NEW YORK: In a recent dispatch from Moscow, BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg noted that a new Russian law required him to refer to the invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation.”
Then he quoted a Russian human rights lawyer who liberally used what is now a forbidden word: “war.”
The restrictions on how news organizations can report in Russia, which carry punishment of up to 15 years in prison, have impeded journalists, but not muzzled them. Many continue to report aggressively, even from outside the country, by making use of modern tools unavailable a generation ago: the Internet, encrypted communications, mobile-phone cameras in the hands of millions — and simple bravery.
“I don’t think there’s any kind of lack of information about what is happening in Russia,” said Vasily Gatov, a Boston-based Russian media researcher whose mother still lives in Moscow.
The new law, abruptly put in place March 4, placed restrictions on use of the word “war” and threatens punishment for any stories that go against the Russian government’s version of events — what it refers to as “false information.” It immediately had a chilling effect for journalists serving audiences primarily in Russia, and it also forced those reporting to the outside world to reevaluate operations.
The BBC suspended its reporting from Russia for several days, but restored it on March 8. Some news organizations have pulled journalists out of the country, others have stripped bylines from stories. Concerned about safety, several news organizations have said little or nothing publicly about how their journalists are deployed.
Reporters who displeased authorities in the old Soviet Union could be expelled from the country. But a law that says they can be put in jail for 15 years is a different risk entirely, said Ann Cooper, who was an NPR bureau chief in Moscow and former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“The change to the criminal code, which seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country,” John Micklethwait, Bloomberg editor in chief, said in telling his staff that its reporters would be pulled from Russia.
Despite the exit, Bloomberg was credited with breaking significant news by reporting March 23 that Russian climate envoy Anatoly Chubais had stepped down and left the country. The story carried no dateline or byline, except a tag noting Simon Kennedy’s “assistance.”
The sentencing of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny to a longer stint in prison on March 22 tested how journalists could operate in a stricter environment.
Even though the decision was handed down at a penal colony 70 miles from from Moscow. The New York Times and The Washington Post both did thorough stories using a variety of sources: other news agencies, Twitter and Instagram posts, video of the hearing shown on YouTube, interviews with Navalny aides.
The Times had moved its staff out of Russia for safety reasons. The Moscow bureau chief, Anton Troianovski, is reporting from Istanbul, Turkey, and other journalists are scattered throughout Europe, said Jim Yardley, the Times’s Europe editor.
“We continue to cover Russia closely — monitoring Russian television, government briefings and social media, while staying in touch with and interviewing sources, experts, and Russians who are still inside the country,” Yardley said. “We hope that we can safely return to Moscow soon, but for now, we are working hard to cover the country from the outside.”
That’s where many of the new tools for keeping journalists informed come into play; Telegram is being used frequently for encrypted conversations, said Jeff Trimble, a lecturer at Ohio State University and a former Moscow reporter for US News & World Report. Plenty of video is available, but must be checked carefully for accuracy, he said.
The Associated Press wrote a story following Navalny’s sentencing about small signs of defiance emerging in Russia. It had a New York dateline and no byline, but no shortage of detail, including police in the city of Nizhny Novgorod detaining a silent demonstrator who displayed a blank sign.
The AP has written some unbylined stories with Moscow datelines and also broken news from outside sources, including a March 30 story about US intelligence sources saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been misled by his military aides about the war because of their fear of delivering bad news from the battlefield.
Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, said it’s vital to continue to report from countries around the world where press freedoms have been curtailed. Executives at competing news organizations are now engaging with each other about safety and security issues in Russia, she said.
Without the physical presence of reporters, it’s more difficult to keep track of how the war and economic sanctions are affecting day-to-day life in Russia. That makes Rosenberg’s BBC reports stand out: he visited a grocery store to see how purchase limits are in place to prevent hoarding, and interviewed an 88-year-old woman who was selling possessions to buy food and medicine.
“It’s always important for journalists to have their feet on the ground,” Cooper said.
Television journalists are affected more severely by the response to restrictions. Live shots from Moscow’s Red Square have disappeared. The NBC “Nightly News” brief report on Navalny’s sentence came from Richard Engel in Ukraine. CBS News has run BBC reports. CNN used old-fashioned “Kremlinology” techniques of examining pictures to speculate on whether Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu has fallen out of favor.
The BBC said it restored its reporting from Russia after considering the new law’s implications “alongside the urgent need to report from inside Russia.” However, the company’s Russian-language service is no longer reporting from inside the country.
That’s left Rosenberg to wander the streets. In one report, he interviewed a parliament member who insisted there were no political prisoners in all of Russia.
