PM EST to get an “exclusive” update.

Speaking of CNN, Adam McConnell who watches CNN International (the channel Americans don’t see) reports on one report:

“CNN International is broadcasting a report by Brett Sadler from the N. Iraqi town of Halabja, the town that was gassed by Saddam in 1988; it is billed as a ‘CNN Exclusive,’ so I’m guessing that it may show up on normal CNN. The report suffers from the same problems that most other reports about N. Iraq do: Sadler is good at interviewing survivors of the atrocity, listing their still-lingering maladies, and blaming Saddam, but says nothing about the fact that Saddam was a US ally when he committed the act and that the same was said to Saddam by the US gov’t until it became their interest to portray Saddam as a homicidal madman.

“BBC World is also airing a report examining the situation along the Turkish-Iraqi border. The report is pretty effective and goes some way in trying to explain not only the complexity of the situation but also the possible effects of a US attack on Iraq and Turkey. BBC’s report is airing the report on its ‘Reporters’ segment (I didn’t catch the name of the correspondent) and is the best report by either BBC World or CNN International on the situation along the Iraqi-Turkish border that I have seen recently.”

AIDS IN THE NEWS

There were major AIDS events last night as well. Media coverage tends to increase as World Aids Day on December 1 approaches. MTV sponsored a big concert in South Africa last night, Johannesburg’s Mail and Guardian reports today: “The Aids epidemic is causing the spiraling disintegration of some of the poorest countries in Africa, precipitating famine and social, political and economic collapse, says the latest official United Nations update.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=13&o=12653

The New York Times reports today on this same UN report, but stresses something different: “Women Catch Up to Men in Global H.I.V. Cases “For the first time, about half of the adults infected with H.I.V. worldwide are women, chiefly as a result of sexualintercourse with infected men, the U.N. said today.”

At the UN. There was a series of seminars, a photo show and an enthusiastic screening of Rory Kennedy’s new film “Pandemic: Facing Aids.” Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it will air on HBO in June 2003.

DISSECTOR GOES PUBLIC ACCESS

For those of you in New York City with cable, who are looking for an alternative to BIG media while you gobble your turkey, your news dissector goes public access with an appearance on Joel Landy’s fine “Songs of Freedom” show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network, Channel 34, on Thanksgiving Day at 7:30 pm. He will show clips from our film COUNTING ON DEMOCRACY.

DISSECTOR”S WEBLOG NOW AVAILABLE ON EMAIL

Finally some long awaited news from Media Channel. You will now be able to subscribe for free to this weblog every day via EMAIL. We are hoping this will allow more people to read it daily. There’s information on how to do it above and on the home page. If you find it of value, you can pass it on to others and urge them to sign up as well. I will be bugging you about this more in the weeks ahead. I welcome your comments and contributions. Write: dissector@medichannel.org. I will be back Monday but possibly before.