The Media Missionaries

8. ASIA

REGIONAL OVERVIEW

The American war on terrorism put the media development spotlight on Central Asia in the spring of 2002. Millions in new funding was descending on Afghanistan at press time, despite a lack of infrastructure and security concerns following the kidnapping death of American reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.

Before this, most of Asia had gotten relatively little media development assistance from Americans over the years. Throughout the region, what is needed most now is better coordination, including a thorough assessment of what works and what does not. The Central Asian republics remain difficult settings for democracy work of any kind. To the South and East there are pockets of activity: East Timor, Phnom Penh, Bangkok and now Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indonesia may get short shrift because of America's military focus to the West, but it needs and deserves more support for independent media. There are some strong local organizations in the Philippines, Thailand and India, some of which have been helped by the Freedom Forum, OSI, Knight fellows, Internews and others. The Asia Foundation used to be active but has receded. (1)

The collapse of the fledgling MediaWatch project in Singapore illustrates the merit of establishing small grants for struggling indigenous media efforts. Unable to raise enough money to operate, founder Tan Chong Kee threw in the towel after seven months. The organization had hoped to raise media standards and encourage fair reporting after the issuance in 2000 of new newspaper and television licenses in Singapore. The disappointed organizers included ngos, former journalists and intellectuals. (2)

China is of course the world's biggest unclaimed media prize, already partially in the grip of two American companies: AOL Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. How effectively their commercial ventures will inspire a freer, indigenous, high quality media in China remains to be seen. The Internet and China's intense interest in international commerce offer the biggest media development opportunity in generations here. But it is not certain that this opening will continue unchecked. The avatars could be punished, just as the government has vigorously suppressed democracy and religious freedoms ever since the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989.

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN: SUDDENLY ON THE MEDIA MAP

As media developers landed in war-torn Afghanistan in the spring of 2002, there was no coordination, no Internet access, poor security, and not even a place for media trainers to stay, according to ICFJ's Whayne Dillehay. USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives issued RFPs for $1 million, three-month media development proposals for Central Asia (as well as the Middle East and Gulf States), and Internews, which got one of those grants, created the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan, giving small grants to start-up media efforts there. Internews sponsored a newspaper covering the Loya Jurga government, and joined the BBC to help establish Radio Kabul's broader reach throughout the country. The BBC has spent an estimated $1 million to give Radio Kabul two fully-equipped radio studios and an FM transmitter, along with training. Now a Merlin satellite system is being set up to rebroadcast news from Radio Kabul via shortwave to the rest of the country. (3)

Also active in Afghanistan are the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Baltic Media Center, funded by the Danish government, AINA, a French group headed by National Geographic photographer Reza (4), and Media Action International, which specializes in reporting on humanitarian crises and assistance.

The gold rush of independent media development was welcomed by critics who predicted that beaming U.S. Radio Free Europe-style broadcasts or public relations propaganda into the region would be counterproductive. Without a strong media development effort, media may become part of the problem again, rather than a source of real information. "Like Bosnia was before it, Afghanistan will probably be carved up into journalistic fiefdoms by local powers with an interest in keeping enmity alive, further fragmenting the country's fragile society," wrote Anthony Borden and Edward Girardet in The New York Times. "So far, international efforts have focused on broadcasting news reported by non-Afghans...these efforts may do some good, but they will also soak up enormous amounts of precious aid...What Afghans need most from their journalists is not explanations from the outside world and its views, but reliable information and honest debate within their own society."

CENTRAL AND SOUTH ASIA: EMBATTLED MEDIA

Central Asia is known for the "stans," the former Soviet republics that have not really emerged from Communist culture and still are struggling with autocratic leaders who use the media and government for their own ends. Most people don't buy newspapers here. If they do, they are buying mouthpieces for political factions and are not getting factually reliable or comprehensive news. As in other parts of the former U.S.S.R., the independence of TV and print depend heavily on their financial soundness. The best Central Asia TV stations have been shut down by their governments on the pretext of licensing problems. Official censorship, self-censorship and corruption in all aspects of society, including the press corps, are pandemic. Those rare journalists who dare to expose corruption are targeted for serious reprisals, even murder.

