03 May 2010

Journalism Professor Matloff Discusses World Press Freedom Day

CO.NX transcript, May 3

In a May 3 CO.NX webchat, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Professor Judith Matloff briefed on her experience as a journalist in Africa and answered questions on the struggle for freedom of expression and independent media in countries worldwide for World Press Freedom Day.

Following is the transcript:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of International Information Programs
Webchat Transcript

CO.NX Webchat: World Press Freedom Day

Guest:      Judith Matloff
Date:        May 3, 2010
Time:        14:00 UTC/GMT

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): On May 3, 2010, journalists, citizens, and governments around the globe will commemorate World Press Freedom Day. On this important day, designated by the UN General Assembly, we celebrate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and mark the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek. The U.S. Department of State invites you to join the discussion in a live webchat with journalist and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism professor Judith Matloff. We welcome your questions and thoughts on the struggle for freedom of expression and an independent media in countries worldwide.

CO.NX Moderator: The webchat with Judith Matloff will begin at 14:00 UTC/GMT. Please feel free to submit your questions before hand. Also please feel free to introduce yourselves.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): This webchat will begin in about 25 minutes. Please feel free to submit your questions in advance. And welcome to those of you just joining us!

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): This webchat will begin in just a moment. Thank you for joining us. Please feel free to introduce yourselves.

CO.NX Moderator (Sarah): I am a CO.NX moderator joining you from Washington, D.C. Where is everyone else from?

Eka Kemularia: I am Eka Kemularia, from Georgia (Tbilisi)

CO.NX Moderator (Sarah): We are glad to have you from Tbilsi!

ebad: hi

ali: hi

john: hi

abdulla: hello

Shalin: hi

bronze: hi

CO.NX Moderator (Sarah): Welcome to everyone just joining us. We are about to get started. Please feel free to continue introducing yourselves and submitting questions.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): My name is Jennryn Wetzler and I work for the Bureau of International Information Programs’ CO.NX team at the State Department. Welcome everyone to our World Press Day web chat with Judith Matloff. It's my pleasure to introduce Judith Matloff. I'm going to give a short introduction for Judith before she takes over the floor and gives a background on her experience and before answering your questions.

Thank you all for joining us. And please feel free to submit your questions before and during Judith's presentation. Judith Matloff is a professor at Columbia University and a journalist. Miss Matloff worked as a staff correspondent for 20 years specializing in areas of turmoil. She covered a total of 62 countries heading up the Africa and Moscow bureaus of the Christian Science Monitor. She has reported on major world matters, including apartheid, genocide, EU expansion and OPEC. Matloff has written for the New York Times, the Economist, the Dallas Morning News and Newsweek. Her various awards include a Fulbright fellowship to Mexico, and others, her stories about the Congo conflict. Matloff won a MaCarthur grant to write a book about Angola's civil war called Fragments of a Foreign War and was published in 1997. Again, Judith, thank you for joining us. I now leave the floor to you.

Judith Matloff: Good morning, everybody or good afternoon, depending on where you are.

First, I’ll tell you about myself. I have been involved with training or covering Africa for 22 years. I still periodically make trips to the region and training related to it. When I was based in the region, my beat was 47 countries in the sub-Saharan Africa, and I’m subjects with the freedom of speech. When I was asked to take part in this event I began to ponder how things have changed since I got involved in 1988.

Let's first start with now. When I think about the past two weeks in Africa it is not a good time for press freedom. In Cameroon, someone died and three journalists died. One reporter marked more than 3,100 days in government custody. He's never been publicly charged with a crime or given a trial. 17 other colleagues are in a similar position. In Somalia, about a dozen media workers continue to remain in exile. It's just too dangerous for them to work back at home or live, forget about working. In Zimbabwe, authorities routinely beat and detain reporters for critiquing the government. These are just a few of the examples of what are going on today.

And as you well (know), in African country it's hard for media to survive. There's few economic resources: state controls the purse strings, censorship is rife, and there's powerful businessmen and religious groups, drug cartels, corrupted politicians, militia extremist groups. And that's one of the most dangerous areas because you have rogue groups and warring parties, and it was so convenient for them to view journalists as spies or as the enemy.

In my own personal experience, I didn't have it as hard as people like you who are based there. I had an embassy I could go to seek refuge and leave. For myself, I suffered a death threat by rebels. I would go to check points and be detained. I had various business people come to me and politicians telling me what to write or notwithstanding to write, and when I think about how far we've come or haven't come, there's one particular anecdote that comes to mind. I held a seminar in Angola when they were having the first free and fair elections. The topic I was teaching was censorship and elections and how there had to be a need for vibrant free coverage for the election process and how to affect it in a situation where the government was actually opposed to this. Flash forward to 2008, I’m back in Angola teaching the exact same course about censorship and elections and how you can possibly cover elections when the government and various parties are trying to obstruct what your job is, which is to inform the media. The complaints were the same in 1992 as they were in 2008.

