Big Global News Media Faces Down Dictators

Michael Hedges August 13, 2020 - Follow on Twitter

News media is truly globalized. A hundred years ago this was barely the case. Sure, bigger newspapers hired foreign correspondents, readers enjoyed the occasional report from faraway places even when the copy was slowly carried across the seas by boat. Then radio carried news across wide spaces and international broadcasting was off and running. Satellites were launched to enable television channels almost everywhere. Now, it is the internet, occasionally spiced up with the odd bot.

Broadcasters in Tanzania are no longer allowed to use audio or video content supplied by foreign media organizations until they secure a new operating license. Tanzania’s Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) gave broadcasters a week to comply said spokesperson Andrew Kisaka to German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) (August 11). In addition, correspondents of international broadcasters conducting local interviews are required to be accompanied by a government minder, “custodian” said Kenyan newspaper The Standard (August 10). Earlier, Tanzanian authorities banned all media from coronavirus reporting.

This ruling followed an interview broadcast on local Mwanza-based station Radio Free Africa (July 29), supplied by BBC Swahili, with opposition political leader Tundu Lissu. BBC Swahili is part of BBC World Service. In addition to the BBC and DW, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio France International (RFI), all principally funded by their respective governments, have local broadcast partners in Tanzania. And, not to be forgotten, elections will be held in Tanzania in October. Tanzania lies within the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa and is home to Mount Kilimanjaro. The country has “become increasingly authoritarian since John Magufuli’s election as president in 2015,” noted Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF), ranking 124th in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Authorities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States (US) have engaged in a months-long tit-for-tat over media concerns domiciled in their respective countries. This has been limited, more or less, to requiring identification of staff members and assets. China booted reporters from the NYT, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal earlier this year.

Hong Kong was ceded by the United Kingdom to the PRC in 1997. The negotiated agreement included the “one country, two systems” principle now quickly unraveling. As a major financial hub Hong Kong has long been a magnet for Asian bureaus of international news agencies.

That is under pressure as the Hong Kong authorities began mirroring directives now common in mainland China. Last week (August 6) the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Hong Kong (FCC) formally complained that work and residency visa renewals for foreign media employees were being “delayed.” A new national security law, in effect since the end of June, applies stronger “supervision and regulation” over media outlets in the name of security, reported South China Morning Post (August 12). The New York Times reacted swiftly and relocated some of its Hong Kong staff to Seoul, South Korea citing “uncertainty about the city's prospects as a hub for journalism.”

Tension within Hong Kong media workers then heightened with the arrest of newspaper Apple Daily founder/publisher Jimmy Lai (August 10) under said security laws. Cited was “collusion with a foreign country or external elements.” Apple Daily facilities were raided and others were arrested. Mr. Lai was released on bail two days later. With a tad of irony, Apple Daily subscription rose by 20,000 since the arrests, said the publisher, with several ads in the Thursday edition (August 13) specifically mentioning support.

Poland’s right-wing nationalist government, fresh from the reelection (July 12) of president Andrzej Duda, renewed long-planned dreams of “repolonizing” the country’s media. Last week Law and Justice (PiS) party boss Jaroslaw Kaczynski told a “strategy meeting” that new laws to reduce foreign ownership of media outlets could be introduced by October, reported Reuters (August 7). The PiS and its elders have been regularly excoriated on the front pages of daily tabloid Fakt, which is published by the Swiss and German joint venture Ringier Axel Springer. Much of that reporting added to President Duda’s precarious reelection.

Also mentioned as targets for ownership restrictions are German publisher Verlagsgruppe Passau and television channel TVN, owned by US-based Discovery (formerly Discovery Communications). Over the last three years these threats have been largely empty; the European Commission would never approve a disruption of free movement of capital and any challenge to TVN would bring down the wrath of the current US administration. But the fevered dreams of duplicating in Poland the political media control such as in Hungary will likely remain just that.

See also...

• Hot Topics - News Media

• Hot Topics - International Broadcasting