Keeping Journalism Alive

IWPR's website has become an inspiration for those pushing the boundaries in countries where it's a struggle to report at all. Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Britain's Channel 4 News.

Lindsey Hilsum "No media is allowed to send reporters to the disaster zone."

Within three hours of the massive earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province in May 2008, the Chinese Communist Party Central Propaganda Department had issued their directive. But such was the scale of the disaster, with hundreds of thousands of people dead or trapped in rubble, Chinese journalists ignored the instruction and rushed to Sichuan.

"If the editor spikes our stories, we'll stay and work as volunteers, helping people," said one.

The impact was extraordinary. Soon state-run TV was broadcasting 24 hours a day from the quake zone. The entire nation tuned in. Motivated by what they'd seen on TV and read in the newspapers, people raised money and volunteers drove across the country to help in the relief effort. Such was the tide of sympathy for the earthquake victims that, for the first time, the national flag was flown at half mast for ordinary people. The entire nation stood for a two minute silence.

Belatedly, a new directive was issued, "Reporters going to the disaster zone must move about with rescue teams." The powerful propaganda department had bowed to popular pressure, spearheaded by journalists.

As a foreign correspondent for British television, I believe that international journalism matters, but although we expose important stories, and bring foreign governments to account, what really makes a difference is governments being challenged by their own journalists, as they were in China.

Repression is well understood - the list of countries which imprison or even kill journalists is long. Yet, as IWPR has discovered, there are other more complex issues to tackle, not least the basic question of who is a journalist?

Familiarising those who would be journalists with basic standards isn't easy. In China, companies give journalists "red envelopes" of money to induce them to report positively on a new product. In Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, newspapers proliferated, but most of them were affiliated to political parties or factions and their reports were skewed to make facts fit particular political perspectives. In Nigeria, which has a long tradition of free expression, wild allegations are common currency.

The experience of IWPR's pioneering work with journalists in the Balkans, Central Asia and the Middle East shows how important it is to encourage careful, objective reporting as countries take their first steps out of dictatorship. When conflict ends, and international reporters go home, national journalists can seize the moment to tell stories which were previously too dangerous or difficult to report, and to develop a culture of debate and dialogue.

IWPR's website has become a source of information for foreign correspondents, and an inspiration for those pushing the boundaries in countries where it's a struggle to report at all.

After the Sichuan earthquake, the window of media freedom was soon slammed shut. Restrictions were re-imposed as the story emerged of how schools had collapsed, killing thousands of children, because corrupt local officials had authorised shoddy buildings.

"Media must not report on issues related to the parents of children killed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Media must only report the list of victims announced by officials," read a new directive. Reporters were sacked, and some arrested for disobeying.

But those few days when Chinese reporters broke their shackles were significant, because they revealed the great thirst the Chinese public has for information, and the pressure public opinion can have on the government.

Journalism matters - the work IWPR does is the proof.