Press Freedom in Contemporary Asia

Tina Burrett, Jeffrey Kingston, Tina Burrett, Jeffrey Kingston

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429013034
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Studi sulla comunicazione

This book analyzes the constraints on press freedom and the ways in which independent reporting and reporters are at risk in contemporary Asia to provide a barometer of democratic development in the region.

Based on in-depth country case studies written by academics and journalists, and some who straddle both professions, from across the region, this book explores the roles of mainstream and online media, and how they are subject to abuse by the state and vested interests. Specific country chapters provide up-to-date information on Bangladesh, Kashmir, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as on growing populist and nationalist challenges to media freedom in the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Japan. The book includes a theoretical chapter pulling together trends and common constraints facing newsrooms across Asia and a regional overview on the impact of social media. Three chapters on China provide insights into the country's tightening information environment under President Xi Jinping. Moreover, the legal environment of the media, political and external pressures, economic considerations, audience support and journalists' standards and ethics are explored.

As an international and interdisciplinary study, this book will appeal to undergraduates, graduates and scholars engaged in human rights, media studies, democratization, authoritarianism and Asian Studies, as well as Asia specialists, journalists, legal scholars, historians and political scientists.

1
INTRODUCTION

Jeff Kingston

The twenty-first century may well belong to Asia, as it becomes the nexus of the global economy, but press freedom in the region remains under assault and reporters operate under difficult circumstances due to institutionalized intimidation, government hostility and – in many places – the threat of incarceration, physical violence and death. It is a bleak picture. A press in shackles and limits on freedom of expression erodes democracy, transparency and accountability with major implications for justice, governance, the rule of law and business operating conditions. There is thus a high price to be paid for limiting press freedom, but it is convenient for authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies wherein the ruling elite don’t appreciate scrutiny or challenges to their authority.

At its best, a free press supports tolerance, diversity and secularism without bias or prejudice and provides a space for debate about the critical issues facing a society. But, everywhere, this ideal has proven elusive, and often in Asia we see the worst aspects of a toadying, co-opted or biased press, suffering from self-censorship and inclined towards stoking prejudices and pandering to popular appetites for sensationalism and entertainment. Social media has also been compromised and drafted into culture wars or lobotomized for amusement and diversion in the desperate competition for eyeballs.

This volume covers the media landscapes in Asia navigated, manipulated and consumed in varied societies with a combined population of over three billion people. In our case studies spanning East, Southeast and South Asia, our contributors note that self-censorship is widespread as editors and journalists trim their sails to prevailing political winds and economic realities. Governments wield considerable power to influence the news though regulations and laws and the allocation of licences and advertising budgets that limit autonomy and leverage media dependency on the goodwill and resources of the powers that be. Owners and publishers often have broader business interests that they want to protect from the risks of retribution, should they offend those in power through unfettered reporting about delicate matters or controversial issues. To the extent that media ownership is concentrated in the hands of cronies and pliant entrepreneurs, press freedom suffers. As the state has deregulated the media in line with democratization and privatization, fierce competition and concerns about the bottom line have ignited a race to the bottom, as entertainment and sensationalism attract eyeballs and advertisers. As a result, freedom has not translated into improvement as careful analysis gives way to news-lite. With the exception of Vietnam and China, the case studies presented in this volume involve democracies, but significant democratic backsliding in many of these countries highlights how authoritarian methods are widespread in the region and compromise the freedom of expression. Press freedom also suffers from a lack of judicial autonomy and from judges who fail to uphold the rule of law or bend it to the wishes of the powerful. It is remarkable that reporters still chase hard news and risk much in doing so, knowing as they do, that their colleagues, editors, publishers and the judiciary rarely provide support or protection.

Back in the 1990s, apologists for Singapore’s truncated democracy and unfree press tried to assert that there is something called ‘Asian values.’ These values ostensibly included a preference for strong government and a belief that limits on democratic and human rights were both good and necessary to promote economic development and societal harmony. This attempt to legitimize authoritarian governance in terms of shared cultural norms insisted that Western criticisms of Asian governments for human rights violations and curbs on freedom of expression were actually examples of cultural imperialism. This view has been thoroughly discredited and debunked as the sheer variety of Asian cultures, norms, values, civilizational influences and religions exposed the monolithic thesis as a sham (Li 1999; Jacobsen and Bruun 2000; Kim 2010). Moreover, there are rich liberal traditions in Asia and strong public support for human rights, freedom of expression and democratic accountability. This volume reinforces the consensus that Asian values are diverse, not authoritarian, and that a vibrant press is valued and brave journalists across the region are prepared to risk everything for press freedom. There is nothing to celebrate about the high death toll of reporters in Asia, but this suggests the degree of commitment to the ethos of investigative journalism and the principle of freedom of expression in the region. Of the 503 journalists killed worldwide for practicing their profession between 2006 and 2012, about one-third were in Asia (Occupy Theory 2013). Apparently, they didn’t get the Asian values memo. Alas, the deaths and incarceration of journalists and bloggers occurs within a cocoon of impunity, as those who silence the press are rarely held accountable.