“That is precisely the picture the Kremlin paints for the Russian people, hoping that they’ll believe that there’s no repression here, no war, no problem,” Rosenberg said.
The BBC declined a request to talk about whether there’s been Russian government pushback against his work.
After the new law was announced, ABC News’ James Longman reported from Moscow about the early impact of the West’s economic sanctions and Putin’s “assault on free speech.”
“There is a creeping realization that 30 years of progress is about to end,” Longman said.
In the weeks since, there have been no reports from inside Russia by ABC News correspondents.
Journalists impeded, not muzzled, by Russian reporting rules
https://arab.news/ncgg2
Journalists impeded, not muzzled, by Russian reporting rules
- The new law, abruptly put in place March 4, placed restrictions on use of the word “war”
- Some news organizations have pulled journalists out of the country, others have stripped bylines from stories
Journalist-turned-MP faces demeaning attacks as Lebanese parliament votes for president
- The heated exchange led Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to instruct his deputy, Elias Bou Saab, to escort Aoun out of the session
DUBAI: Lebanese journalist-turned-politician Paula Yacoubian was interupted and verbally attacked by MP Salim Aoun during a voting session to elect a president after a two-year power vaccum.
A video broadcast from inside Baabda Palace shows Yacoubian, during the voting session, accusing some MPs of using the constitution as a pretext to obstruct the session, asserting that the real reason was the refusal of some to allow Lebanese army commander Joseph Aoun to become president.
This accusation sparked an objection from Salim Aoun, who retorted: “This is out of order. Paula, you covered for a kidnapped prime minister and now you’re lecturing about virtue.”
He added: “You’re the biggest liar on the political scene, and your whole history lacks honor and morality.”
Yacoubian responded angrily, saying: “Shame on you!”
The argument escalated, with Aoun using offensive language to attack Yacoubian.
The heated exchange led Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to instruct his deputy, Elias Bou Saab, to escort Aoun out of the session to resolve the dispute.
Lebanon’s parliament on Thursday again failed to elect a president, after 12 previous attempts failed to choose a successor to former President Michel Aoun, whose term ended in October 2022.
Joseph Aoun, the leading candidate, failed to muster enough support — getting only 71 votes, or 15 short of the required 86.
As a sitting army commander, Joseph Aoun is technically barred from becoming president by Lebanon’s constitution. The ban has been waived before, but it means that Aoun faces additional procedural hurdles.
Australia frets over Meta halt to US fact-checking
- Australia has frequently irked social media giants with its efforts to restrict the distribution of false information or content it deems dangerous
- Late last year, the country passed laws to ban under-16s from signing up for social media platforms
SYDNEY: Australia is deeply concerned by Meta’s decision to scrap US fact-check operations on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, a senior minister said Thursday.
The government – which has been at the forefront of efforts to rein in social media giants – was worried about a surge of false information spreading online, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.
“Misinformation and disinformation is very dangerous, and we’ve seen it really kind of explode in the last few years,” Chalmers told national broadcaster ABC.
“And it’s a very damaging development, damaging for our democracy. It can be damaging for people’s mental health to get the wrong information on social media, and so of course we are concerned about that.”
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday the group would “get rid of fact-checkers” and replace them with community-based posts, starting in the United States.
Chalmers said the decision was “very concerning.”
The government had invested in trusted Australian news providers such as the ABC and national newswire AAP to ensure people had reliable sources for information, he said.
Disinformation and misinformation had become “a bigger and bigger part of our media, particularly our social media,” the treasurer said.
Australia has frequently irked social media giants, notably Elon Musk’s X, with its efforts to restrict the distribution of false information or content it deems dangerous.
Late last year, the country passed laws to ban under-16s from signing up for social media platforms. Offenders face fines of up to A$50 million ($32.5 million) for “systemic breaches.”
But in November, a lack of support in parliament forced the government to ditch plans to fine social media companies if they fail to stem the spread of misinformation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday he stood by the ban on children’s access to social media because of the impact it had on their mental health.
Asked about Meta’s fact-checking retreat, Albanese told reporters: “I say to social media they have a social responsibility and they should fulfil it.”
Australian group Digital Rights Watch said Meta had made a “terrible decision,” accusing it of acting in clear deference to incoming US president Donald Trump.
AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking program.
Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organizations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram.
Australian fact-checking operation AAP FactCheck said its contract with Meta in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific was not impacted by the group’s US decision.
“Independent fact-checkers are a vital safeguard against the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation that threatens to undermine free democratic debate in Australia and aims to manipulate public opinion,” said AAP chief executive Lisa Davies.
