U.S. journalists do have it easy (7/6/05)

Anna shook her head in disbelief.

“That sounds like kindergarten journalism,” said the voice in my headset, translating her words.

Others around the table in the conference room at the European Center for Communication and Culture nodded in agreement.

You Americans, they seemed to be saying in unison, have it so easy.

I wasn’t going to argue. I know that the rules we play by in this country are so different — so much more tilted toward transparency of government, access to information, and freedom of speech — that when compared to the realities of Belarus it is indeed “kindergarten journalism.”

Take the basics of gathering information.

American journalists are used to most public records being open for inspection. They’re used to being able to attend most meetings of public agencies and most court proceedings. And they take for granted the fact that there’s no legal penalty for reporting that information accurately.

Sure, we gripe now and then. And we’re always jockeying for greater public access rather than less; but when we do so, our opinions are heard and given consideration.

Not so in Belarus.

There, in an often-forgotten country sandwiched between Poland and Russia which has been routinely devastated by European power struggles for centuries, different rules apply.

Records aren’t public. Meetings aren’t always public; neither are court proceedings. When they are public, even a reporter who provides an accurate account of events isn’t safe from legal harassment or prosecution.

Report too aggressively — or too accurately — and a journalist may find herself ordered to leave official press conferences. The police may be called to eject those whose mere presence offends the people in power.

American journalists are used to the protection of opinion provided by the First Amendment. We’ve become accustomed to the body of legal judgments which have limited exposure to libel suits in favor of having free and vigorous debate in a democracy.

Not so in Belarus.

There, all too often, libel suits are a full-scale frontal assault on the press by government and those in power.

Opinion is not protected. Truth is not a defense. And we’re not talking about civil libel; we’re talking about criminal libel, the kind which can put a reporter in prison.

A column suggesting that you’d like a president who didn’t make his political opponents disappear could send its writer to hard labor for several months for “insulting the honor and dignity of the president.” (No word about the “honor and dignity” of the president’s opponents who have disappeared whenever they gained a footing.)

Americans used to economic freedom as well as political freedom assume that they can always start their own newspaper.

Not so in Belarus.

Anyone interested in starting a newspaper there must first get approval from the local government, which — surprise, surprise — is already publishing a newspaper of its own so that the official version dominates. Approval may take months and may never happen at all.

Even if a newspaper does succeed in becoming registered, the rules and regulations are so arbitrary and arcane that they seem to exist solely for the purpose of providing a pretext for shutting a newspaper down.

And if your newspaper loses its registration and is suspended, what can you do? Not much.

One publisher whose paper was suspended for a month last year responded by going on a hunger strike. It didn’t work. At the end of the month, the suspension was lifted.

And the publisher was fined for conducting an unlicensed demonstration by refusing to eat. As for me, I prefer the rules here in “kindergarten.”[[In-content Ad]]