Sustainable Journalism

We had a rather cheery lecture this week from a very experienced journalist who told us we could all get murdered. Rather alarming for first thing on a Friday, but the grim reality is that in some parts of the world journalists are extremely vulnerable to violence.

In Rodney Pinder’s 35 years as a journalist, he has worked his way to the very top. He has covered conflicts in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and South Africa, been global editor of Reuters video news and now is director of the International News Safety Institute. This charity was set up in 2004 as a coalition of global news organisations to give training and support to journalists around the world who are at risk. And that’s potentially all of us.

The point is that you don’t necessarily have to be in the midst of a war zone to get yourself into bother. As a journalist I’ll be wanting to get myself into the thick of it, be there when it happens – but at what cost? Whether it’s a footie match,  a climate change demonstration in Britain, or a military coup in some distant land, a journalist should always prepare themselves for the worst and take the necessary precautions.

Morbidly, on the homepage of the INSI website there is a counter racking up how many journalists have died so far this year in the pursuit of their work. Since the lecture one more has died which brings the tally up to 63.  In a healthy democracy journalists are essential, they are a channel of free speech in the pursuit of truth. In a country with massive corruption and drug trafficking such as Mexico, the torch of truth isn’t welcomed and the light it shines is frequently extinguished. Worldwide, only 1 in 10 journalist deaths ends in a prison sentence.

The lecture kicked off with a film telling us about the death of Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was an anti government journalist and editor of Sri Lankan newspaper the Daily Editor. He was killed in January 2009 but had preempted his murder only days before in an editorial column he had written (read out in video below).

Such is the danger in some countries, and I felt fairly ignorant for never having heard of this man, who for his extraordinary effort and tenaciousness was awarded the UNESCO world press freedom prize posthumously. It is extremely sobering to think that some journalists will die to tell the story, and only goes to show how important journalism is and how much we take freedom of speech for granted in the Western world.

Usually Radio 5 live in the morning ends for me at 9 – the phone in subjects don’t normally warrant making me late. However yesterday was different, as listeners could have their say on the BNP’s forthcoming appearance on Question Time.  I don’t think there has ever been as much anticipation for the BBC’s flagship political programme as this, well not in my adult lifetime anyway. And its developing by the hour with opinion very much divided. The main dissenter is Welsh Secretary Peter Hain who’s latest move has been to lodge his objections to the BBC trust to try and convince them against letting Nick Griffin on the programme. Hain fears giving the BNP such a platform will award them political credibility if Griffin is allowed to appear on primetime television alongside the main parties.

All this on the subtext of last weeks court case that the BNP had broken the race relations act in not allowing non-white members to join the party, which therefore made them ‘illegal’. Apparently they will be recruiting non white members – I don’t reckon they’ll be inundated with applications, do you? Here’s Peter Hain being interviewed on Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman.

The phone in itself was fairly compelling, and there were surprisingly very few callers who thought that it was wrong for the BNP to appear. Arguments for included the fact that as soon as Mr Griffin gets going it’ll become clear what his party stands for; he’s going to need to spin their ideology to within an inch of its life to avoid being verbally ripped to pieces by the audience. Also that if you try and silence fascism it will only come back stronger, as happened historically with the rise of the Nazi’s in Weimar Germany. But the most poignant of contributors was a black muslim caller from Coventry, who said that freedom of expression and tolerance to hear their viewpoint should pervade in this case. It’s about 20 mins in, all makes for an interesting listen.

Anyway you haven’t got long until it disappears forever, or until i learn how to record off iplayer! Yet this morning the plot thickens, the Guardian (them again) have got their hands on a supposed database of BNP members, which has yet to be authenticated. It has been leaked online to the site Wikileaks who say they’ll be publishing it tomorrow, with an apparent snapshot of how the BNP’s membership stood in April this year. Most surprising in this for me is that the East Midlands seems to have the highest concentration of party members. All but my home county of Nottinghamshire appear in the top four including Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. How have people become so disillusioned in the midlands?

Also today a number of former Army chiefs have denounced ‘extremist groups’ who hi-jack the success of the British military for their campaigns. ‘Stolen Valour’ have not named the BNP outright, but its obvious who they are targeting.  So if its downright campaigning for them not to appear, or undermining them before they do, there are plenty of attempts at derailment. The BBC are being extra cautious in terms of security for thursday night’s broadcast and are carrying out extra checks on the live audience before they arrive to ensure that protesters do not sabotage the recording, that itself taking place within the confines of television centre for the first time in 4 years.

I’d have to agree with Jon Snow though; if they have been elected democratically then it’s a broadcaster’s responsibility to report on it demonstrating impartiality and fairness. Nick Griffin may gloss over and give well rehearsed answers, but the majority of the room will be against him including the rest of the panel, so it’d be a miracle if he comes out of it on top. And moreover I think it’d be more damaging if it doesn’t go ahead, the sooner we face the BNP head on, the sooner they will crumble.