The media training here is about survival: it covers advertising revenue, market research, and production of soap operas and game shows, rather than emphasizing journalism or ethics. The media developers are the same organizations that have been involved in the rest of the former Communist bloc: USAID through IREX and Internews, George Soros' OSI, ICFJ, Freedom Forum (until 2002), Committee to Protect Journalists, and other free expression groups. OSI, through its North Caucasus Media and Civil Society Program and other ventures, is active throughout Central and South Asia. Journalists from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan recently formed the Central Asian and Southern Caucuses Freedom of Expression Network. (CASCFEN). The group, based in Baku, Azerbaijan, is headed by Azer H. Hasret, who heads the Azerbaijan press group IPIANC. hasret@ azeurotel.com.

A PAKISTAN FIELD REPORT BY INTERNEWS (RECEIVED AT PRESS TIME IN APRIL 2002)

"Events since September 11th have spotlighted Pakistan on the world stage. Prior to the new Western focus on Islamic terrorist groups, Pakistan was moving slowly toward reducing government control of media. Now the West is offering Gen. Musharraf's government strong incentives to cooperate in the fight against terrorism. This has dramatically altered the political landscape of Pakistan, and appears to be accelerating the trend toward media openness. A new broadcast law, passed in January 2002, will enable the first commercial television and radio stations to operate. Non-governmental media associations are forming and are already informally advocating policy changes in large metropolitan cities such as Karachi and Lahore. Major newspapers cite increased freedoms to criticize the government, as well as increased intimidation from the Pakistani Secret Services (ISI). Internet cafes are opening in cities from Peshawar to Balochistan, but major concerns about access to information still exist. The first universities dedicated to IT education and development have opened. Yet officials have recently gone on record stating that broadcast news not approved by the government still will not be tolerated.

"Meanwhile, the first exclusively Internet-based non-government news service opened in July 2001, and has operated with a growing subscriber base throughout the war in Afghanistan. The government recently announced an "E-Government Plan" to try to help use ICTs (information & communication technologies) in the country's development. The UNDP has been active in encouraging connectivity projects. But, as in most other countries, little attention has been paid to Internet policy in general.

"The 'road map' for restoration of democracy in Pakistan is being written and implemented by the ruling military regime in Islamabad. The military government's National Reconstruction Bureau calls this process, enigmatically, "a silent revolution." Pakistan is neither democratic nor open at this time, but the possibilities for media development and the free flow of information are more promising than they have been for a decade. The first legislation allowing for a non-government broadcast media is a tangible illustration of that change. Less tangible are the policy and reformist movements in educational institutions, and the work of NGOs advocating for access to information, journalism curriculum reform, the allowance of non-profit and community-based media, and an independent press council.

"That the Pakistani government is willing to engage these concerns at all, and to allow some change to unfold, proves that a window of opportunity exists to explore, and possibly assist, media development. Any such assistance must focus on freedom of expression, news and information dissemination, and the development of independent electronic media. But the process is long, as Pakistan's transition to democracy may be protracted and difficult. Conditions for journalists in Pakistan today are perilous. The intimidation of non-government media and of independent thinkers who work inside government media institutions continues to be documented by such groups as Article 19 and the Committee to Protect Journalists. The paradoxes and gaps between freedom and repression will continue as Pakistan faces future elections and the possibility of a return to parliamentary democracy." (5)

America's 2001-2 war on terrorism has reached past Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, Georgia and Kazahkstan. Developing civil societies here would bring not just stability but hope, which could ease the anti-American terrorist threat. A particularly important part of this mix is independent, open media, including public access to information. One of the shocking revelations for many Americans after the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center was the extent to which ordinary people from this region and the Middle East have believed wild anti-American propaganda offered without challenge by government-sponsored media and in religious schools. Official censorship is pervasive in both Central and South Asia, and access to information is very low throughout the region. (6) Americans are paying a price now for allowing Central Asia to be so isolated from the rest of the world, including what OSI calls "extraordinary limits on foreign broadcasting."(7) This kind of information void is a fertile ground for rumor and propaganda, and a major reason why media development is both so difficult and so important.