CNN defamation trial comes at a rough time for legacy media — and for the struggling network
- US Navy veteran Zachary Young blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover
NEW YORK: At a particularly inopportune time for legacy media and CNN, the news outlet is on trial in Florida this week, accused of defaming a Navy veteran involved in rescuing endangered Afghans from that country when the US ended its involvement there in 2021.
The veteran, Zachary Young, blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover.
In a broader sense, the case puts the news media on the stand in journalism critic Donald Trump’s home state weeks before he’s due to begin his second term as president, and on the same day Facebook’s parent introduced a Trump-friendly policy of backing off fact checks. Young’s attorney, Kyle Roche, leaned into the press’ unpopularity in his opening arguments on Tuesday.
“You’re going to have an opportunity to do something significant in this trial,” Roche told jurors in Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit Courts in Panama City on Tuesday. “You’re going to have an opportunity to send a message to mainstream media. You’re going to have an opportunity to change an industry.”
That’s the fear. Said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota: “Everybody in the news media is on trial in this case.”
Actual defamation trials are rare in this country
Defamation trials are actually rare in the United States, in part because strong constitutional protections for the press make proving libel difficult. From the media’s standpoint, taking a case to a judge or jury is a risk many executives don’t want to take.
Rather than defend statements that George Stephanopoulos made about Trump last spring, ABC News last month agreed to make the former president’s libel lawsuit go away by paying him $15 million toward his presidential library. In the end, ABC parent Walt Disney Co. concluded an ongoing fight against Trump wasn’t worth it, win or lose.
In the most high-profile libel case in recent years, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million on the day the trial was due to start in 2023 to settle the company’s claims of inaccurate reporting in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
The Young case concerns a segment that first aired on Jake Tapper’s program on Nov. 11, 2021, about extraction efforts in Afghanistan. Young had built a business helping such efforts, and advertised his services on LinkedIn to sponsors with funding who could pay for such evacuation.
He subsequently helped four separate organizations — Audible, Bloomberg, a charity called H.E.R.O. Inc. and a Berlin-based NGO called CivilFleet Support eV — get more than a dozen people out of Afghanistan, according to court papers. He said he did not market to — or take money from — individual Afghans.
Yet Young’s picture was shown as part of CNN story that talked about a “black market” where Afghans were charged $10,000 or more to get family members out of danger.
The plaintiff says the story’s reference to ‘black market’ damaged him
To Young, the “black market” label implied some sort of criminality, and he did nothing illegal. “It’s devastating if you’re labeled a criminal all over the world,” Young testified on Tuesday.
CNN said in court papers that Young’s case amounts to “defamation by implication,” and that he hadn’t actually been accused of nefarious acts. The initial story he complained about didn’t even mention Young until three minutes in, CNN lawyer David Axelrod argued on Tuesday.
Five months after the story aired, Young complained about it, and CNN issued an on-air statement that its use of the phrase “black market” was wrong. “We did not intend to suggest that Mr. Young participated in a black market. We regret the error. And to Mr. Young, we apologize.”
That didn’t prevent a defamation lawsuit, and the presiding judge, William S. Henry, denied CNN’s request that it be dismissed. CNN, in a statement, said that “when all the facts come to light, we are confident we will have a verdict in our favor.”
Axelrod argued on Tuesday that CNN’s reporting was tough, fair and accurate. He told the jury that they will hear no witnesses who will say they thought less of Young or wouldn’t hire him because of the story — in other words, no one to back up his contention that it was so damaging to his business and life.
Yet much like Fox was publicly hurt in the Dominion case by internal communications about Trump and the network’s coverage, some unflattering revelations about CNN’s operations will likely become part of the trial. They include internal messages where CNN’s reporter, Alex Marquardt, says unflattering and profane things about Young. A CNN editor was also revealed on messages to suggest that a Marquardt story on the topic was “full of holes,” Roche said.
“At the end of the day, there was no one at CNN who was willing to stand up for the truth,” Roche said. “Theater prevailed.”
Axelrod, who shares a name with a longtime Democratic political operative and CNN commentator, contended that the give and take was part of a rigorous journalistic process putting the video segment and subsequent printed stories together. “Many experienced journalists put eyes on these stories,” he said.
It’s still going to be difficult for CNN to go through. The network, with television ratings at historic lows, doesn’t need the trouble.
“At a moment of wider vilification and disparagement of the press, there is every reason to believe this will be weaponized, even if CNN prevails,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor at the University of Utah law school and expert on libel law.
