What has the dress got to do with the press?!
By Iqbal Tamimi • May 17th, 2008 at 10:24 • Category: Analysis, Education, Internet and Communication, Newswire
On the second of May 2008 the Frontline Club in London supported the Press Freedom Network in UK under the patronage of the National Commission for the UNESCO and invited an array of journalists and media professionals from all over the country to vote on the motion ‘New Media is Killing Journalism’.
This initiative was held one day ahead of the annual celebration of the World Press Freedom Day. This year happens to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Nakba of Palestine too, which means they can declare whatever they like…. no one is going to take such issues seriously.
There, I have discovered that the UK media is almost differently driven from that in USA, thank God for that. What I mean here is: journalists in the UK are more driven by the human factor and the end product gain for the society as a whole; rather than the individual financial capitalist gain, which is ‘a totally different school of thought’.
There was a panel of speakers from different media outlets. The discussion was chaired by the Chair of the Association of European Journalists, William Horsely.
Our guest from USA Andrew Keen was keen indeed to declare the Internet, the bloggers, and the new media the killers of journalism. Mr. Keen is the author of the Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is killing our Culture…he declared new media a criminal before there has even been a trial, and declared journalism killed. Such drama is part of the USA media character. After all, a big war was invented after a few minutes of knitting a story about weapons of mass destruction, but it was revealed later that someone has slipped a stitch, and within a very short time the ugly reality was forwarded by emails, not forgetting what the new media’s role in exposing Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo scandals has been.
Mr Keen’s defence was based almost solely on a financial perspective and how those Internet bloggers are stealing journalist s’ opportunities of getting a paid job by working free of charge. He argued that journalism is not an Opinion; it’s a PAID job to collect information and re-distribute it. For a minute I thought he was talking about the CIA. He considers bloggers as people who rebel against the traditions of journalism ‘in a negative way’.
When he criticised ‘stupid’ people who write for free, he mentioned one of the most successful online newspapers in the USA, The Huffington Post. But after slapping the face he had to fix the hat, so he added that some of the best journalists and writers contribute to this newspaper created by ‘a very intelligent lady’. He scratched his head and wondered. "I don’t know how she persuaded them to do so."
But I myself guess I know how. When people find the available media is not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… some people with a healthy conscious will fill the gap so… help you God.
Kim Fletcher the Chairman of the National Council for the training of Journalists and the author of The Journalist Handbook voted with the motion but disagreed with Mr. Keen regarding considering journalism as a no-opinion job.
The star of the discussion was BBC Broadcaster at Radio 4 Robin Lustig. Mr Lustig is a first class blogger, so he earned his big triumphant smile showing all his teeth. He said ‘the website of BBC receives 5 million emails a day, and this is the largest feedback source the company receives’, and this is a hint of how successful new media in its job as a journalism outlet can be.
The most important point he made was regarding the outbursts of fear whenever a new generation of technology is born. He said that when the broadcasting through radio was introduced, the people working in newspapers panicked. They thought they were going to be out of business soon. But they were wrong. Radio and journalism both remained very much alive. Then TV came in and those who worked in journalism and radio panicked, they too thought that TV would take over, but they were wrong. Here we are, we have radio, journalism, TV stations, new media and lots of other communication systems all working perfectly well.
“Why can’t we accept them all without having in mind that one will cause the death of the other?” he said, waving with both hands.
Lustig said that journalism benefited from blogging and new media, and as an example he confessed that when he needed to know about the elections in USA he went to dig up the information from blogs and websites.
I know he was telling the truth, because when Sharm El Sheikh was attacked and bombed a couple of years ago, I was working for a TV station. It happened in the early hours of the morning, we did not have a reporter in the area, and the nearest reporter was in Cairo. We had simply to rely on information from blogs and websites.
Jeremy Dear, the General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists was present to defend the new media. He has not only confirmed that the new media was innocent from such accusations, but he has been the leading witness to declare that the internet, the bloggers and the new media are those who kept journalism alive and kicking.
“What really killed journalism is the greed of the owners of newspapers,” he explained. He said only 7% of the journalists were offered adequate training by their establishments.
He did not throw around his accusation without solid proof; he had a list of astronomical figures of money harvested from the journalism business in the last years, should you hear them your eyes will hug each other immediately, but do not be mislead. No gain seemed to bounce back on the journalists to improve their quality of lives or work.
He criticised the heavy loads added on journalists’ shoulders, and the added chores they are requested to do without much improvement regarding salaries or training. And that on its own is a good reason to explain the retreat of quality of journalism. From his point of view, journalists were requested to do more in less time.
It was obvious that he is going to vote against the motion, and accuse the journalistic establishments and its owners of murdering journalism in cold ink through cuts and tight fisting.
Nazim Ansari was the only female in the panel of speakers. She is the President of the Foreign Press Association, and the first Iranian to publish an online newspaper in London almost 25 years ago.
It was expected that she would defend online journalism because of the history of Iran regarding strangling the freedom of speech, and because the Internet has been the main source of news in and out from Iran since some time.
She suggested that journalism is not only about financial gain, and it is an ethical duty. Our American colleague Mr Keen lost his patience and interrupted her asking her a wearied question, “who paid for your dress?”
I failed to understand what her dress has got to do with the death of the press.