The flowering of social media in twenty-first–century Asia has gained momentum, often with grim or malevolent consequences (Funk 2018). It has become the default source for news, bypassing the usual mainstream gatekeepers. In the absence of such gatekeepers, social media is primed for fake news and easily manipulated by those seeking to dupe users, their friends and their followers. Internet trolls, religious zealots and government agents can connect with vast numbers of users on various platforms to promote their agendas, and all too often that involves hate speech and the othering of vulnerable minorities. It is a medium wherein the sensational and provocative hold sway, as clickbait in an echo chamber of virulence, wherein validation is measured in shares and likes. It is often an angry space wherein convention and constraints are shed in a virtual community of shared grievance, untethered umbrage and glowering resentments. Social media has also given rise to the phenomenon of mobocracy whereby self-appointed, unelected leaders seek to influence state policies and agendas by arousing and mobilizing masses of followers to take to the streets as a means of exerting pressure on elected leaders. In Muslim-majority Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, militant Islamic clerics engage in such tactics to promote intolerance, spread accusations of blasphemy and prosecute targeted individuals in the court of public opinion (Kingston 2019). The ousting and jailing of the ethnic Chinese Christian governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama – known as Ahok, on trumped-up blasphemy charges in 2017 is a prime example of mobocracy prevailing over tolerance, leaving a polarizing legacy of distrust. In Muslim-minority societies such as Sri Lanka, India and Myanmar, social media has been mobilized to promote Islamophobia with tragic consequences, most notably the Myanmar military’s ethnic clearance operations targeting the Rohingya. Facebook was used by top brass and militant monks to propagate hate speech and to downplay and deny the horrors inflicted on the Rohingya. In the aftermath of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings in Sri Lanka by Islamic extremists, Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS) – an ultranationalist Buddhist organization – proclaimed vindication on social media for its track record of Islamophobia and inciting communal violence, inspiring more of the same.

Chinese authorities, worried about the potentially subversive influence of social media, have cracked down hard. Enjoying a monopoly on controlling public discourse, deciding policies and setting priorities, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has marginalized alternative views and analysis about sensitive issues, ensuring that social media narratives bend to its will and abides by its diktats. As Reporters without Borders notes, ‘By relying on the massive use of new technology, President Xi Jinping has succeeded in imposing a social model in China based on control of news and information and online surveillance of its citizens… [Moreover] [u]nder tougher Internet regulations, members of the public can now be jailed for the comments on a news item that they post on a social network or messaging service or even just for sharing content’ (Reporters without Borders 2019).

Governments around the region have adopted various social media libel and defamation laws to curb free expression and to enable prosecutions against reporters, activists and ordinary citizens in order to protect the powerful and to limit the spread of ideas and information harmful to their interests. In Thailand, merely sharing an unflattering BBC report on the Thai king can land one in jail for several years. Authorities everywhere now carefully monitor social media to identify ‘trouble-makers’ and potential threats, but none more so than in China. Beijing spends more money on internal security than on its military budget to ensure that challenges to the CCP are nipped in the bud.

The Chinese government’s extensive controls on social media are designed to allow it to shape news narratives in its favour and to eliminate critical views and discordant voices. In doing so, it has become the largest source of fake news, subjecting citizens to a drip feed of regime-supporting propaganda. Of course, Beijing does not have a monopoly on propaganda or fake news, and like everywhere else in Asia, there are ways to evade or overcome the censors. But the Great Firewall of cyber censorship creates a hurdle that most can’t be bothered with scaling, a complacency that cedes the right to know.

As Timothy Garton Ash argues, free press is the oxygen of all other freedoms (Garton Ash 2017). It can also be a force for social and legal reforms. For example, the brutal gang rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus in 2012 sparked extensive coverage of this sensitive topic and put pressure on police to improve their victim support and investigative procedures. Suddenly, what had long been ignored was rightly seen as barbaric and out of touch with contemporary norms. Politicians, prosecutors and the police scrambled to adapt to the new climate of intolerance toward rape and the insensitivity toward victims that had prevailed. As the press unearthed horrific stories of child rape, the government enacted tougher penalties to deter rapists, but these have proven ineffective in stemming sexual violence. Rape after all is about power and subjugation. Nevertheless, the press has held up a mirror to society – and people don’t like what they see. For example, in 2018 an 8-year-old Muslim girl was held in a Hindu temple where she was tortured and gang raped over several days until the miscreants killed her by repeatedly bashing her with a rock. Such outrages used to be buried, so it is a mark of progress that the public confronts the horrors that others have endured in silence for too long. Reform starts with knowledge.

