"This paper serves as a review of crimes committed against journalist in Indonesia within the past six years (2010–2015). This work draws primarily on the annual reports made by the Alliance of Independence Journalist (AJI), the prominent association of journalists in Indonesia. The first part int
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roduces the magnitude of the violence. The second part explains the actor and motive behind the escalation of crimes. The paper will be ended by a discussion of challenges the country’s media policy faces in resolving those cases." (Abstract)
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"Contrary to popular belief, being at or near the top of media freedom rankings doesn’t mean a country is free from interference and threats to journalists’ safety, Ilmari Hiltunen observes. When talking about censorship and journalism the attention has usually been focused on explicit violence
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and crude repressive methods used to silence critical journalists in authoritarian or semi-democratic states. Yet recent studies have shown that outside interference and fear-induced self-censorship have tangible effects on journalism even in democratic countries with strong cultural, legal and institutional safeguards for press autonomy." (Abstract)
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"Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democratic society and essential for the formation of an informed public opinion. A society that is not well informed is never totally free. This chapter examines the interplay of external and internal risks on press freedom in five Mexican states. The conc
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lusions are based on a larger research project conducted with the civic association, Collective of Analysis of Security with Democracy (CASEDE) and the non-governmental organisation Freedom House, between 2014 and 2015. Sinaloa has been the home to Mexico's most important drug-trafficking groups for more than seventy years. Risks in Mexico City differ from those in the rest of the country and the capital has escaped the worst of the drug violence. Chiapas is one of the few states in the country with a Specialised Prosecutor's Office for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression, but the office's capacity for action is minimal." (Abstract)
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"The relationship between journalists and political sources has been characterized by a tug of war between reporters and officials where top politicians have the upper hand in the coproduction of news through their ability to provide critical information subsidies that most news media rely on. The d
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ynamic of the journalist–source relationship has, however, mostly been analyzed in stable high-income democracies. This article goes beyond existing research by analyzing the relationship between reporters and officials in Nigeria, in principle, a democracy but in practice, a hybrid regime where journalists face substantial political pressures. Through a combination of content analysis and in-depth interviews, it shows how journalists in Nigeria are not only dependent on the information subsidies found in the West but also affected by politicians using positive (monetary awards) and negative (intimidation and violence) tangible incentives that go well beyond information subsidies. The article argues that this shapes the nature of coproduction of news in Nigeria and that more broadly, the resources available to politicians to influence journalists through such positive tangible incentives and the degree to which they, with impunity, can use negative tangible incentives, should be key dimensions for future comparative work on relations between reporters and officials as political communication research goes beyond stable democracies where money handouts and violence is unlikely to be the key factors influencing news production." (Abstract)
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"Yuan Zeng analyses the mixed uncodified strategies that Chinese authorities use to obstruct the work of foreign journalists." (Abstract)
"The Boko Haram terrorism and violent extremism that ravaged North East Nigeria and Republics of Chad, Niger and Cameroons from 2009-2015 exposed weaknesses in the safety policy and protocols for local journalists in times and zones of tension in Nigeria. Boko Haram terrorists killed 30,000 people a
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nd destroyed property worth billions of dollars. In the midst of the violence and killings, journalists demonstrated their resilience to report, with severe consequences for their safety and professional integrity. Some were killed, many injured, and most were threatened by the terrorists and the authorities. Pressure mounted on journalists and media houses from the public, the terrorists and the security agencies. This chapter explains the dangers, risks and challenges encountered by Nigerian journalists and media and the safety options they adopted to maintain professional correctness in reporting terror and violence in hostile circumstances." (Abstract)
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"Domestic journalists covering Kenya’s 2013 General Election worked in an exceptionally challenging media environment; one which was significantly shaped by the 2007 election and post-election violence (PEV). Rooted in literature on peace journalism (PJ), we examine how the PEV of Kenya’s 2007 p
