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You are here: AustLII >> AustLII Resources >> Human Rights Law Resources >> 2001 >> [2001] HRLRes 19 |
By Diplomacy Training Program
“Show me a country without a free press, and I’ll show you a country where human rights are trampled down.”
Justice Richard Goldstone
Effective use of the media is essential for human rights defenders and this section gives an introduction only. Utilisation of the media is a skill developed through practice, as well as by developing a network of contacts among journalists. It cannot be learned simply by reading about it. Media techniques vary widely and different countries and situations need specific solutions.
By media we mean newspapers, radio and television, and now some aspects of the Internet. However, in this article we will concentrate on newspapers, radio and television.
Many countries of the South do not have a free media, or have only limited access to radio or television news and current affairs as well as newspapers. While there are some high quality newspapers in the South with coverage of international events, most of them are in English, which means that the average citizen cannot read their information. In recent years, in countries like Indonesia where there has been a change of regime, there has been improvement in the ability of the media to be more independent.
Modern politics in the countries of the North is almost inconceivable without the media. Politicians and the media need each other to functions effectively. However, the media in the North is also continually under threat, often from economic centralisation of ownership. So, freedom of the media in the North and South is a precious right that needs to be protected and encouraged for a free society.
Some international news services provide local language programs. For example - Radio Australia is still heard by many people in Asia and the Pacific every day, despite recent cutbacks to its operation. It has a good reputation and is usually widely accepted by ordinary people as being truthful. The BBC World Service also has a high reputation.
For human rights defenders in Asia and the Pacific, these news and current affairs services are not difficult to contact. Providing information to them is an important tool for human rights defenders wanting to influence their governments. Keeping such news services informed can be a key element in any media strategy, because they broadcast to the whole region. They make your news truly international. Telling other governments, investors and foreign corporations about the issue puts important pressure on them.
If we are the newsmakers we should consider:
The target audience will differ depending on your overall strategy of whom you are trying to influence. (Who holds the power to bring about change and how can we influence them?). We may need to reach more than one target audience. For example,
The complexity of the media is contingent on the health of the democracy in which the media operates. Reaching specific audiences also means targeting different publications, channels, programs and journalists. Each of these can keep a full time worker busy. That is why all large organizations employ full time journalists on staff. However the complexity and structure of the media varies from one country to another. There are no easy rules to follow because what is common practice in one place may be quite different in another. However, it is worth analysing which media is most likely to be read by your key decision makers.
Each form of media - print, radio and TV - has vastly different standards and needs so that a single story needs to be dealt with slightly differently if coverage by all three is being sought. You are not going to be able to change the media, so you will need to be flexible if you want your story to get coverage. Journalists are individual people with their own individual skills, interests and prejudices, so the newsmaker needs to learn to identify the paths through the complexity, which will allow the story to get to the target group. Never assume that because one journalist is not interested in your story that others will be the same.
We can also get the story into different outlets and reach different audiences by thinking laterally. For example, women’s magazines in some countries, may take a story about children or women’s oppression, if the story is given a human interest by being told about a woman who is involved. Care must be taken not to ‘use’ individuals, but a responsible adult woman who can give consent and who can tell her story well, can create a powerful message with a “woman’s angle”.
Journalists will soon start coming to you and to your organization, if you are seen as having credibility and to be legitimate. Building this up will take considerable time. The most important factors are:
Purism and dogmatism are certain failures. Do not assume that because your cause is high minded that you are right and that therefore your story should be run. You have a responsibility to your cause to understand the media and how to best present your message in a professional manner.
Chaotic and sloppy work will seriously damage the effect of your work. Too often NGOs use the excuse of having limited resources. This constraint needs to be recognised and those resources which we do have must be used as efficiently as possible. (Many famous journalists have only used a pencil and a notebook) Often this means not trying to do too many things at once. We must work within our means. This means no spelling mistakes, factual errors or untidy presentation, as well as appropriately written media releases, and newsworthy media conferences.
