Transcripts For ALJAZAM Listening Post

Post. Here are some of the media stories we are tracking. Pentagon draws up rules of journalistic engagement in the war zone. They are getting flak. The death of a mafia boss in rome. The funeral, coverage and Death Threats. Sri lanka makes arrests and implicates the army over the disappearance of a journalist five years ago. And twitter and the news business, its a marriage both parties are still trying to figure out journalist or unprivileged belligerent, a distinction the u. S. Military wants to make and for war correspondents a category to be avoided. The pentagon believes the war manual, laying out rules for combat, including how to treat reporters covering wars. It tumps on journalistic issues and suggests spying accusations could be avoided if they gain permission to report from authorities, and deems reporters unprivileged belligerent, akin it spies or saboteurs should be be found guilty of working for the enemy. Its got another label, unlawful combantant. Plied in iraq and afghanistan. According to the u. S. Department of defense. They have been misunderstood by the press. The New York Times and media groups called for the refigs, saying its more dangerous the less accurate and authoritarian governments could take the approach and cut and paste it into rule books, and has implications beyond the u. S. Our starting point is washington d. C. When they first tell us, frankly, flabbergasted. Seemed ridiculous. Then we rrlds realized, no, this is real. What they propose means fundamental changes in the way the media covers conflicts, putting the media in real danger and the public not hearing or reading what the military dont want them to hear in the pentagons own wars, it represents a milestone, an effort by military and civilian lawyers across the department of defense. And the manual, aspects which deal specifically with war zone journalism is the first to be issued department wide. In other words to all of the armed forces, army, navy, air force and marine core. They have done 1,000 page piece of whack codifying for commanders and others in the film. How war should be conducted. The is its a mess, a confusing mess in terms of the role of journalists. That is upsetting for us. We put journalists in conflict zones all the time. I dont want to do that under the rules. The manual says that reporting on military operations can be similar to collecting intelligence for spying. When the pentagon said journalists may be considered belligerent, the military says theyll get fewer protections than civilians. Semantically, it is post 9 11. It is hard to define the enemy. Post 9 11 because they were dealing with nonstate actors. They brought in terms like enemy combatants. Its a mistake not to treat them as an enemy combats able tos. Here combatants. Here they talk about journalists as bellager ants. There has to be reasonable restrains on the battlefield. There has been restraints put on journalists simply where you have immediate information that could jeopardise an ongoing military operation. Secrecy is part of national security. We are very aware of that. And theres an old adage in american journalism that we dont publish the sailing time of troop ships, that we dont publish information that would reveal important military information. We understand that we are caught in the middle between combatants. Theres other solutions threatening that you might prosecute a journalist for being a spy is not a solution. The u. S. Military, lets think about them, has been increasingly seeing journalism as more of a threat than perhaps we would wish or it might have at some other time. I spent a lot of time in afghanistan, and i can tell you from that, that the kinds of things that are stated in this manual, and kind of hardened up in the manual. This has grown out of what is happening in practice on the ground in these wars. There are some infamous cases in point. In 2006 bilal hussain, an a. P. Photographer was arrested by u. S. Forces in iraq, gaoled for two years and never charged. Al jazeera camera operator samry alhaj was arrested in afghanistan in 2001, gaoled for more than six years, most at guantanamo bay, again released without charge. And they are the survivors. In april 2003, al jazeeras Baghdad Bureau was shelled by american forces. A correspondent was killed. The u. S. Army called it an accident. However, that same month the then u. S. Deputy secretary was among many of the pentagon vilifying al jazeera over its coverage of the battle for fallujah. What al jazeera is going is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable looked at in that context, the manual of war codifies, puts into war what has happened on the battlefield. The manual has been produced to try to stop journalists exposing things that the u. S. Military would not want to see exposed. Going back to fallujah, shooting in mosques, and things like that that are exposed by journalists. If you apply that rigorously, then you cant do it, the great danger is youll be accused of being a spy. Theres a disincentive for journalists to put themselves at risk to expose wrong doings. A question we ask of the proponents of the manual. Giving the focus on Operational Security was why the need for new rules for journalists. Have there been incidents to cite to the justify them. Examples date from long ago, and one from afghanistan, is not an example of what they say they are talking about. Theres a famous case of richard, who was posing as a german