My colleagues in Angola were intimidated by authorities to write pro-government reports. Some lost jobs, some had been jailed, some had been beaten and some had been killed. To me, this is such a disturbing trend because of robustly questioning media is the corner stone of a free society. People should be able to express themselves. The public deserves transparent information, people have a right to hear various points of view. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. Yet in so many parts of Africa, government will trample on international agreements to protect freedom of speech, such as the 1991 declaration of Windhoek or article 19 of the declaration of human rights or even the declaration of principles and freedoms of expression in Africa. A culture of impunity is prevalent. So few murders of journalists are brought to prosecution, and media intimidation is common. So what could one do? I don't want to come here and talk doom and gloom and say the situation is terrible, it's still dreadful, and you can't do anything. There are actually concrete steps people can take to try to enhance the power of the free press and a free democracy, and things can change.

You look at south Africa; the apartheid regime once stymied the press. Now journalists can openly operate without fear. And if you look at Zimbabwe which is indeed a very nasty place for journalists to work, journalists have been able to despite the law bring cases to court and overturn cases against them and get themselves out of jail. Navy (has) been able to fight these things. Let that be a source of inspiration. As hard as it is, things can change, and one can work hard to undermine the repression that you may be facing.

And also, a few pointers. One is that there is power in numbers. That's how you change things. People have to unite. Journalist organizations should strengthen with each other. Journalist unions should try to become a much more vocal force, and one thing that might be able to help is to develop strong links with human rights groups as well as international advocacy organizations that work for freedom of speech and try to protect journalists. Among these is the international federation of journalists which is the largest journalist organization in the world.

Another one is the committee to protect journalists which will actually concretely take steps to publicize violence or repression of the media, and they will also help individual journalist who are in danger. Various Somali journalists were helped getting out of the country and saving their lives. Another group which is helpful is the international news safety group – institute -- the International News Safety Institute. And what they do is protect journalists and the international federation of journalists. They will publicize cases where journalists have been attacked or their newspapers closed down. So they'll make a big international stink. They'll try to bring the incidents to bodies like the United Nations. That can be one of your greatest allies, publicity. Another thing the international safety institute does is it offers free training for local journalists. So in a country where journalists are under physical danger, the international safety institute will offer you concrete safety steps and training so that you can better protect your life and that of your family.

Another thing you can do is every time somebody is put in jail or beaten or whatever, make a public stink about it, and cite measures like the declaration of principles and freedom of expression in Africa, cite article 19. Cite the Windhoek accord. If your country signed these accords, you can embarrass them by saying my country signed these accords yet they are not adhering to it. It's actually a pretty powerful weapon they have.

A third thing (you) can do if you really feel you cannot operate safely is you can release information under the radar of whoever is watching you. You can post anonymous information on the internet or YouTube or twitter or give sensitive stories to foreign journalists who are not targets like yourself, and therefore, you can continue to disseminate information freely, but perhaps in a different anonymous way. But at least the public will be informed about the things they want to cover.

The fourth thing, which is absolutely crucial, is know the law in your own country. This is what Zimbabwean journalists did, and this is what south African journalists did in the days of apartheid. Consult a lawyer or study the law yourself. Are the authorities applying these laws erroneously? Does the legislation actually allow censorship? Is there legal recourse you can take under defamation or treason laws? Again, this is very useful. Contact a human rights lawyer; maybe contact CPJ, the committee to protect journalists. Establish again publicly that the government itself is not enforcing its own laws should that be the case.

And again, I realize this is a very, very difficult task ahead, but it's absolutely important to stress the freedom of media, media expression. It's absolutely criminal that journalists are threat ebbed and thrown into jail by simply trying to inform the public of what are facts. Journalism, in an ideal world, is a public service. It's not just a vocation or a job. It's actually a mission, and it's a very important role for a thriving free country. The population that you're serving has a right to balanced information and opinions. We all have a responsibility to our public to educate it, and to make our governments accountable. These are thoughts I wanted to present as a beginning, and now open up the conversation to yourselves and see what you have to say. Thank you for listening to me.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): Thank you. We've got a number of questions. We've got a number of questions coming in from all over the world. I just want to (inaudible) our first question comes from Evangeline.

QUESTION [evangeline tan]: what is the current status of world press freedom?