In contrast, democratic India's media marketplace is relatively free and full of tabloid gossip. CPJ recounts, however, various attacks on journalists including those in the Kashmir region. Nepal's once-open media were silenced and other civil liberties were suspended as of Nov. 26, 2001, following the murder of the Royal family.

SOUTHEAST ASIA: BACKSLIDING

In 2000, liberalization of media restrictions in Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia seemed to bode well for developing civil societies there. But civil unrest in Indonesia, combined with a harsh political shift against independent journalism in Thailand, are among the discouraging events of 2001-2002. In Cambodia, the Hun Sen regime is seeking more standing on the world stage, and thus is more receptive to international pressure. Phnom Penh has become a haven for media development organizations, including those working across the border to help embattled media in Burma (Myanmar).

The Philippines have "a tradition of free expression that makes it one of the most open societies in Asia," according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' 2001 report. Reports from the respected Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism helped force President Joseph Estrada from office.

CPJ, the World Press Freedom Committee, OSI, Internews, UNESCO, Freedom Forum (until 2002) and now the World Bank are active in Southeast Asia. OSI probably gives more money to local projects than any other organization. The Scandinavian media development organizations also have been active in the region.

For information on the state of media, training and journalism development throughout Southeast Asia, the most respected resource is Kavi Chongittavorn, a 2001- 2002 Nieman fellow at Harvard who edits The Nation English-language magazine in Bangkok. He founded and heads both the Thai Journalists Association and SEAPA, and he also represents IFEX and Transparency International in Bangkok. Now he hopes to start a Southeast Asia regional version of Harvard's Nieman program, to bring journalists to a local university for sabbatical studies. kavi@nationgroup.com.

CHINA'S INTERNET OPENING

China's media scene has liberalized since Tiananmen, but random crackdowns are always a possibility and pro-democracy workers can be punished severely, even executed. Partly because the vital U.S.-China relationship zig-zags on such issues as human rights, religion and free expression, China remains largely untouched by U.S. media assistance. The Wales-based Thomson Foundation has a small program there, but most media ngos have not ventured into this unpredictable, high-stakes environment.

Self-censorship is a key to commercial media success in China. Murdoch's Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, which is backed also by two Chinese investors, offers Taiwanese and Japanese soap operas, a dating game, and other shows that will not challenge Beijing in any serious way. When the Communist leaders complained to Murdoch about BBC reports that were critical of China, Murdoch dropped the BBC from his Phoenix TV network. (8)

So far, the Internet has provided the best opening in generations for independent journalists in China. Despite new rules requiring that all Web sites get their news from state media, the Internet has been treated liberally by officials. The government is looking the other way on stories that don't involve narrowly defined political news, and it does not apply the official 1980s media laws to the Internet. Although commercial Web sites are barred from reporting, that rule has not stopped the online edition of the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's official organ, from publishing big stories that are not found in its newspaper. Thus, it was the People's Daily's online edition that first reported the April 2001 collision between U.S. and Chinese military planes over the South China Sea and the U.S. bombing of the Chinese consulate in Belgrade. Other Internet journalists were able to interview families from the Jiangxi school and report that the government was lying when it said students were no longer manufacturing fireworks there. "We plan to adopt policies towards Internet media that are preferential and more lenient than those for traditional media," government official Qian Ziaoqian told Anthony Kuhn of the Los Angeles Times. "It's not possible to apply the past methods of managing traditional media to the Internet." (9) The Internet also helps Chinese learn more about what is happening around their country; hundreds of local newspapers feed Chinese web portals like Sina.com and Sohu.com. (10)

Ensuring an open Internet is one of the most tantalizing targets for commercial as well as ngo media development work here. Will it be regulated as television is, or licensed like a newspaper, or treated simply as a cash cow, like the telephone system? These questions are still up for grabs in the world's most populous country, just as they are virtually everywhere else. AOL Time Warner's successful entry in fall 2001 into the Chinese market seems to bode well for Internet freedom, but it is not yet clear how much self-censorship they, like Murdoch, will impose in exchange for this commercial prize.