newspaper man in japan during world war ii, and is actually a soviet spy. In the New York Times, there was an interesting i forget the individuals name posing as a reporter, who was a spy, during the 1950s, and 60s, and before 9 11, when he was the Northern Alliance leader, was killed by television reporters, at least people who were posing as television reporters during an interview. But that is just it. They were not television reporters, they were fighters, pretending to be. The three incidents cited go back half a century or in the case of the killing, do not apply. This past week the Associated Press joined the New York Times and public radio in raising concerns on the manual of war and doing it publicly. The times urged the white house to revise the part of the document affecting journalists. Its not clear if the pentagon will do that, or if a change in the language would matters. Legal implications of termed an unlawful combatant or an unprivilege the belligerent are clear. Im not sure that wetted wear orange wed wear orange jumpsuits. Thats the precedence. If they change the wording, this gives a glimpse of how they feel and the way yes think about journalists on the battlefield. That is chilling on the download this week, our viewers weigh in on the pentagons war manual and the implications for the coverage of conflict. We have already seen the ways that medical workers who, like journalists, enjoy a protected status under the Geneva Convention are targeted, detained and charged with various crimes around the world. We must stop the erosion of hardwon international standards. Other media stories sri lanka authorities made four arrests in the case of a journalistcartoonist missing in 2010, presumed murdered. T two lieutenant colonels, a Police Sergeants were arrested after evidence given by a person that worked for a website. He went missing two days before 2010 elections which saw the former president reelected. Leaked police files suggested that he was killed, and body dumped at sea after he was questioned by a book he was writing on corruption within the radja pack sea family. They held power for nine years in sri lanka, during which 17 media workers lost their lives and dozens fled the country a nightmarish scene in virginia, involving a reporter and cameraman both shot and killed. The gunman that shot Alison Parker and adam ward was a former colleague at their station. He had been fired by the channel after a turbulent time. Colleagues col plained of threatening behaviour. He alleged he was subjected to racism. Flannigan filmed the attack, posted it and tweeted about his two murdered colleagues and sent a 23 page fax to abc news before crashing his car after a police chase, taking his life. Twitter and facebook suspended flannigans accounts. His videos had been shared widely, downloaded and reposted. Bbc journalists at the crash seen said Police Ordered them to delete some of the video recorded for reasons unclear. Last programme we had a feature peace on italian media. Our timing turned out to be on the mark. This past weekend two more journalists say they started to get Death Threats over coverage of a funeral of a mafia boss in rome. The funeral was an understated affair, the coffin in a gilded carriage. The congregation was sprinkled with rose petals and the band playing the theme seconding from the god father. From the stateowned channel. He was menaced while filming in the neighbourhood. They said they were going to beat them to death. An investigator reporter, says he, too, was approached by four people haired on video shouting ill kill you. Politicians in rome expressed disapproval of it. Local tv channels gave it plenty of coverage well look at one of the biggest players in the news business, a platform that has no reporters or editors. Breaking news used to be the domain of broadcast. The arriveful twitter meant it had competition. The 140character tool flexed ints muscles. Twitter played a role, spreading news of post election demonstrations in iran. Story after story, the microblogging platform left news media in the dust. Over the past few years, twitter hired a head of news and developing new software to stay relevant for 300 million. It still calls itself a Technology Company but is trying to come to grips with the world of news. Now when news breaks out, theres no faster way to report on it than twitter. The jordanian pilots, it broke on quitter. I can visit tunisia, egypt. Saudi arabia, jordan, lebanon, israel anywhere, by being on twitter. I can sit in johannesburg and understand what is happening with the chibok girls in nigeria. I never use it exclusively. But its a great compliment. May 2013. Twitter advertises for the first head of news, a new role created to help Media Companies get the most out of the platform and boost growth. Five months later the successful applicant was announced on twitter. Vivian took up the post in january 2014. Her aim in the cops wards was to make twitter indispensable to news rooms and journalists so twitter the company realized that this is an important vector to have strong relationships with news organizations. Its an important part of the tool set that any newsroom uses for all aspects of journalism, from detecting new, finding witnesses, verifying information. Engaging with audiences. Twitter reshaped by editing and journalistic life. It offers you ways of communicating that are unheard of. Studies show that very much social media, specifically twitter sets the news answereda. Journalists