Journalists quickly learn to respect the competence of others because it benefits them directly. They will not have to rewrite your media release, or take additional photographs, or research your sources. Remember that journalists work to tight deadlines and have little spare time. They also risk their own reputations if they trust the accuracy of your material and it turns out to be incorrect in some way.
The single most common means of gaining media attention is through a media release, no matter from which country you are operating. Often radio and TV interviews only happen because of the groundwork that has been achieved with a written media release. Journalists need media releases because it gives them some "hard copy" from which to commence their story and makes their job a lot easier. News is immediate and so journalists like their media releases immediately i.e. by fax, or by email.
Above all, the information provided must be accurate. If you are caught providing inaccurate or misleading information respectable journalists will quickly shun you. An important aspect of competence is judging when information is likely to be wrong - after all you may not be able to check facts directly. Your sources of information must be reliable if you are to pass that information on to international media attention.
When writing a media release think of how a person who is totally ignorant of the situation would read it. It must answer the essential questions:
Who?, What?, When?, Where? and Why?
Who - it must identify the major actors in the drama (all good stories have some element of drama, news loves confrontation - note the use of the word story - journalists like stories, rather than reports or accounts because the word signifies something that people will want to read or listen to). The importance (i.e. well known public figures) can be crucial but, also, the image of the battler, a David fighting a Goliath, is a powerful one.
What - we must state carefully and straightforwardly what actually happened which needs to be reported to the world. Never assume that everybody knows the basic elements of your particular struggle. Because you are close to it, you must not forget that the rest of the world is busy living their own lives and struggles, and you may have to include a few words that briefly tell the main story again.
When - it must clearly say when the events occurred. Details are important - give actual times, not "recently" or "last week". If a press conference is planned do not forget to say when it starts.
Where - the place must be clearly identifiable. If it is not well known it may be necessary to explain where it is.
Why - it must provide some reason for what has happened - it is not just a random event. There is a cause, and in most human rights situations this is the crucial piece of information.
We live in an era when it has never been so easy to send written and spoken communication to each other. Not so long ago, it was necessary to deliver press releases by hand, or to post them in the mail if hand delivery was not possible. Now a fax machine or email can send your media release instantly.
Other technological marvels bring effective use of the media directly into our hands. The portable video camera for example enables us to take our own television pictures. These can be sent by satellite instantly to the centres of media power, if we are sufficiently organised to do so. Video cassettes can be smuggled out of war zones, or through security checks easily. The ease of modern travel, with huge numbers of tourists visiting developing countries every day, gives us the means to travel quickly and cheaply.
If you are new to writing media releases, look at those put out by experienced journalists working for politicians in your country. This can be a guide to what is considered professional in your region. The following is a recipe to use, if you feel inexperienced. With experience, you will know how to vary the recipe, but in the interim the following check list may help.
The increasing dominance of the media by television has meant that successful news makers must compete with dramatic visual events for air time on news bulletins and current affairs programs.
The Greenpeace organization has largely pioneered international news making through the use of visual events. Flotillas of boats surrounding nuclear warships, surfboard riders cresting the bow wave of a US Navy warship, rubber dinghies battling toxic waste vessels in the North Sea, Rainbow Warrior dodging the French Navy off Muroroa.
These images are designed for the world's media and have been extremely successful. TV news editors around the world, whatever their own politics, jump for visual images that make daily events look more and more like the movies and adventure shows that fill the gaps between advertising slots. On any day Greenpeace can beat Presidents and Prime Ministers to the top of the evening news.
We probably cannot compete with this sort of publicity and may not wish to do so, but being visual in presenting stories is important to get a picture in a newspaper, a further radio interview because the journalist's interest is aroused, a magazine story and especially a TV news story where visual images are always important.
The most common visual news event is the news conference. Always make the conference visual. Large photographs, posters, flags and various objects that illustrate the story are essential. If the story is about a particular village or town, hold the conference in that place, giving the camera operator a chance to film as much footage as possible. The backdrop behind the main speaker should be consistently visual, such as your group’s logo, a colourful banner, posters, etc.