The case is putting a media organization and its key players on the stand in a very public way, which is something people don’t usually see.
“I always dread any kind of libel cases because the likelihood that something bad will come out of it is very high,” Minnesota’s Kirtley said. “This is not a great time to be a libel defendant if you’re in the news media. If we ever did have the support of the public, it has seriously eroded over the past few years.”
Israeli military tightens media rules over war crimes prosecution concern
- Under the new rules, media interviewing soldiers of the rank of colonel and under will not be able to display their full names or faces, similar to the rules that already exist for pilots, an Israeli military spokesperson says
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military placed new restrictions on media coverage of soldiers on active combat duty amid growing concern at the risk of legal action against reservists traveling abroad over allegations of involvement in war crimes in Gaza.
The move came after an Israeli reservist vacationing in Brazil left the country abruptly when a Brazilian judge ordered federal police to open an investigation following allegations from a pro-Palestinian group that he had committed war crimes while serving in Gaza.
Under the new rules, media interviewing soldiers of the rank of colonel and under will not be able to display their full names or faces, similar to the rules that already exist for pilots and members of special forces units, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson told reporters.
The interviewees must not be linked to a specific combat event they participated in.
“This is our new guideline to protect our soldiers and to make sure they are safe from these types of incident hosted by anti-Israel activists around the world,” Shoshani said.
He said that under existing military rules, soldiers were already not supposed to post videos and other images from war zones on social media “even though that’s never perfect and we have a large army.” There were also long-standing rules and guidelines for soldiers traveling abroad, he said.
Shoshani said activist groups, such as the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation, which pushed for the action in Brazil, were “connecting the dots” between soldiers who posted material from Gaza and then posted other photos and videos of themselves while on holiday abroad.
Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, over alleged war crimes in Gaza, drawing outrage in Israel.
Shoshani said there had been “a handful” of cases where reservists traveling abroad had been targeted, in addition to the case in Brazil, all of which had been started by activist groups pushing authorities for an investigation.
“They didn’t open an investigation, they didn’t press charges or anything like that,” he said.
‘Offensive’ Muslim fintech ads banned in UK for showing burning banknotes
- Posters by Wahed Invest were banned by Advertising Standards Authority after agency received 75 complaints
LONDON: Adverts by Muslim fintech company Wahed Invest have been banned in the UK for featuring burning banknotes, which the country’s advertising watchdog deemed “offensive.”
The New York-based investment platform, which targets the Muslim community, ran a series of posters across London’s transport system in September and October.
The ads showed US dollar and euro banknotes on fire alongside slogans such as “Join the money revolution” and “Withdraw from Riba” — a term referring to the Islamic prohibition of interest.
The Advertising Standards Authority said it received 75 complaints that the ads were offensive.
“The ads represented the expression that viewers’ money was ‘going up in flames’ and that images of burning money were commonly encountered,” the ASA said in a statement.
“However, regardless of whether viewers would have understood that message or understood it as a defiant act designed to show a challenge to financial institutions, the currencies which were burned in all of the ads were clearly visible as US dollar and euro banknotes.”
The advert also featured images of Muslim preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk and Russian former professional mixed martial artist Khabib Abdulmanapovich Nurmagomedov.
Three of the posters showed Menk holding an open briefcase filled with US dollar and euro banknotes on fire, with two of them stating “Withdraw from Exploitation.”
Wahed defended the campaign, explaining that the burning banknotes symbolized money “going up in flames” due to inflation outpacing savings growth.
The company, which describe itself as an investment platform allowing consumers who were predominantly Muslim to invest in a manner which aligned with their faith and values, launched in the US in 2017 and is backed by the oil company Saudi Aramco and the French footballer Paul Pogba.
Wahed acknowledged that the currencies depicted in the ads could be viewed as symbols of national identity but argued that the imagery of burning money was a powerful reference to hyperinflation, a concept often depicted in popular culture through film and television.
A spokesperson added: “We understand that visuals like those included in our campaign can elicit strong reactions.
“While our intention was to spark thought and awareness, we recognize the importance of ensuring that messaging resonates positively with the diverse audiences that may consume them.”
The ASA said that the adverts would have been seen by many people, including people from the US and eurozone countries, who “would have viewed their nation’s currency as being culturally significant.
“Although we acknowledged Wahed Invest’s view that they had not directly criticized a specific group, and that depictions of burning banknotes were commonly encountered, we considered the burning of banknotes would have caused serious offense to some viewers,” the regulator said.
“We therefore concluded that the ads were likely to cause serious offense.”
