Reporter’s Sources Under More Pressure
Michael Hedges March 8, 2023 - Follow on Twitter
News organizations and their reporters are highly protective of their reliable sources. Intelligence agencies are also very careful with critical sources. Sometimes these interests intersect. the stories are the stuff of novels and films. While realities are often more mundane sharing information some might not want in the public can be fraught with intrigue, even danger.
 Reliable sources must be cultivated, said exiled Nicaraguan journalist Carlos F. Chamorro to the 2023 Reuters Memorial Lecture (March 6). “It means raising the standards of verification and corroborating anonymous sources in order to continue publishing reliable information. We also have to guarantee secure channels of communication to protect our sources.” Sr. Chamorro publishes the weekly investigative newspaper Confidencial from Costa Rica.
Corruption is a backbone of post-modern journalism. By practice and necessity corruption is kept under wraps. It also affects the very underpinning of civil society. There is distinct peril for reporters investigating corrupt practices. Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, looking into mobsters aligned with politicians, was assassinated by car bomb in 1976 while waiting for a meeting with a source. More recently, there was Jan Kuciak, investigative journalist for news portal Aktuality in Slovakia, murdered in his house five years ago. Six months earlier independent reporter specializing in corruption Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bombing. There have been others.
A leading curator of country-level reporting about corruption is Transparency International (TI). It was founded in 1993 by World Bank directors and officials. Its headquarters is in Berlin, Germany. Since 1995 TI has published annually the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). While methods used for the CPI have been justifiably criticized, it remains widely quoted.
This week the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation designated Transparency International an “undesirable organization,” reported Russian exile news portal Meduza (March 6). “Formally declaring itself an organization that fights corruption around the globe, it interferes in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation, which threatens the constitutional order and the security of the Russian Federation,” said the Prosecutor General's Office in a statement. With this designation TI is now outlawed in the Russian Federation and “any individual who cooperates with a so-called ‘undesirable’ group runs the risk of felony charges,” noted Moscow Times (March 6).
“Corruption is an issue that knows no borders. It is the essential mission of Transparency International to call attention to and fight against it everywhere. It is our specific mandate to combat transnational corruption, when deficiencies in one country enable abuses in others – to global detriment,” said TI chief executive Daniel Eriksson in a statement (March 6). “Despite these allegations, Transparency International will continue to shine a light on corruption and kleptocracy in Russia and everywhere else to promote transparency, accountability, integrity, and to hold power to account.” The 2022 CPI ranked the Russian Federation 137th out of 180 countries.
Last year Russian prosecutors succeeded in dissolving the two mainstay human rights organizations in the country, International Memorial and Memorial Human Rights Center. The Memorials were tried and convicted under the infamous “foreign agent” laws. “The state has become fed up with Memorials’ criticising human rights violations committed by the current regime, as well as those of its Soviet predecessor, particularly at a time when such criticism could undermine the war effort in Ukraine,” offered International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) spokesperson Ilya Nuzov in a statement (July 20, 2022).
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There was a time, under certain circumstances, when media outlets marched in lock-step behind their country’s leaders, typically the unrepresentative and unelected. The government-line was followed quite rigorously. It was from more than fear, though that always figured. Good jobs with newspapers or broadcast outlets were doled out like patronage. This century, cracks in that system have become grand canyons.
Independence can be a tricky concept for media outlets. As every banker - and politician - knows there is always somebody calling the tune, so to speak. A slew of corruption fighting investigative reporting groups have come into prominence in the last decade for uncovering, as best they can, who gets paid to what end. Corruption can slam into press freedom and, clearly, the very notion of media independence.
Human rights issues are, like almost everything else, highly politicized. Country to country there is wide disparity of judgement on what is and is not important. Press freedom and freedom of expression are included by some, not by others. And the differences have grown wider since all nations adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), which vowed that "human rights should be protected by the rule of law."
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