The Washington Post’s motto proclaims that ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness,’ and so do people. Amartya Sen found that there has never been a famine in a nation with a free press; the news doesn’t only set people free but can also mobilize urgently needed support (Sen 1982). Free speech also depends on the ideal of equality whereby everyone – regardless of gender, class, religion or ethnicity – can exercise the right to freedom of expression and all can challenge authority and taboos in the search for truth. It is also the key to shaping a nation’s political agenda, giving voice to the powerless, vulnerable and marginalized, while providing a platform to debate poverty, inequality and discrimination. In some parts of Asia, journalists who seek to change the dialogue face the ‘assassin’s veto,’ while others are subject to the chilling influence of threats of violence or denial of access.

The tricky questions are how and where to draw the line on freedom of expression, and the need to ensure it does no harm to others. Hate speech is not sanctioned by freedom of expression, and curbing it is a legitimate right of any society. But there is also the risk of overdoing it as people seem too easily offended, claiming to be affronted to sanction their own indignant denunciations of others, a trait common among the religiously devout. Amos Oz points out in his pithy How to Cure a Fanatic (2006) that it helps to have a sense of humour. He observes that fanatics tend not to have one, while those who do are disinclined to fanaticism. Prickly leaders with thin skins are perhaps most in need of a funny bone because they are often the least accommodating of press freedom and the challenges and criticisms involved in free expression. Problematically, they empower others to clamp down on freedom and set the tone for intolerance in diverse societies wherein tolerance and forbearance are in short supply.

Press freedom advocacy and ranking

Reporters without Borders (Reporters sans Frontieres, RSF), Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) all maintain very useful and up-to-date sites about the problems and challenges of freedom of expression. By shining a light in the dark corners of repression and publicizing the risks and harassment that reporters face, these organizations effectively advocate on their behalf. When even the ‘leader of the free world’ pillories the press as the ‘enemy of the people,’ the need for advocacy and vigilance is obvious. In addition, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Index on Censorship also participate in an international network of organizations that collaborate in trying to protect and enlarge the space for reporting and for freedom of expression. These organizations leverage their media connections to maximize coverage and exposure of wrongdoing, but have limited resources to cope with the growing antipathy for journalists whipped up by leaders who are hostile to transparency and the people’s right to know.

In the 2019 RSF press freedom rankings, no Asian country is in the top 40 and the highest rank is held by Taiwan at 42 out of 180 countries surveyed (Reporters without Borders 2019). Japan (67) is next, while Hong Kong (73) is the only other entrant in the top 75, while Timor Leste at 84 rounds out the region’s top four. Next are Nepal (106), Indonesia (124), Sri Lanka (126), the Philippines (134), Thailand (136), Myanmar (138), India (140), Pakistan (142), Cambodia (143) and Bangladesh (150). In the authoritarian communist league, Laos (171) comes out on top, while Vietnam (176) narrowly edges out China (177).

International rankings of press freedom are problematic, however, because they tend to be subjective snapshots and the comparative rankings sometimes seem skewed because those who are interviewed are not usually in a position to gauge press freedom elsewhere. These respondents don’t measure their situation in terms of norms prevailing in other nations, but instead use their own nation’s media norms and context as the yardstick for assessing contemporary developments where they work. Moreover, the rankings mask the sometimes rather small differences in numerical scores between nations, meaning the apparent gap between #45 and #55 in the RSF index is less than meets the eye and doesn’t necessarily imply a major difference in press freedom. Thus, we view the rankings as broadly indicative and note that they should be interpreted with caution.

Freedom House, a conservative US think tank, conducts its own survey and assigns scores that determine if a country is free, partly free or not free on a scale of 100 points (Freedom House 2019). Among the countries surveyed in our volume, the scores range from China’s low of 11 to Japan’s high of 96. Freedom of expression and press freedom are not the only criteria, but are metrics used to determine overall scores.

Common challenges

There are some common themes regarding the constraints on and erosion of press freedom in Asia. In many cases, the legal landscape is unfavourable or inadequate, a situation compounded by the lack of judicial autonomy and a climate of intimidation that undermines the rule of law. Although written about Nepal, with a few minor edits, this RSF assessment could apply to many of the Asian media landscapes we survey:

the new criminal code adopted in August 2018 poses major new threats to press freedom because several of its provisions hamper investigative reporting and restrict criticism of public figures. Another disturbing development was the anti-media rhetoric which government representatives began using and which was wid...