Issue 56 Vol III, January 31, 2008

M E D I A

A Peep into U.S. Media

Publishers and owners in America who make tonnes of money from their publishing establishments care too hoots for their editors and other journalists. A report from Los Angles on January 22, 2008 said that The top editor at the Los Angeles Times told his staff Monday he was forced out for opposing newsroom cutbacks and blasted the paper's parent firm, Tribune Co., for what he called "voodoo economics" and an "asinine" budgetary system.

The Tribune Co.'s newspapers include the Baltimore Sun, Newsday and the Chicago Tribune, and the company owns 23 TV stations and one radio station

James O'Shea, whose departure was lasted barely 14 months on the job, is the third editor to leave the newspaper since 2005. He said his position was terminated by publisher David Hiller after discussions about current and future budgets. "(We) didn't share a common vision for the future of the Los Angeles Times," O'Shea said in an e-mail to the paper's newsroom, widely circulated on the Internet. "David decided he wanted to terminate my employment and get another editor."

O'Shea's parting e-mail criticized how the Tribune Co. allocates resources to all nine of its newspapers. He said he was forced to consider closing foreign bureaus and cutting back other parts of the L.A. Times to free up cash for the upcoming Olympics and the presidential campaign. "That's no plan for the future," O'Shea said. "That is not serving the interest of the readers. It is simply stupid." O'Shea had been asked to make cuts of about $4 million.

"The current system relies too heavily on voodoo economics and not enough on the creativity and resourcefulness of journalists," O'Shea wrote. His departure comes just a month after the Times' parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., was taken private in an $8.2 billion buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell.

Interestingly O'Shea's move from the paper follows that of his predecessor, Dean Baquet, who was forced to resign after he opposed further cuts to the newsroom budget in 2006. When O'Shea, who at the time was the Chicago Tribune's managing editor, was brought in to replace him, he asked the newsroom not to see him as "the hatchet man from Chicago" and promised to fight to ensure the Times would "remain a major force in American journalism."

Last April, the Times announced it was cutting up to 150 jobs, including 70 newsroom positions, as a result of declining revenue.

The Times is just one of many newspapers plagued by circulation and revenue losses to new media and in his e-mail, O'Shea lamented the state of the newspaper industry but said it could be revived by wise investment and a focus on "solid, relevant journalism…. We must integrate the speed and agility of the Internet with the news judgment and editorial values of the newsroom," O'Shea wrote. "Values that are more important than ever as the hunger for news continues to surge and gossip pollutes the information atmosphere."

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Media in shackles in Afghanistan
Release the innocent journalist

Afghanistan’s Senate has endorsed a death sentence handed down by a court to a reporter and journalism student accused of blasphemy on January 30. The Senate, called the Meshrano Jirga (House of Elders), issued a statement backing last week’s decision by the Balkh province primary court and criticising international pressure over the case, an official said.

The court sentenced Perwiz Kambakhsh (23), to death for distributing articles downloaded from the Internet that were said to question the Koran and the role of women in Islam. The statement was signed by Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the head of the Senate who was briefly Afghan President in the early 1990s and is a close ally of President Hamid Karzai.  His fault having downloaded material that spoke about equal rights for women and against polyandry.

The death sentence must pass through various higher courts and be approved by Mr. Karzai, who has been called on by international and Afghan media rights organisations to intervene in the case.

The extremist Taliban movement that is waging an insurgency against Mr. Karzai’s administration has also called for “severe punishment” for Mr. Kambakhsh, whom they called the “new Salman Rushdie”.

The journalist was sentenced to death last week by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for distributing a report he printed off the Internet to journalism students at Balkh University. The article asked why men can have four wives but women can’t have multiple husbands.

The court in Mazar-i-Sharif ruled that the article insulted Islam. Members of a clerical council also pushed for Mr. Kaambakhsh to be punished.

 There has been worldwide protest over the death sentence awarded to Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a 23-year-old journalist in Afghanistan. There is also deep concern not among the media persons, but also the public on the silence of the Karzai government in Afghanistan for doing nothing to get the innocent journalist released from jail.

Kambakhsh was arrested in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of the northern province of Balkh, on 27 October 2007 on charges of blasphemy and “disseminating defamatory comments about Islam.” Under repeated pressure from the Council of Mullahs and local officials, a Mazar-i-Sharif court sentenced him to death on 22 January 2008 at the end of a trial held behind closed doors in which he was not allowed to defend through a lawyer by a lawyer.

A journalism student at Balkh University and a reporter for the newspaper Jahan-e-Naw (“The New World”), Kambakhsh was arrested after downloading an article that analyses what the Koran says about women. It has been established that he is not the author of the controversial article, which came from an Iranian website.

Rahimullah Samandar, the head of the Afghanistan Independent Journalists Association, says his arrest is linked to articles written by his brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, criticising the Balkh provincial authorities. Ibrahimi says the verdict is “unjust” and urges the international community to support his brother.

Afghan journalists had been gathering outside the home of the condemned reporter and are determined to get him released. Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said it was "deeply shocked" by the trial and appealed to President Hamid Karzai to intervene "before it is too late". In a statement, the group said the trial was "carried out in haste and without any concern for the law or for free expression, which is protected by the constitution. Kambakhsh did not do anything to justify his being detained or being given this sentence."

Afghanistan, the Afghanistan which European and US politicians discuss, blaming only the insurgence and Taliban for the difficulties people suffer, is a masquerade. Kambakhsh, an Afghan journalist sentenced to death for downloading material from the Internet relating to the role of women in Islamic societies. We do not know what he was looking for, but it was material linked to the condition of women in Islam.  as an Afghan who spent time under the misogynist Taliban regime, he must have had legitimate questions about it.

Karzai’s government lacks even the attempt to respect basic fundamental freedom of speech and the Afghan government’s clear fear to upset Talibanish Islamic judges shows the incredible masquerade that the US and Europe is ready to accept about Afghanistan.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he would raise objections with Kabul to an Afghan court’s sentencing of a young reporter accused of blasphemy to death, in an interview broadcast Sunday. “You can be sure that I will protest against this type of behaviour to the Afghan government, just as I have in previous cases,” Steinmeier told public radio station Deutschlandfunk. The statement came after the United States expressed its concern to the Afghan government.

Clearly there is need to build more pressure on the government for the release of the detained journalist by the international community that swears daily by the freedom of the press.

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