Judith Matloff: The current status of world press freedom? Many countries, as I stated, unfortunately, it doesn't exist. In some countries it does, in other countries it doesn't.

Q [michael Paterson]: what is the world doing to entrench press freedom in Africa?

Judith Matloff: I think, for example, events like today are a perfect example of making sure that the goal of press freedom remains in peoples' minds and remains on the agenda. I know certainly the U.S. Government has been very active in developing training programs like the one I took part in. So that journalists in countries where there is a strong limitation on freedom of speech learn techniques or learn about how (one) can get around some of the problems and deal with them so that more information can be disseminated. And then there are international organizations which I mentioned which do very local advocacy to put the item on the agenda. They will at times go to organizations like the United Nations, the European Parliament, the European court, constantly trying to keep the topic on.

Q [Ahmed Ali - Egypt]: Do you think there id freedom in the USA?

Judith Matloff: This is constantly asked. I think generally we do have freedom of expression. There have been times in history when there's been an obfuscation of information, and particularly in a time of war, a government will limit the type of images that can be broadcast. I think at times there may be certain officials or certain individuals who may not want to release free flow of information, but I think generally, overall, we do have a very, very robust media which is able to question things, which is able to call politicians and businessmen on to the carpet. The fact that we've had so many scoops, and even leaks by disgruntled officials says something about the ability for information to get out.

Q [Eka Kemularia]: Is freedom of speech absolute, and if no, then what circumstances justify a limitation?

Judith Matloff: There's a really, really good question. Again, it's another one that comes up a lot when we speech. I think journalists sometimes have to self-censor at laws are at stake. In a situation of conflict -- lives are at stake. In a situation of conflict, this is one reason the United States in a time of war will limit certain types of information, for instance, when journalists are embedded. They cannot reveal the position of troops, because if they did, there could be a horrific loss of lives. Likewise, if you have information that that if published would lead to the loss of many lives, particularly civilians, that is a very firm ethic reason not to release that information. Again, it's a judgment call. You're playing god. Humanity and loss of life is always a concern. You can't just put out any information just because you have it.

Q [hady]: you think that freedom of expression should have ethics and, if it should, you think that religion should be part of this ethics?

Judith Matloff: We should definitely have ethics. If we don't have ethics, we don't have credibility, and if we don't have credibility, we can't be a force in the state, an actual personality role in society where we are able to question wrongdoing if we are ourselves engaging in unethical behavior. As for the role of religion, I am trying to interpret the question. I'm not quite sure if you mean that there should be a division of church and state which I would recommend. I don't think journalists should further a particular agenda of an established religion if that's what you mean. But if you mean behaving as a spiritually ethical person, for instance, to give an example -- not revealing the identity of a raped woman if she asks you not to -- that could be argued as an ethical form of behavior. Another form of ethical behavior that would be endorsed by other religions might be to protect the innocence of a child if something horrific has happened to the mother of a child. She should not be interviewed about that horrific incident in front of her child because it could cause distress. So that's what you mean, then I think absolutely what are generally considered ethical behavior in a given religion, yes. But I think the role of a journalist is not to further the agenda or the actual ritualistic beliefs of a particular religion, if that answers the question.

Q [youssouf dao]: what is the history of this day of press freedom?

Judith Matloff: Well that said, I’m not quite sure how far it goes back. Certainly, in my journalistic career, I’ve taken part in these events. [When] it began and when it was established, I have to be completely transparent with you. I don't know.

Q [Ali Eid]: Can the advanced technology save journalist from risks?

Judith Matloff: I think it can. But I think it also makes our jobs more dangerous in some respects. There are ways, for instance, that you can post things on a Facebook page or internet so that your identity is blocked, and journalists are doing that in parts of the world, particularly Russia and Iran. That is being used. But on the other hand, electronic surveillance is something that we need to be very, very worried about. And I think there's another danger of technology which is that in the old days -- in the old days, meaning the 80s or the 90s when I first started covering Africa… Let's say if I wrote for a U.S. paper, I would write something and it would be published in Boston, and pretty much only people in that area would read that article. So you didn't worry much about endangering someone in Sudan, because nobody in Sudan read your article. Now this changed with the internet. Anybody, anywhere can read your stories, and that is a danger of the electronic media. But on the other hand, as I was saying before, there are ways of posting information anonymously through twitter or through YouTube or the internet. There are ways to protect yourself and to get the information through. So the answer to this question is, yes, it can be a safe tool for you, if you know how to use it properly.

daou amary: hello

CO.NX Moderator (Sarah): Hello, Daou, welcome!

Q [Malcolm J Naudi]: This is Malcolm from Malta. I am the chairman of the Institute of Maltese Journalists. Is the use of new technologies empowering citizen journalists and how can members of the 'traditional' media do their job better using these new technologies?

