Press Freedom in the US and Around the World

This week the Associated Press announced that the Justice Department had seized phone records for over twenty AP lines over a two-month period, sparking outrage from journalists across the nation. The Justice Department says it needed the records because it was investigating “whether an unauthorized leak led to an AP report in May last year about an operation, conducted by the CIA and allied intelligence agencies, that stopped a Yemen-based al Qaeda plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airplane,” wrote Reuters.

The incident has once again ignited the debate in the United States about how First Amendment rights should be treated in light of national security issues. But we’re not the only country that debates press freedom and the role of the media in today’s world. Pulitzer Center-supported journalists report on issues in journalism from across the world:

1)    Stephen Franklin wrote from Turkey, where “Truth is a Hard Sell.” The country, which has a democratic government, leads the world in the number of imprisoned journalists.

2)    In England, Catherine Schurz explored the media’s role in the controversial murder case – and subsequent overturning of the double-jeopardy rule – of Stephen Lawrence.

3)    William Sands, reporting from Equatorial Guinea, looked into its low score in the Press Freedom Index. It ranked 167th out of 179 countries; it has no independent press.

4)    Ever-mysterious North Korea is infamous for keeping journalists out of the loop. Photographer Tomas van Houtryve tried to see past the orchestrations.

5)    After Kathleen McLaughlin reported on the proliferation of fake malaria medicine in East Africa and indicated China may be involved, China’s state-run media burst forth with a flurry of denials. 

- Amanda Ottaway

FIONA LLOYD-DAVIES, FOR THE PULITZER CENTER’S UNTOLD STORIES

February in Eastern Congo—the rainy season. Heat, humidity and mud. The makeshift roads had a bone-shaking familiarity to them. It had been a year since I was last in Eastern Congo.

I’ve been working here for over 10 years now. Congo has a magnetic pull. The spectacular natural beauty coupled with the intense brutality keeps one in a perpetual state of anxiety and awe – how can one be in heaven and hell all at the same time? The people relate terrifying stories of violence and brutality but their resilience and, often, good humor makes them unforgettable. They compel you to tell their story and to return to keep telling their story.

In February 2013, people were still nervous after the rebellion led by the M23 movement a few months before. Although the rebels had officially withdrawn from Goma, the regional capital of North Kivu, they were only a few kilometers out of town. Rumors persisted that many were still in Goma but wearing civilian clothes, ready at any moment to don their uniforms and take up arms again. Lake Kivu was calm, the quiet before the storm.

Away from Goma, on the road heading west hugging the lake, Congolese soldiers were everywhere. They’d been forced to withdraw during the November fighting and had never returned to Goma. They were patrolling the makeshift roads and camped in villages. They were well-armed and seemed relaxed and unhurried.

Working—especially filming—in Eastern Congo is always challenging. The intensely beautiful landscape, verdant and lush, thrives off the intense heat and regular rainstorms. The lack of roads means perpetual dust or mud or both and the journeys are bone shaking. All enemies of the high-tech video cameras and computers we use today in the world of filmmaking. The locations are often inhospitable and the security situation is unpredictable and frequently dangerous.

I first came here in October 2001. As the world’s media rushed to the Pakistan/Afghan border in the hunt for Bin Laden I found myself blocked. I’d made a film about honor killing in Pakistan the previous year, and I was refused a visa. So I looked to other places. The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières told me, “You have to go to Eastern Congo—there’s terrible violence against women. Widespread rape, it’s like a virus and no one is reporting it.”

I went to a town called Shabunda. It’s just over an hour’s flight from the regional capital of Goma. Only a small twin-engine plane can cope with the improvised runways in the villages and towns, so you fly low. Climbing just high enough to pass over the smoldering Nyirangongo volcano, over the mountains and then seemingly, endless forest. Suddenly, a small fissure opens up in the jungle, a grass airstrip. I spent five days talking to women of all ages, young girls, young women, middle aged and even elderly women. They described what had happened openly because so many women were being raped. Médecins Sans Frontières estimated that 70 percent of the women in Shabunda had been violated at that time. They were forced to make a terrible choice—stay at home and starve, or go to the fields for food and be raped. What I heard over those five days made a profound impression on me. It has brought me back to Eastern Congo ever since.

I was back once more to make a film about rape. This time it was men from the Congolese army. They’d gone on a rampage and raped over 79 women and girls over a few nights in November of last year, 2012. From previous visits I knew where to find the survivors, those who bravely retell their ordeal so we can ensure their voices are heard. But this time I wanted to find the men, perpetrators of rape.

