Let's not be offensive!

As we learn from a recent RFE article, the journalists from Yeni Musavat are the latest members of the press to come under pressure in Azerbaijan. While the journalists aren't under fire from the government, the source of their problems is damn close. The president's brother - Jalal Aliyev - said he was offended by an article an article that claimed some unfinished buildings in the capital belong to him. The article also maintained that no one complains about their incomplete status because they're owned by the president's brother.

Makes sense to me - but Jalal is offended by this assertion.

I'm reminded of a few things.

1. The many construction sites all over Baku - sites that grew like mushrooms, in defiance of any understanding of the law of supply and demand. Who was going to live in these luxury apartments? Everyone just assumed that construction was some not so secret way of money laundering.

2. The conversation I had with a newspaper editor in the country, not long after I moved there. In our conversations, at a certain point he referred to another newspaper being owned by the family. I asked "what family?" "The family," he informed me, was the term referring to the president's family. It's not like the president himself owned all that much - but rather the holdings were like some sort of large & extended business.

So - his brother is in the family & he owns a bunch of buildings.

Surprised? I'm not.

Thinking about the media and governance

This morning I was reading this amusing and disturbing column by Maureen Dowd, and I was thinking about a conversation I had a couple of days ago with my students in the class I teach about ethics.

I had given the students a reading assignment, and after I re-read the material myself, it seemed that there was not much to discuss. But - of course - this is not usually the case, and even here I was able to take what seemed to be unpromising material and turn it into a substantive discussion. The column the students & I read concerned observations of a newsman on coverage of a political campaign. He opined that journalists should just get out of the way. Enough with the puffed up opinions!

Why is it, I asked the students, that the trend is to more & more partisan coverage of the news? Consumers on one hand have an increasing number of news outlets, but the news that is presented tends to be increasingly partisan. And how does this trend intersect with the journalistic responsibility to provide information necessary for democratic governance? (I think this is the responsibility of journalists because I am a democrat and I am a journalist.)

I made reference to the work by James T. Hamilton and Markus Prior, two scholars whose work I greatly admire. The work of both concerns this very question - how the media is becoming increasingly partisan and what the impact is on the media audience. Frankly, I think that I lost my students when I began talking economic theory, upon which the work of Hamilton in particular rests.

The conversation turned out well. One student admitted that she loves watching Glenn Beck because he is "hysterical." I agreed that he is hysterical, but I didn't think this psychological condition was an asset. My point was that this increasing partisan media system is harmful, leading to increasing cynicism, voter apathy, and general disengagement from democratic governance. At the end of the class, I asked who hoped to be involved in government in any way.

No one raised a hand.

Students foretell the future of the media. It's not rosy.

Today I discussed with my class the ethical obligations of journalists. I was left unsatisfied by our last conversation, which ended with an incomplete link between actions of the media as a whole and the maintenance of a democracy. I have my own beliefs about the importance of the media in democratic processes, but I don't want to just dictate my conclusions to my students. I do want to explain my beliefs, to make the connections between "x" & "y."

By the end of the discussion, some students were ready to admit that journalists possess some ethical responsibility to tell the truth. But this was an ethical responsibility that had to be balanced with the need to get a paycheck. So, really it came down to situational ethics. If a journalist felt that he or she could quit the job after being pressured by the advertiser, then that journalist should quit the job. But - that would be a choice that few would make.

I guess that's par for the course. In fact, most journalists don't make that choice. I did once, but I was young at the time.

Overall, I found a high level of cynicism in my students. One summed it up well. The young man didn't feel much ethical responsibility to be honest, he said, because no one believed the media anyway.

I was at a loss for words. He had a point, albeit a grim one.

Before they left, I conducted an impromptu poll. How many people don't consume any news, get no news at all except second-hand, through conversations? One young woman raised her hand. She the news was depressing. Can't argue with that either, I guess.

How many get news from the TV?

About eight raised their hands.

How many get news mainly from the Internet?

The remainder raised their hands.

So - this is the future of the media apparently. The information that serves as "news" for these students might be a mixture of Facebook info, Drudge Reports, New York Times articles or posts by Perez Hilton. The students as a whole have little regard for ethical responsibilities of journalists and nearly no trust in any information they consume. What does this mean for our democracy?

Award winner Eynulla Fatullayev still serving his 8-year term

What are ethical duties when confronted by injustice?

Teaching has its moments when you lead students to a certain point, and you may have made your conclusion, you might think that the conclusion is quite clear, obvious even, but your students just don't want to make that leap. When it comes down to it, they don't agree with you. They don't see it your way. Perhaps they are from a different generation or just have not seen the world your way. Perhaps they never will.

I was thinking about that today as we discussed Out of the Picture, a report by Freepress on the ownership of television stations by minorities and women. The report, not surprisingly, paints a pretty bleak picture of the situation in the United States, where the vast majority of stations are owned by white men. Even areas that are quite heavily populated by minorities are not served by stations owned by minorities.

We discussed the issue, and discussed the implication - and then I asked the critical question: Does this have to do with ethics? I can make the connection, because to me it concerns issues of social justice. But the students didn't see it that way. The white men own what they own because they are well connected. Sure. But this is legal, right? Nothing wrong with being rich.

I pointed out that the broadcast spectrum is really a public good, to be allocated so that the public benefits. But these children of Reagan Era have a different perspective. Anything hinting of affirmative action is bad. And having a policy that gives some sort of preferential treatment to minorities is bad.