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residential elections informed and shaped journalists’ practice around the 2013 Kenyan General Election. The article is based on qualitative interviews with 16 Kenyan print journalists and editors at the Daily Nation and Standard newspapers as well as interviews with 6 Kenyan media specialists. Our analysis finds the 2007 PEV significantly constrained journalistic practice in three ways: first, journalists witnessed violence in 2007 which anchored their 2013 coverage; second, interviewees felt a ‘collective guilt’ at journalism’s failure to provide responsible coverage in 2007 creating a ‘culture of restraint’ and third, journalists felt compelled to ‘sanitize’ potentially inflammatory language creating a tension between journalists’ duty to inform and strong desire to avoid contributing to conflict. This article concludes by siding with a growing critical chorus of PJ scholars critiquing its often “individualist” approach and calling for greater attention towards structural factors such as perceived social constraints when conceptualizing and theorizing the agency of journalists working in post conflict environments." (Abstract)
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"Journalists may be exposed to a number of risk factors for unwarranted interference. This is often compounded by a culture of impunity. The extent of unwarranted interference, the experience of fear associated with such interference, and the consequent possibility of self-censorship among journalis
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ts still ask for more investigation, since there are few systematic studies on this topic. This research explores the prevalence of unwarranted interference, perception of likelihood/fear of such interference and possible self censorship amongst a non-probability convenience sample of 940 journalists in the 47 Council of Europe member states. The study adopts a quantitative approach and utilizes an anonymous self-report questionnaire. The preliminary results presented here show how unwarranted interference is experienced to a significant degree among journalists in Council of Europe member states." (Abstract)
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"Concern on safety and security of journalist is a global phenomenon. This gave rise to security and safety policy documents and protocols for journalists and the need for journalists to know about them to better safeguard themselves while on duty. Studies were conducted on the state of journalist
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s in terms of their security and safety, yet only a few have been carried out in this area especially in northern Nigeria. Consequently, this paper examines the level and determinants of security and safety awareness among journalist in Nigeria, as well as how they handle their safety and security within their job environment. A survey was conducted among 100 journalists in Kaduna state using to collect the data which was analysed using SPSS 2.0 package." (Abstract)
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"Journalism is considered as fourth pillar of any democratic society and it is only a Journalist who can take many challenges to bring truth in front of society. But sometimes journalist has to face difficult and stressful conditions while working in field where they have serious threat for their li
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fe even. In this paper researcher is trying to explore various challenging and stressful conditions of Indian journalists along with the data which reveals that why India is considered a dangerous country for journalists. Mostly secondary data is taken to analyze various aspects of working conditions of journalist. Through this paper the actual dangerous conditions for Indian journalist will be analyzed and explored." (Abstract)
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"This research examines the everyday sexism and workplace sex discrimination experienced by women journalists in India. Nearly all of the popular and scholarly attention to the experiences of Indian women journalists has focused on high profile instances of rape and sexual assault. But this focus on
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highly egregious, dramatic stories deflects attention from ongoing global structural problems as well as ongoing sexism and gender discrimination in journalism. Interviews with Indian women journalists indicate a concern with everyday sexism and discriminatory practices at the hands of sources, colleagues, and editors. Additionally, women journalists are not confident that newsrooms will become less toxic for women any time soon. They describe legal guidelines designed to protect women as ineffective and rarely implemented. We ground our understanding of sexual harassment in theories about the politics and power of women but also connect the persistence of these sexist practices--and women's powerlessness to prevent them--to the growing casualization of the journalism workforce in India. The precarity of the journalism industry leaves women vulnerable but reluctant to complain." (Abstract)
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"Introduction: journalists in Latin America continue to face numerous threats in the exercise of their journalistic profession, which has increased the concern of the international community over its protection in recent years. Methodology: The objective of this research is to analyse nearly 500 cas