Mind you she was not wearing a dress, she had an executive suit on. Her trousers were shouting back at Mr Keen’… “Are you attacking me because I do not share your capitalistic American view? Or is it because I am a mix of three components recipe of irritation?” (She is obviously a charming professional woman, an Iranian, and a Muslim too).
His remark was a hit under the belt, but she continued defending her point of view explaining how journalism is in Iran. When we left the meeting room after voting was over, Mr Keen tried to patch the big hole he punched in Miss Ansari’s Ozone, but she commented calmly, “Journalism could not buy some people some taste.” I guess Mr Keen’s theory dropped dead, since he was defending a kind of journalism that can buy almost anything.
Being a journalist representing the Exiled Journalists Network myself, I had to vote against the motion. I made my point clear. Many countries still do not enjoy the freedom of the press available in UK. And many do not have unions to defend them. We have to keep in mind our colleagues working in conflict areas and under dictatorships. Those journalists can’t deliver their messages through traditional media. Blogging, Internet and new media in general are their third lung. The motion was not only about journalism in UK, it was held under the umbrella of the UNESCO to take action regarding future policies in different countries.
The votes at the end came as follows: 13 voted for the motion, 43 against, and 5 halted their votes. Hallelujah… back to blogging.
Iqbal Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Hebron. She is the creator of a vibrant and important activists' network Palestinian Mothers, open to all who share the vision of peace and justice, men and women alike. She is working now in UK.
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" We have to keep in mind our colleagues working in conflict areas and under dictatorships. Those journalists can’t deliver their messages through traditional media. Blogging, Internet and new media in general are their third lung. The motion was not only about journalism in UK, it was held under the umbrella of the UNESCO to take action regarding future policies in different countries."
I agree with your idea about the importance of blogs Mrs Iqbal, even if it is for free. In addition, we should also remember that blogs are very useful for common people other than journalists, and in many ways.
Thanks.
People facing hardships, discrimination, brutal treatment are still e mailing humanitarian organizations every single day. Should we have no new media, how on earth are we going to know who is suffering and in what way.
New media made statistics and research accessible to anyone interested. I myself think the new media is the hugest gift to the modern civilization. I myself receive e mails from oppressed people in different areas of my part of the world, asking for guidance and advice. And through the same technology we forward such pleas to whoever he is supposed to know about how to deal with them.
From petitions to pictures, all served by the new media.
People who write "for free" are far from being stupid, but greedy people wouldn't write a word, without being paid for it. We blog, etc… because we are sickened by the blatant lies fed to the general public by the mainstream media. The truth has to get out. This is why so many of us, people, some of us Academics are blogging.
On the Western hemisphere, the "fake world" where we can't count on the traditional media, which is owned and controlled by Zionists, to get the truth out there, we must blog. Before the internet, we had no idea of how the situation really was in other parts of the world. If there were no bloggers, most Canadians and Americans would believe that Saddam blew the twin towers, that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East, that it is only defending itself against Palestinian "terrorist extremists," etc.
Thanks to the new media, we know different. And this is what makes our governments here nervous about bloggers. With the internet, we can connect anywhere around the world. The truth leaks out of everywhere, thank God! Here in Canada and in the US, the media is owned and controlled by the Zionist entity. The bloggers are seen as a threat because we expose them and state the real facts.
Here, in Canada, the press is so controlled that anyone who criticize Israel can be charged for "hate speech," "anti-Semitism", or "terrorist sympathizer"… So much for the "free world!"
The fact is that now, on this side of the globe, the words "freedom" and "democracy" are empty and devoid of any meaning….
Back to blogging…
People like Nazim Ansari tries their best to be accepted as "moderate" by the westerners by parroting the propaganda lies about their nation, culture, gender and religion. Allah had warned the believers 1400 year ago – "The non-believers will never accept you until you follow their religion". A Muslim doesn't have to be a copy-cat to earn respect – the moral people people would respect him/her for his/her conviction and principles. Such individuals have no moral right to complain for not treated by those whom they try to please.
The press in Islamic Iran is much free as compared to the US and most of EU countries. Try to publish an article criticizing Israel or Holocaust or Zionism or gay & lesbian – and you will find out the scale of so-called "freedom of speech" in a few hours. Iran is the only country, which allowed Revisionists to address their scientific findings about the myth of "Six Million Died".
Miss Nazim has not reported any lies, she talked about the past, almost 25 years ago when the freedom of the press was not as it is now. I do not know much about her personally, but I respected what she has said. She was talking about the role of new media and how it benifited the exchange of news.
You can't claim that Iran is more free than USA or other countries, as a matter of fact I do not think there is any free coutry in the whole wide world where one can just say whatever he likes without being monitored or being frightened of the outcome.
You turned a descussion of media into a relegious debate which has nothing to do with this point here. But I can assure you that there are more freedom of relegious belief here in the west more than in our countries… and I mean Islamic countries as they would prefer to claim or call themselves.
If you want to think about it for a minuet remember fights between different schools of thought and how it ended up with murdering each other, even though they are of the same faith. While in the West you can practice whatever faith you believe in, and be friendly with all people regardless of their faiths.
I would like to remind you that God himself gave us the freedom of choice regarding faith, that's why he said in Quran: ' wa hadynahu el najdayen, Fa imma shakiran wa imma kafoora'.
We should not judge each other regarding choice of relegion, none of us have the right to do so.