Story of the Day: These Are the Stakes

We know freedom of the press has taken a beating under the Bush regime. Reporters Without Borders now brings us the actual numbers. From today's Washington Post:

Some poor countries, such as Mauritania and Haiti, improved their record in a global press freedom index this year, while France, the United States and Japan slipped further down the scale of 168 countries rated, the group Reporters Without Borders said yesterday.

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Although it ranked 17th on the first list, published in 2002, the United States now stands at 53, having fallen nine places since last year.

"Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of 'national security' to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his 'war on terrorism,' " the group said.

"The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 U.S. states, refuse to recognize the media's right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism," the group said.

Lucie Morillon, the organization's Washington representative, said the index is based on responses to 50 questions about press freedom asked of journalists, free press organizations, researchers, human rights activists and others.

How bad is this? Consider where France wound up on the index:

France, 35th, dropped five places since last year because of searches of media offices and journalists' homes, as well as physical attacks on journalists during a trade union dispute, the group said.

That's right. France falls five places in the index because its government allowed the searching of "media offices and journalists' homes," in addition to "physical attacks on journalists," yet it still ranked 18 points higher than the United States.

Where are our freedom fries now?

We could easily see our despotic leader responding to this figure with the same dismissiveness with which he reacted to findings that roughly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of his war of choice. Maybe, in similar fashion, he'd applaud journalists for being so dedicated to freedom of the press that they're willing to risk jail sentences and bodily harm. Or he might claim these figures have been largely "discredited." He may even say something simple, such as these rankings go up and down all the time and being 53rd is not nearly as bad as it sounds.

Yet, most likely, members of our national press corps won't ask Bush, or any of his officials, to respond to this index. Never mind that freedom of the press is the very lifeblood of their livelihood. At least, it's supposed to be. Ironically enough, is there a better example of the mainstream media's unwillingness to stand up to this administration than the fact that the editors of the Washington Post chose to bury this article on page A15? A study exposes the precipitous dismantling of our press - the backbone of any free nation - and, in a supreme display of spinelessness, they slip it in where the fewest numbers of readers will see it.

Nevertheless, despite what Bush might say if a reporter does happen to confront him on this study, here is the reality:

Northern European countries top the index, with no reported censorship, threats, intimidation or physical reprisals, either by officials or the public, in Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands. All of those countries were ranked in first place.

This is where we should be as a country, but we're not even close. And if we continue down our current path, or even switch gears but fail to swiftly remedy such anti-democratic legislation as the Military Commissions Act, then this is what we can look forward to:

Iran ranks 162nd, between Saudi Arabia and China. The report said conditions in Russia and Belarus have not improved. It said that Russia continued to steadily dismantle the independent media and that the recent slaying of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya "is a poor omen for the coming year."

If anything should have been a wake-up call to our press, it was the mob-like slaying of Politkovskaya. 

A journalist shot to death in an apparent contract killing was about to publish a story about torture and abductions in Chechnya when she was slain, her editor said Sunday, as Russia's top prosecutor took charge of the case.

Anna Politkovskaya, famed for her unsparing coverage of abuses against civilians in Chechnya in the outspoken newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was found dead Saturday in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. She had two gunshot wounds - one to the head.

Politkovskaya, 48, had collected witness accounts and photos of tortured bodies and the article had been due for publication Monday, her newspaper's editors said.

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The execution-style killing underlined the increasingly dangerous environment for journalists working in Russia since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, launching a crackdown on media freedoms. Her death brings to at least 13 the number of journalists killed in contract-style killings in the past six years, according to the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Politkovskaya's death was the most high-profile slaying of a journalist in Russia since the July 2004 assassination of Paul Klebnikov, the U.S.-born editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.

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Politkovskaya had come under threat repeatedly. In 2004, she fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. Her colleagues suspected the incident was an attempt on her life.

Politkovskaya, who had two adult children, began reporting on Chechnya in 1999 during Russia's second military campaign there, concentrating less on military engagements than on the human side of the war.

Unfortunately, her story has had no effect on our mainstream media. These eagle-eyed editors and reporters have failed to see the neon writing on the wall. And maybe this will continue until it's written in the blood of their own colleagues.

As opposed to what this White House and its Republican lapdogs want us to believe, these are the real stakes in the coming election.

U.S. Rank on Press Freedom Slides Lower, by Nora Boustany
The Washington Post