Reporters and Journalism at Risk in America?

According to Reporters Without Borders, an international organization dedicated to the protection of press freedom and journalists around the world, approximately one-third of the world’s people live in a country with no press freedom. Most often, these countries are in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, where laws restricting press freedom are generally wide open to interpretation, giving governments extensive power to censor news media and to press charges against journalists in the course of their work.

The Middle East is the world’s most restrictive area when it comes to press freedom, and the war in Iraq has been the deadliest for journalists since World War II. After the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Iraqi journalists began to experience unprecedented freedom. They had previously suffered torture, imprisonment and even death for criticizing the former regime, and some news outlets existed solely to promote Saddam Hussein’s rule. Immediately after the war began, more than 150 new newspapers and many local television and radio stations were established. This was seen as one of the biggest success stories of the invasion.

However, journalists have begun to suffer abuses of press freedom at the hands of the Iraqi government, Iraqi insurgent forces and the U.S. military. Journalists have been beaten and detained in the country, their videotapes and cameras seized and smashed. Al-Jazeera’s Baghdad bureau has been censored for government criticism, and a reporter from Al-Arabiya was detained by Iraqi forces for two weeks “because he had footage of insurgent attacks”. Four journalists are being held at U.S.-controlled detention centers in Iraq, with no specific charges being cited. Journalists covering such conflicts, as well as corruption and human rights abuses, are the ones most at risk in the profession.