Silencing dissent by brute force has become the new normal.
Waking up to headlines on upcoming journalists getting detained or charged with sedition has also become very routine.
This has somewhat been more of a tradition across many countries of the world today. It’s more prominent in authoritarian regimes or in regimes where secular values have been going downhill.
In recent times, with the proliferation of many TV news channels and web portals that are unapologetically and undiplomatically biased, yellow journalism is at an all-time high. As the fourth pillar of democracy, media brings hope and hopelessness in the present day and age.
Sensationalism is the fodder for hungry masses whose lives revolve around gossips and hatemongering. In their lives, sanity, silence, slow-down and sensitivity is missing. The use of social media has revolutionized the way we consume news that is filled with migraine-inducing fake news. Most of the time, it’s a hoax, with only a handful of its sites trying very hard to expose it. As generations feed on hollow and shallow news, very little hope remains for the future.
Maria Ressa And Dmitry Muratov: Nobel Peace Prize 2021 Winners
As the year draws to a close, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced the 2021 Nobel Prize awardees across various disciplines. ‘Peace’ as a word has been a very attractive term as it highlights newer aspirations and signifies new dawn filled with opportunities for a more humane world. Peace as a term gives this visual imagery of embossment of olive leaves and dove to give out a message of empathy, compassion and love.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2021 were awarded to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov’ ‘for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace. These two personalities, for sure, have made the adage of ‘a pen is mightier than a sword’ come true. The Norwegian Nobel Committee specifically highlights the following:
Maria Ressa uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines.
Dmitry Muratov has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions.
Maria Ressa became the first Filipino ever to win a Nobel Prize who had an illustrious career as a journalist at CNN for Southeast Asia. In 2012, she co-founded a news website called Rappler, an independent news website. She also won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize in 2021. The Philippines is also the country that awards the Ramon Magsaysay Award to Asians for their outstanding contribution majorly in six fields, viz., government service; public service; community leadership; journalism, literature and creative communication arts; peace and international understanding and emergent leadership. It is referred to as Asia’s premier prize and highest honour. In 2019, Ravish Kumar from NDTV received this award for his outstanding contribution to the field of journalism.
Dmitry Muratov is the editor-in-chief of a Russian newspaper called Novaya Gazeta (translated as New Gazette) that is mostly involved in the critical and investigative coverage of Russia’s political and social affairs. It was organized by a group of former journalists in 1993, and six of them engaged with the newspaper have been killed in mysterious ways because of their investigations. Interestingly, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, helped set up Novaya Gazeta in 1993 with the prize money, wherein he also bought the first computers for the newspaper. UN News interviewed Dmitry recently where the journalist said he would not keep a ‘single cent’ of his prize money.
The full interview can be found here. This prize comes at a time in Putin’s Russia when Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader, politician, lawyer and anti-corruption activist, was poisoned last year via a nerve agent and was detained by the Russian authorities at the airport after he flew in from Berlin.
As per the official website of the Nobel Prize, there have been a total of 102 Peace Prize awardees. The last time a journalist was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was 86 years ago. In 1935, the German Carl von Ossietzky won it for revealing his country’s secret post-war rearmament programme, who was put in a Nazi concentration camp in 1933. He died in 1948 at the age of 48.
Press Freedom Index 2021
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) or Reporters Without Borders releases the Press Freedom Index every year. The index combines qualitative and quantitative analysis based on data on abuses and acts of violence against journalists during a particular period. RSF has developed 87 questions is an online questionnaire targeting media professionals, lawyers and sociologists. This questionnaire is currently available in 20 languages.
Some of the indicators in this index are- pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, infrastructure and abuses. Based on these rankings, a press freedom map is developed that categorizes countries based on colours, viz., white (good), yellow (fairly good), orange (problematic), red (bad) and black (very bad).
India is ranked 142 out of 180 countries in the Press Freedom Index in 2021, retaining the same rank as in 2020. Maria Ressa’s the Philippines ranks 138, and Dmitry Muratov’s Russia ranks 150 in this index this year. With respect to India’s neighbours, Myanmar ranks 140, Pakistan ranks 145, Bangladesh ranks 152, Sri Lanka ranks 127, Nepal ranks 106, Bhutan ranks 65, and China ranks considerably low at 177. Afghanistan is placed at 122, which could very well see many changes in the future with the dramatic changes unfolding in the socio-political space after the misadventures of the Taliban.
In Southeast Asia, Thailand stands at 137, Indonesia ranks 113 and Malaysia is placed at 119. It is quite interesting to note that Singapore ranks 160 in the index. On the other hand, even after massive mass protests, Hong Kong ranks 80 in this index.
During the emergency of 1975, there was a heavy crackdown on the press with curtailment of freedom of speech and expression. As per the Indian Constitution, Article 19, a fundamental right under the right to freedom, guarantees freedom of speech and expression. Using this right has led to the detention of many scholars and journalists in different phases of modern Indian history. From the context of sensitive reporting, human rights are at the core of media ethics.
Slain photojournalist Danish Siddique of Reuters was one such journalist who broke the internet with his bone-chilling photographs that captured human elements in some of the most unfathomable situations with the utmost sensitivity. Therefore, there is a thin line between what one wants to speak and express and how one wants to cover it.
Freedom of speech has been life-threatening for many journalists. Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent US-based Saudi journalist, was killed brutally in Turkey in 2018. His questioning of the Saudi regime and being critical of the country’s policies meant death.
Journalists land themselves in situations that are life-threatening and fatal at times. This courage to show the world the truth paves the way for security and conflict management. Awarding Nobel Peace Prize to journalists is in the right spirits!