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es of murders and disappearances in Latin America from 2000 to the present, as well as to elaborate on a profuse bibliographic review of the main sources of information and national and international programs in this regard. Results and conclusions: The results show a considerable gap between the international willingness to create programs for the protection and fight against impunity, the complex and insecure national realities in the region, and the number of information professionals who died or disappeared violently in Latin America." (Abstract)
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"A decade long civil war ended with a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2006. To address the political developments, the Interim Constitution was promulgated in 2007. Though the Interim Constitution of Nepal 2007 guarantees press freedom, every year various incidents of press freedom violation
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are recorded by various national and international organizations. This article evaluates the situation of press freedom in Nepal since the signing of CPA 2006 by analyzing all the incidents of press freedom violation from 2007 to 2014 as recorded by International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). The analysis of those events shows lack of sufficient evidence and information to justify them as the press freedom violation. No matter where and how the journalist or media owner is killed, threatened or harmed physically, it is termed as press freedom violation. The situation of Press freedom after peace agreement in 2006 is not that critical as projected in various reports and there is no government censorship in media. However, if the mechanism by which press freedom violation cases are recorded could be reviewed and more details are included, those reports will be much reliable. This tendency of reflecting critical situation of press freedom by projecting every incident without an adequate investigation might deviate from other issues related to journalist’s profession and further it might not motivate journalist and media to adhere to the code of ethics and become responsible to their profession. Though, the issue of professional safety of journalists could not be ignored, not all the incidents related to journalist are the cases of press freedom violation." (Abstract)
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"This article has addressed the level of journalists’ safety in Pakistan, revealing the diverse threats to journalists’ safety and their right to freedom of expression in the country. Freedom of expression is an individual right, for which no one should be attacked or killed. However, in this st
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udy, journalists’ feedback reveals that not only their lives but their right to freedom of expression is at risk because of the prevailing unsafe environment in Pakistan. The study suggests journalism is a dangerous profession in Pakistan because of physical, psychological, financial, social, emotional and topic-specific risks, which constrain journalists’ right to freedom of expression and affect them most while doing their routine jobs. Despite the unsafe environment and constant threats, this study indicates that only 18% of surveyed journalists have received safety training to protect themselves in conflict and non-conflict situations. The following questions need to be addressed when analysing issues around journalists’ safety training in Pakistan, namely: who are the trainers? Are trainers themselves trained for journalists’ safety training, bearing in mind the local safety circumstances? What is the role of local and international NGO’s in promoting journalists’ safety education either at university or media organisational level? Further research on these aspects is crucial for the better training of journalists. This study reveals that the education of conflict reporting and peace journalism is not the major part of journalism curricula in Pakistan’s public and private sector universities. The curriculum in most of the universities do not reflect distinctively the local aspects of journalism teaching and approaches, which is important for enabling journalists to understand the context within which they perform their work. As highlighted by Abit and Kenneth in their article, the case of Kosovo is quite similar to Pakistan – where journalism education lacks local teaching approches. Therefore, in this article, I emphasize certain initiatives such as: the inclusion of journalists’ safety and peace journalism modules in curriculum; collaboration with international universities for innovative pedagogical models; regular curriculum revision and local-context teaching and research within this field. Others have underlined the need for a few more significant inititatives that I think are crucial as far as journalists’ safety education is concerned, such as: enhancing journalists’ awareness of their rights and physical and psychological safety; protection of their equipment, and legal protection while covering war or conflict." (Conclusion)
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"This study investigated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms on Korean journalists and the contributing variables. Predicting variables included the exposure to traumatic events, coping strategy, social support, optimism, negative beliefs, and the journalists’ occupational perspectives.