The same applies to one to one interviews, which often follow a conference. Also, if you have some physical object to present (eg weapons or documents), tell the crews before and place them on the table, well presented, where the operator can take close-up shots that will later be edited into the story.
It is most important that a news conference is open ended. After the presenter has made his or her presentation and then answered journalists' questions, many journalists will want their own interview, if they like the story. This is quite time consuming but it is the real purpose of the conference. We need to recognise the journalists’ need to present something different from their competitors. They therefore want an ‘exclusive interview’ to supplement the media conference.
To get the media to attend a press conference the following conditions are necessary.
For an Organisation:
In Addition:
The major news gathering organizations (called News Agencies) are very large and western dominated. Some of them operate as a journalists' cooperative, some are privately owned and some are government owned (eg Agence France Press). The main ones are Associated Press (US), Reuters (London), United Press International (US), Agence France Press (Paris), Australian Associated Press (Sydney).
Interpress News Service is the only large news agency, which has a philosophy of presenting news from the developing world. It is based in Europe but has offices throughout the Third World (but with little coverage of the Asia-Pacific region). It regularly covers the United Nations meetings. Another good newspaper receptive of issues from developing countries and does over the Asia Pacific is the Guardian Weekly, based in the UK.
Most international news presented in newspapers and television comes from the large agencies. With greater concentration of ownership in news media the generation of news stories can occur centrally and they can then be sent by satellite to individual newspaper and television stations. Consequently we are likely to read a story written in New York or London when we open our local daily newspaper. This is especially true of international news and is one reason why there are not many journalists who are well versed in international affairs.
When visiting a Western country, and in attempting to tell your story, assume that journalists know nothing about your issue, so explain the basics first, even simple history, which you might expect everyone to know. You will be amazed, if you give a press conference in a Western country, at the depth of ignorance of most journalists (and the general population), about important issues in the developing world.
Journalists sent to cover your story are often young and inexperienced. They may be going from your important issue to write an account of a social dinner or a sporting prize. They may not have time to even write your story. So what you give them must be capable of being given direct to their sub-editor. You can expect it to be cut severely in length, or to have an unsuitable headline attached to it. (Reporting journalists usually do not write the headlines that go with their stories, that is the job of the sub-editors). We need to try and understand the limitations within which the media work, that journalists may be often pushed for time, have deadlines that do not match our expectations, owners who hold different political views and that headings of stories are written by sub-editors, not the journalist who wrote and hopefully understood the story. It is up to us to work around these limitations in as professional a way as possible.
Disappointment is inevitable in dealing with much of the media as they are certain not to share your concept of how important your 'news' is. Nevertheless, getting our story into the media is one of the most important weapons in defending human rights. It is simply a matter of persevering, developing our media skills, of cultivating networks among journalists and helping our issues by being as professional as we can in our media work.
We are aware if three major organisations that work to defend press freedom around the world and to protest against and publicise violations of press freedoms;-
Reporter Without Boarders (RSF) defends media freedom around the world, investigates and protests violations of press freedom, takes action and raises awareness through reports and campaigns. RSF has consultative status with the Council of Europe, and the UN Commission on Human Rights, and UNESCO.
Contact information:
5 rue Geoffroy-Marie 75009 Paris
Tel: (33) 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: (33) 1 45 23 11 51
www.rsf.fr
rsf@rsf.fr; Asian issues
asie@rsf.fr
SOS hotline to report violations Fax (33) 1 47 77 74 14
The Committee to Protect Journalists is based in New York city, with a
full-time professional staff that monitors media freedom conditions around the
world.
Contact information:
330 7th Avenue, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10001 USW
Tel: (212) 465-1004
Fax: (212) 465-9568
www.cpj.org
info@cpj.org, to report a concern in Asia
asia@cpj.org
IFEX The International Freedom of Expression exchange links freedom of
expression groups around the world and publishes worldwide freedom of expression
updates.
Contact information:
489 College Street
Suite 403, Toronto
Canada, M6G 1A5
Tel: +1 416 515 9622
Fax: +1 416 515 7879
www.ifex.org
ifex@ifex.org