It proved to be a convoluted journey—the prison governors who used to grant access to the prison were now with the rebels; the officials didn’t seem to know what was going on. Those they said were imprisoned, arrested on suspicion for raping in Minova, hadn’t even been there. Finally we established that no one had been arrested. We were going to have to find serving soldiers and get them to explain why they raped. When we did hear their stories it was to prove chilling.

See more of Fiona’s Pulitzer Center project here. Watch her explain the project in the video above.

Old-fashioned and New Journalism

Pulitzer Center grantee Sarah Neville:

The Financial Times’ Austerity Audit has proved a vehicle for some of the most innovative digital journalism the paper has ever done.

But the genesis of the idea was a piece of old-fashioned shoe leather reporting.

In November 2011, in order to write a piece about changes to welfare benefits for the long-term sick, I had visited Barnsley, in the former industrial heartland of the north of England, where large numbers were affected by the imminent shake up.

In passing, a number of people mentioned to me, in interviews, their concerns about the likely impact on local businesses and shops of a wider raft of welfare reforms which, from April this year, would reduce the scope of benefit entitlements and also the value of benefits.

It struck me that if we could find a way of calculating exactly how much money was being taken out of local economies – and the hit to spending power – we would have a truly original take on the austerity story and one which would have a particular appeal for theFT’s business readership.

… continue reading here.

The photos above are from Pulitzer Center grantee David Rochkind’s portrait series on HIV positive Garifuna men and women. The community has the highest rate of HIV in the Western Hemisphere, but over the last 10 years, medicine and education have become more widely available. There is still a lot of stigmatization and discrimination however, but these brave men and women went public with their diagnosis to help change the status quo. Go here to see more portraits and read stories of the Garifuna.

The UN released a report on Wednesday on the mass rapes executed by the army in eastern Congo in November 2012. Learn more about what happened from Pulitzer Center grantees Fiona Lloyd-Davies and Pete Jones. In a small house on a hill overlooking Lake Kivu, a young Congolese soldier recounts the crimes he and his comrades committed in Minova a few months ago. “Twenty-five of us gathered together and said we should rape 10 women each, and we did it,” he said. “I’ve raped 53 women. And children of five or six years old.” - Read the rest of the article here. Photo: An army sergeant who says he was ordered to rape by his commanding officer. Image by Fiona Lloyd-Davies. DRC, 2013.
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The UN released a report on Wednesday on the mass rapes executed by the army in eastern Congo in November 2012. Learn more about what happened from Pulitzer Center grantees Fiona Lloyd-Davies and Pete Jones.

In a small house on a hill overlooking Lake Kivu, a young Congolese soldier recounts the crimes he and his comrades committed in Minova a few months ago. “Twenty-five of us gathered together and said we should rape 10 women each, and we did it,” he said. “I’ve raped 53 women. And children of five or six years old.” - Read the rest of the article here.

Photo: An army sergeant who says he was ordered to rape by his commanding officer. Image by Fiona Lloyd-Davies. DRC, 2013.

Britain’s government is engaged in the steepest deficit reduction of modern times. People are losing, or will soon lose, benefits in the biggest shakeup in the shape and scope of Britain’s welfare state since its foundation more than 60 years ago. A team of reporters from the Financial Times tracks the cuts and their impact in this comprehensive multimedia project.

In this video, Sarah Neville discusses the project. Read her look behind the scenes of the project here.

This report is part of a Pulitzer Center-sponsored project “Britain: Charting the Impact of Austerity.”

National Geographic fellow and Pulitzer Center grantee Paul Salopek called into NPR from Saudi Arabia to recount the most recent leg of his seven year journey. Listen to Paul and view a slideshow of the walk so far here. Image:Salopek reaches the end of the trail in Ethiopia and descends into Djibouti, on the Red Sea coast. Image by Paul Salopek/Courtesy of National Geographic. Ethiopia, 2013. Paul will be online on Friday 5/10 at 1pm ET answering your questions. Follow along at #edenwalkchat.
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National Geographic fellow and Pulitzer Center grantee Paul Salopek called into NPR from Saudi Arabia to recount the most recent leg of his seven year journey. Listen to Paul and view a slideshow of the walk so far here.

Image:Salopek reaches the end of the trail in Ethiopia and descends into Djibouti, on the Red Sea coast. Image by Paul Salopek/Courtesy of National Geographic. Ethiopia, 2013.

Paul will be online on Friday 5/10 at 1pm ET answering your questions. Follow along at #edenwalkchat.

Lettucebee Kids

The United Nations estimates that there may be as many as 1.5 million street children in Pakistan. In Islamabad, the capital, a self-sustaining organization called Lettucebee Kids is working to help children who have very adult responsibilities.

Beenish Ahmed reports for Deutsche Welle radio about a recent art exhibition by the street children that is giving some of them a cause for hope. Listen to the piece here.