is a little like a dine sore. Over 75 of journalists identify twitter as a number one place for a professional presence. Ahead of facebook. The western on the ground directly gets the story out to the audience on twitter as opposed to the old days where you run to the telephone and file a story to the news desks. Twitter has 304 million active user. Numbers other platforms would kill for. In the competitive social media market. Its facing questions about its future. How can a service built around 140 characters, snippets of text, survive in a video oriented world. Twitter acquired a variety of applications, to enhance story telling capability. Like vine, a looping video act that gives you six seconds to make your point. A looping video act that gives you six seconds to make your point. Its a video where it plays back to back and you can publish it on twitter. Its in handy when you use it as a teaser. Perscope is something where you reach out to the audience. Its a live app, where you shoot live and get direct interactions and questions from people on your applications and twitter. They are commenting and interacting and asking questions and giving live feed back to the presenter on what should be done as of yet, journalistic tools have not had the desired effect. When twitters former c. E. O. Quit his post in july, a reason given was the failure to make products more appealing. Figuring out what twitter can do, what it is, is a challenge that goes back to the founders. They called it a social network. They called it microblogging. It was hard to define. Quitter was an Information Network than a social network. If founders were confused when they came up with it, its no wonder journalists are trying to figure out how to use it. Twitter is an important compliment to the process of news gathering. It is a compliment. It needs to be used in consort with journalism professional. Theres half a billion sent every day. Its a matter of taking that data. It is a lot of data, and figuring out how to sift it to find the needles in a haystack. Its harder to have people believe what you are saying. Theres so much noise. Everyone is selling something, an agenda, product, media organization. So much noise. Im a fan of livetweeting news events because i think its the quickest quickfire rapid way to get news ou. It has its draw backs, it can lack context and be inaccurate. The biggest challenge of twitter is no editor. We write the peace. It doesnt say are you sure to tweet us. Theres no breathalyser on twitter, its easy to tweet under the influence of substances. The challenge with it all is thou to exercise that judgments. How do you keep from going too far. That is how some journalists found themselves in ears trouble. Earlier this year australian broadcaster sbs fired a sports journalist for a series of tweets posted an angabbing day anzac day, a national holiday. Scott mcjin tires tweet about violent acts committed by the Australian Military was deemed irresponsibly a departure from cnn hit the headlines and twitter. Using an official senior middle east handle. She posted a tweets on the death of ayatollah. A group of extreme agenda driven right wingers took that and campaigned ape gains me. Jumping to a conclusion. They spinned by tweet, making it into something it is not, and put it out there and asked my employer, actively, to fire me. Cnn. They never used the ward firing called me and said well have to go our separate ways. Twitters feed book loop has draw backs. On the flipside, the back and forth means twister was an indispensable part of news gathering the world over. Twitter works with news organizations to help them get the best out of it. Facebook is a Movement Working towards organization, and there are other powerful tools. Theres a lot of competition. If twitter wants to keep its place, the c. E. O. Will have their work cut out updating the toot set for journalists and may start defining what twitter is. It will take serious thought and more than 140 characters of text more on what can help you getmore out of twitter. Its a personal dashboard, that you can organise thematically giving the tweets you need. Vine is a straight forward video sharing app. Perscope a lifestreaming app allowing you to watch and broadcast live video. One minute you could watch a protest streamed from bangkok, next you could stream a press conference from san paula. Theres data miners, developed along side global news rooms. Its algorithms scour twitter for newsworthy content. And if data miner sounds too technical. Projects lightening is a tool in the pipeline, Developers Say it will make it easier for every day twitter users to follow breaking news and live event through tweets, photos and videos. Finally up french speaking belgium born musician with routes in rwanda, with a taste for a 19th century composer, and a thing about twitter. A composer that compared love to a reshellious bird, not inlike the blue twitter bird. Its a reach, but the seconding and video chronicles an addiction to twitter and obsessive compulsive and consumerist tendencies that people display on the microblogging platform. See you next time here at the listening post. Tomorrow. Im ali velshi on target, the tale of two cities the haves, or have not in new orleans. 10 years after katrina, and why the mentally ill are more likely to land in prison than hospital. Saturday is the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making land fall in louisiana. While the category 3 storm broughst