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A total of 367 Korean journalists participated in the survey. The findings revealed that, first, Korean journalists had suffered severely from PTSD symptoms according to the prevalence rate. Second, the extent of traumatic event exposure, the length of career, the use of dysfunctional coping strategy, a lack of social support, and negative beliefs were identified as significantly related variables. Finally, occupational perspectives showed meaningful associations with development of the symptoms. This study provided an empirical analysis of Korean journalists’ experiences of traumatic events and psychological stress for the first time." (Abstract)
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"Research on journalists working in contexts of risk has examined either war correspondents on temporary assignments or the psychological effects of covering traumatic events, usually after the events have ended. Although these studies are important, they fail to account for the growing importance o
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f ongoing violence in insecure democracies and its possible consequences for national journalistic practice. We address these issues by examining journalists' risk-reduction practices in Mexico, including self-censorship, following company censorship policies, curtailing street reporting, and concealing sensitive information. Using logistic regressions, we tested occupational, organizational, normative, and contextual conditions as predictors of engagement in these practices. Findings reveal the pervasiveness of risk-reduction practices in Mexico and the complexity of conditions prompting their use, including conditions related to antipress violence, dangerous newsbeats, and the economic insecurity of media firms but also voicing greater support for assertive professional norms. The research sets a baseline for future comparative research that includes greater attention to subnational conditions, dangerous newsbeats, and how violence and uneven state capacity may undermine the economic conditions of media firms." (Abstract)
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"In the last Afghan solar year (22 March 2015 – 21 March 2016), twelve journalists and media workers were killed, exceeding any previous year in recent history. In June 2016, the US photographer David Gilkey and his interpreter, journalist Zabihullah Tamanna, were killed in a Taliban attack in Maj
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rah, southern Afghanistan. Approximately three hundred journalists left Afghanistan in 2015. More may follow. The journalists who left last year are relatively few considering the quarter million Afghans who came to Europe in 2015 to seek asylum. Nevertheless, they all share some of the same reasons for leaving. Most important are the high level of threats and the lack of security, both of which affect media workers seriously. In a broad-based Deutsche Welle-report, journalists complain of being “under suspicion from all sides”, and claim that besides the Taliban, the government as well “puts journalists under pressure. Then there are the mafia and the warlords”. The situation has parallels in other countries ravaged by conflict, today not least in Syria and Iraq, but also in neighbouring Pakistan. The difference is that Afghanistan has been in a situation of constant war, occupation, and violent conflict for close to forty years, meaning that a vast majority of the country’s population has not experienced any lasting period of peace and stability. This may be one of the more profound explanations for the current exodus. Hopes have been raised too many times, only to be dashed. Many journalists do not see a future for free media and journalism in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the Constitution guarantees free expression." (Introduction)
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"This study discusses how and in what ways activist citizen journalists in Turkey develop safety tactics against the repressive strategies of a neoliberal authoritarian government. By drawing on the theories of alternative new media and citizen journalism, we conducted interviews with activist citiz
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en journalists, proponents of citizen journalism initiatives, and representatives of two related organizations (TGS-Turkish Journalists’ Union and RSF-Reporters sans Frontières) to analyze their awareness and susceptibility concerning journalism safety. In short, we claim that neither our interviewees nor representatives of the involved organizations have high levels of awareness and sensitivity concerning safety. Still our interviewees are under the protection of a circle of safety thanks to networks of solidarity. We believe that to promote efforts to strengthen the relationship between media and democracy in the future, studies focusing on the safety of citizen journalists are crucial." (Abstract)
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"The World Press Freedom Day celebration in Jakarta was a milestone for Indonesia’s democratic progress, but it was also remarkable for the silence around gross violations in the country’s Papuan provinces, writes David Robie." (Abstract)
"Poland has become a crucial battleground in the drive by authoritarian-minded leaders to gain control over political discourse and limit media pluralism. The Law and Justice government has sought to control the media as part of a broader push to weaken checks and balances and silence independent vo
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ices. By rejecting the media’s independence, the government is deepening polarization within Poland. The fate of media freedom in Poland will herald either the continued march of populist authoritarianism around the world or a turning of the tide and a new period of democratic resilience. The EU and Poland’s allies, including the United States, should make clear that Poland’s best interests lie in respecting the media’s independence and allowing a diversity of views to flourish." (Key findings)
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