Joel Simon is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent nonprofit that provides assistance to journalists in dangerous situations around the globe.
Brown Political Review: News organizations have recently slashed budgets for foreign correspondents and have since taken on more freelancers. How are freelancers treated in comparison to full-time staffers with respect to safety, and what bearing does that have on journalists’ security?
Joel Simon: When I was a freelancer in Latin America in the ’80s, I never had a staff job. Some of the issues I hear about now were the same issues I heard about then. There was always a role for freelancers in journalism [because it] traffics in information. If you have information with news value, you can find someone who will take it. Freelancers always believed that they could go out there and track down information that others couldn’t. We never had the formal support of media institutions…That dynamic hasn’t really changed. So, what’s shifted? There are more freelancers on the front lines, and they’re covering things that are even more dangerous and deadly. When I was a freelancer in Central America, it wasn’t a walk in the park, but it was nothing like Syria [is today]; they’re just night and day. In some ways, these two dynamics are related. Technology has completely transformed the news business, but it’s also reduced the value of journalists themselves. It used to be that if you had information to disseminate, you had to do it through journalists. They had an information monopoly. That’s not the case any more. This makes all journalists, but particularly freelancers, even more vulnerable.
BPR: Do treaties like the Geneva Conventions, which define the rights of noncombatants in armed conflicts, have a demonstrable impact on the safety of journalists?
JS: The Geneva Conventions were written in the aftermath of World War II, when there was no notion of independent journalists operating in a battlefield environment. The journalists who covered WWII were largely integrated into the military forces that they were covering. One of the important protections the Conventions afford is that journalists are entitled to prisoner of war status. Then Vietnam came along, when the notion of independent war correspondents developed. Some journalists during the Vietnam War covered the conflict while integrated into the military, but more and more were operating independently, [which] gave them greater security to cover the conflict as civilians. When the [Geneva Convention] Additional Protocols were developed, they conferred on journalists the protections available to all civilians — meaning that they are not military targets, and unless they carry a gun, they can’t be targeted. Most journalists have to acknowledge that international humanitarian law is really, from a functional perspective, not even operative in most of these conflict environments, because they’re not fully respected. But I think that these journalists see themselves as civilians operating independently with the protection of the armed forces, so therefore they are entitled to the full range of protections available to civilians.
BPR: You wrote a letter to President Obama regarding the effects of NSA surveillance tactics on journalists, and you also signed an open letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani encouraging him to comply with the United Nations Special Procedures. How much of the effort of writing a letter to a head of state is an exercise in naming-and-shaming?
JS: Those examples are very far apart on the continuum. When we write to President Rouhani, we certainly hope for, but don’t expect, real engagement. He is trying to convince folks that there is real reform going on in Iran and that his government is trying to improve conditions for the media. In fact, conditions have not improved. If he’s trying to make those claims, we need to make sure he’s held accountable. With President Obama, there are very different considerations. The first is that surveillance is a real threat. Not in the same way that jailing or violence are, but among journalists around the world there’s awareness that it’s difficult and maybe increasingly impossible to communicate via modern methods while feeling safe that the communication is totally secure. It’s almost guaranteed that it’s being swept up by the NSA. Everyone is focused on this in a US context. But if you’re a Pakistani journalist interviewing militants in Pakistan — and these are very sensitive stories — if the NSA knows you’re doing this and can get access to your electronic communications, they’re going to do it…In fact, if they weren’t doing it, they wouldn’t be doing their jobs. We think there has to be some awareness of the implications of these policies on the free flow of global information.
BPR: What impact did the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by ISIS have on the journalistic community?
JS: The community of people who cover conflict is small and tight-knit. Many people knew Steven Sotloff, but he was a more reserved person. Jim Foley was extremely outgoing and knew everybody who had covered the Middle East in the past couple of years, so people felt personally devastated. There are a couple of things that have caused reflection within the industry: There has been discussion about freelancers, their role, their vulnerability, the kind of support they need and how we can provide that. Another thing that has been really tricky is how to cover these videos…With these ISIS videos, they’ve created an information black hole through their extraordinary violence. There’s almost no independent information coming out from the areas under their control, so they’ve created an environment where whatever information does come out is even more valuable. These ISIS videos are essentially news reports. It’s even creepier now that they have [British hostage] John Cantlie running around as a fake anchor. You have to acknowledge that the beheading of a US journalist is a newsworthy event, but the source of this information is the perpetrator of the violence. So how do you cover that and inform the public while not simply participating in their propaganda efforts?…We have to be very wary about relying on ISIS propaganda to tell these stories.