You Say You’re a Journalist? Prove It

If doctors, nurses and lawyers are licensed, why not journalists? Miguel Castro, special projects manager of the Open Society Media Program, poses that as a rhetorical question. “The counterargument is that a journalist has a basic human right to express himself,” Castro says. “A license that would stop that journalist from speaking out is a violation of that right.”

The issue of licensing journalists was more contentious several years ago, Castro says. Recently, as more nations have adopted the big international human-rights covenants (discussed in my earliest posts), one of their principles, the right of freedom of expression, has superseded laws designed to control journalists by licensing them one way or another.

All the same, licensing continues to make sense to some governments. One form – requiring journalists to have educational credentials – still is important in some African countries, for example, where requiring academic credentials is seen as a way to strengthen the quality of journalists and journalism.

In Spain, Portugal and Latin America, journalists support laws and regulations that set them apart. Most important, it is difficult to enter the profession without an academic degree. Across Latin America, as in Brazil (discussed in an earlier post), journalists themselves favor degree requirements as a way to strengthen their professionalism, foster unity and fight for rights and benefits. Journalistic associations and unions support requiring these credentials, and so do the hundreds of communications schools in South and Central America. More than 200 of these schools are united under the Federación Latinoamericana de Facultades de Comunicación Social (FELAFACS), which supports stronger journalism education in 23 countries, mostly in Latin America.

Far beyond Latin America, the proliferation of online journalists has led to another movement to regulate the profession. In Michigan, for example, state Senator Bruce Patterson has introduced a bill to register journalists. Those with a degree in journalism, three or more years of experience, at least three writing samples, awards or recognition for their work, “good moral character” and acceptable “ethics standards” could apply to a special board for registration as professional journalists, a credential that supposedly would set them apart from the blogging hordes.

This is needed to help consumers understand which news reporters to take seriously, Patterson argues. “We have to be able to get good information,” he told one interviewer. “We have to be able to rely on the source and to understand the credentials of the source.”

Although Patterson’s bill has received a lot of attention around the world, it is given little chance of passing. Other governments – including China’s – have considered measures that would forbid bloggers from posting anonymously. A French Senator, Jean-Louis Masson, has submitted a draft law that would require bloggers to provide their names, addresses and phone numbers on their blogs.

None of these initiatives likely will go very far, Castro says. Chinese officials ultimately backed down, saying they would only encourage bloggers to use their real names, not require the disclosure. Many countries contemplating stricter measures have to consider that they may be taking on a growing global consensus. “International standards of freedom of expression are very strong,” says Castro.

The Open Society Institute and other NGOs are working to ensure a strong connection between free expression and free media, Castro says. “It’s pretty fundamental for the donor community,” he says. “When we approach a country, we look at the environment. If freedom of expression is repressed, part of our work goes into opening the environment. We monitor, suggest legal changes, propose legislation, and support litigation if needed.”

Walking Softly in Egypt

To practice their craft in Egypt, journalists must join the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate. According to a 1970 law, the owners of press and publishing houses are prohibited from employing anyone who is not a syndicate member. Clear enough, except that to join the syndicate you must be a practicing professional journalist. The contradictory rules are “sadly hilarious,” says Tarek Mounir, a correspondent who covers Egypt for Reporters Without Borders, an organization that campaigns for press freedom around the world.

Such laws make sense only as a way for a government to intimidate young journalists. To weave their way through the legal thicket, aspiring journalists typically work as freelancers, hoping to acquire enough credentials to be classified as “professional” enough to join the syndicate – and thus be hirable. It’s a maneuver that requires discretion. Journalists in this vulnerable position know that if they write the wrong thing about a corruption scandal or a powerful politician, their career can be nipped in the bud. At any point, says Mounir, an offended official can “file a lawsuit against the freelance journalist under the allegation of impersonating a journalist and practicing the profession without union accreditation.”

Since many of the laws that regulate journalism were written years ago, they obviously make no room for Egypt’s proliferating corps of bloggers, some of whom are trying to establish themselves as online journalists. Journalists and non-journalists alike – all operate without legal or union protections. Bloggers who belong to unauthorized political parties risk imprisonment under a 1958 law declaring a state of emergency that still applies in Egypt. Any blogger who offends the powers that be could end up behind bars. In 2007, Alexandria blogger Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam and defaming President Hosni Mubarak.

Independent journalists like Wael Abbas, who published videos of police brutality on his blog, face constant government harassment.

Bloggers and online journalists who face such charges get no help from the official journalism establishment. After all, they’re not members of the syndicate. The lesson is clear. In Egypt, if you want to establish a career as a recognized professional journalist, you have to walk very softly.

Who’s a Journalist?

When you look at the problem of licensing journalists, you have to start off with a rather basic question: Who exactly is a journalist these days? Earlier I applied the term to those who make most of their income from practicing the craft. But that doesn’t really clarify matters. That definition includes lone-wolf bloggers and the proliferating ranks of freelancers as well as fulltime or part-time employees of news organizations.

So if you were a supervising authority, whom would you license? Only those mainstream media journos who work for established organizations? Or would you try to license every blogger who puts out a Daily Me? For sure, the task of regulating journalists has the potential to create much bureaucratic confusion.

From the perspective of a controlling government, the job of intimidating the media in the Internet age must look like a cheap horror movie: the harder you smash apart an offending news organization, the more the little bits form into a guerrilla army of many additional offenders.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy for bloggers and freelancers who are practicing journalism. These reporters are on their own, without the institutional strengths and legal resources available to large news organizations. These individuals can become easy victims of governments that define a journalist as any news provider who irritates them.

Governments are doing exactly that. The Committee to Project Journalists has documented a worrying trend. In its 2009 prison census, it found that freelancers now make up 45 percent of all journalists imprisoned around the world, a dramatic increase. Of the 136 journalists behind bars at the end of 2009, CPJ found, 68 – fully half – were bloggers, Web-based reporters or online editors.

Journalists oppose licensing. It is without question an infringement on free expression. But is there a kind of licensing that would allow journalists to band together, giving them the strength of numbers and a measure of power that large media organizations no longer provide? We have traditional labor unions and NGOs like CPJ and others, but does the new world of journalism need something more to protect its individual practitioners?