I did not ask my students this question, but it intrigues me. How is this situation ever going to change, unless the government takes some action to remedy the imbalance?

I'm not out to convince them of anything - per se. But I want them to really see the reality of the media world around them, and ask themselves if it is really a just situation. And if it is not just, what is the ethical response? What is the ethical response to injustice?

Free press, gas pipelines, and jailed activists

I came across a provocative post on this blog today, following a link from Facebook. You can read it for yourself, but the author states her position clearly in the headline: Why Facebook Hurts Democratic Movements. She objects to the recent activity on Facebook, as sympathizers protest the arrests of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada.

I have to disagree respectfully with the author. I believe that in the struggle to improve democratic governance and safeguard human rights, every peaceful tool should be used. It appears that the author of the post believes that the activists of the Internet are not incurring enough risk to validate their activist credentials. In fact, as we can see the young people who are using the Internet to discuss democracy in Azerbaijan do incur significant risk.

Every peaceful tool should be used if we are to effect political change. We don't know which ones will be most effective. Also, not everyone has the same tools to use. For some people, attending a demonstration in Baku is possible. For others, circulating information about the human rights abuses in that country is a more feasible action.

In other news, I was glad to hear about this agreement being signed, even though many of the details remain to be ironed out. I am a supporter of democrats in Russia, and so I am all for creating some competition to Gazprom. Azerbaijan pay provide gas for the pipeline. It is one of the many details for Nabucco.

Finally, I expect to be reading this report tonight. The report was produced by Free Press, a media reform group started in 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney. The article that John Nichols and McChesney wrote for the Nation earlier this year was thought-provoking and well argued. I expect that the new report will contain some similar suggestions.

Big Media Myopia: More Consolidation Won't Save Journalism

Some people have advances the sophistical argument that more consolidation will help the news business, because consolidation leads to richer owners, who can afford to make investments in the news outlets they have purchased. The only problem is - the more these owners are isolated from competitive pressures, the less likely they are to invest in improving the quality of the news media - whether it is broadcasting or newspaper.

This fact is glaringly demonstrated by the current crisis US newspaper business - the logical consequence of decades of breakneck consolidation with nary a thought given to the public good that the news media provide. So now - the industry is in crisis and Congress finally has woken up to the fact that the provision of even basic civic information is being threatened. The horse has left the barn.

What now? Your guess is as good as anyone's.

read more | digg story

Newspapers don't matter?

One of my first jobs was delivering newspapers. I began working as a journalist while still in college. So, I bring a certain bias to the debate over the value of newspapers.

I began reading the day with a long rant about how newspapers don't matter. Just now, I have been reading the transcript of an interview aired on the program "On the Media" a few days ago.

You can listen to the interview here:

Take home message: newspapers matter a lot - for civic involvement and education, and hence for democracy.

New and improved page for glasnost group

A colleague recently sent me a link to the new web page for the Glasnost Defense Foundation. This is an organization that has been trying to protect the rights & lives of journalists in Russia since 1999. I was working with the group this fall, helping it set up a training program. The people in the organization are wonderfully dedicated, working under challenges that most Western journalists can only imagine.

I was very pleased to see the new training program advertised on the web page, and pleased to see the revamped site. It's a big improvement. For one thing, it isn't riddled with computer worms and viruses. Yet. I believe the new site will also be a target for hackers who object to the GDF's mission of protecting free speech.

On a completely different subject, if you're interested in sharing your thoughts on the current budget battle in the USA, click here. If you want instant gratification, you can check out the results of the survey here.)

New media

As a journalist and also someone who studies the media, these times can be scary, exciting, and disorienting. Last week, a friend e-mailed me a link to to a start-up that hopes to make a business printing blogs. Today - I have something in my in-box about a photo contest run by Demotix. I have no idea which ideas will take off - and that's the thing - I don't think anyone does.
But I do like the look and feel of Demotix so far...

Widely different views of war

Unfortunately, the cynical interpretation taken by Zerkalo a couple of days ago seems to have been validated by recent events in Georgia. The news on Al Jazeera tonight is of the Russians making threatening moves toward the second largest city in Georgia, perhaps as a feint to show displeasure over the recent decision to send aid to Georgia. In any case, the conflict claims primary space in many – but not all – of the newspapers today.

Here are some examples of the front pages:

Zerkalo
“Russia marauds, rapes and burns
And the USA sends war plane and ships to assist Georgia”

Novoe Vremya
“Provocations ‘made in Washington’ in the Caucasus are not excluded”

Komsomolskaya Pravda
“Saakashvili in the eyes of a psychiatrist
Capricious puppet or little fuhrer?”

Argumenti i Fakti
“Anti-Olympic games”
(The inside coverage on pages 4, 5, and 6 mostly concerns the assault of the Georgian army on Tsinvali. Also, there is an interesting graph showing the growth of military expenditures in Georgia, marked with piles of $100 bills.)

Not surprisingly, the newspapers based in Russia give much less front-page space to the conflict.

As you can see that the tone of coverage within the Russian language press is far from uniform. But – you have to remember – that Zerkalo and Novoe Vremya are published here in Baku. Argumenti I Fakti and Komsomolskaya Pravda publish Baku editions, but the main company offices are in Russia.

On a side note, I ran across a blog site that appears to be set up to tell the Ossetian or Russian side of the story. Called “Ossetia Truth,” the blog is in English, although the blog owner uses a computer translation program. Sometimes the translation is a little clunky. “Petr” started the blog this month, apparently simultaneously with the commencement of the recent fighting.