Judith Matloff: That's an excellent question. That is being pondered by journalists throughout the industry. Citizen journalists have pros and cons. On the one hand, can you get information out. For example, the Mumbai bombing, they were able to get information about events that were going on at the time. But the problem is a lot of ever information was erroneous and based on impressions and rumor. On the one hand there was immediacy of information, but the people sending the tweets or however they got out the reports, they were trained journalists who were trained in accuracy and double checking facts. That is one problem with citizen journalism. On the one hand, technology allows people with very low budgets to get out information. We don't have to worry about distribution. You don't have to worry about printing on paper. You don't have to worry about expensive satellites. So in that respect, it can be an incredibly important tool in countries which lack expensive resources.

Q [MaitryiKolkata]: When we speak of Freedom of expression, how independent can media be, when media itself is controlled by commercial interest? How independence does a journalist get in a media house to air his own perspectives on an event he has covered?

Judith Matloff: That depends on the organization. Some organizations do allow one to express -- put out whatever information they want. But certainly in Africa and in other developing areas, it is a very, very big problem, but again, you can harken back to the suggestion I made before. If you're writing a story or you have access to information for a story and your media house forbids you from doing that story, can you give it to a colleague, you can give it to a foreign reporter or leak it on the internet or a blog or what not -- flower ways to get the information out. I do agree. It's a big problem in parts of the world. Your media house is going to be beholden to commercial interests.

Q [Ali Eid]: What is the role of journalist in facilitate information to public?

Judith Matloff: That is our role that is exactly our role. You hit upon it.

Q [Jugdishchandra Bhudaye]: In the name of democracy and freedom of expression some papers do not hesitate to publish sexiest possible pictures to boost their sale. Is this fair and just as it involves raising the sexual appetite of youngsters without due control?

Judith Matloff: As a mother, it bothers me. When I open a newspaper at the breakfast table, it does concern me if there are inappropriate images. It would worry me even more if those inappropriate images were on the front pages of magazines and papers that are on newsstands which my child walks -- sees on his way walking back from school. So yes, I think this gets back to the ethical role of journalists. It's often times a murky role, what is correct and what isn't. But I think one has to behave in an appropriate way and think who is going to get access to that information. Is it appropriate to show it in the way that you are?

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): Thank you for so many diverse and interesting questions. Please continue submitting your thoughts and questions to Judith!

Q [chill]: How to be a freelance journalist/photography while travelling the world a lot? thank you Smilingduke@gmail.com, Regards

Judith Matloff: That's a good question. To a certain extent, the reason there's more freelance opportunities now is because of the collapse certainly of the American media industry, as well as in other western countries. I tell you one place where you can probably make a pretty good living is India, if you write in English. It depends what language you write in. If you're a business writer in financial or economic reporting, you stand a better chance to make a living as a freelancer, and I think it takes a lot of guts. It helps if you have a nest egg set up. It also helps if you have another form of income. Some of my colleagues would do things like gardening on the side or might make money in a small business on the side, maybe run a website or something. So it depends on the actual -- the particular country they work in. These things vary from place to place. But again, I really do firmly believe that if you really want to make something happen, somehow you're going to make it work.

Q [hady]: what is your opinion about journalism in Egypt and freedom in the country?

Judith Matloff: It's not one of the freer places, but it's not amongst the worst.

Q [SEYDOU DIALLO]: WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICA PRESENTLY?

Judith Matloff: I think it's crucial. Say you are in a country with horrific corruption where the natural resources are not being managed in a responsible way. We'll take the example of Angola where a lot of profits from oils are not dribbling down -- trickling down into social services for the general public. It's absolutely crucial that this information be made public so that the government can be held accountable. That's one example. Another example might be -- lately there's growing outrage about the amount of rapes of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo without any inform egged coming out about that and the situation just keeps getting worse. But as the media can spotlight this severe problem, then there's a greater likelihood of some solution being met. What is not necessarily -- there's no parent that a solution will be met, but without the public, there would be absolutely no solution.

Q [hady]: What do you think about the American law to control freedom of media in Arab world?

Judith Matloff: Thank you. And if participants don't mind, via question at the end the discussion. But our next question in the meantime comes from Nah who asks, can you comment -- I’m sorry -- can you comment on the Mauritius election? That question, you can take or not take.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): I asked if Judith could talk about her greatest challenges in work.

Judith Matloff: American law to control media in the Arab world? Can he be more specific? I'm not quite sure which piece of legislation he's referring to. Can he be more specific?

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): Hady, if you are still with us, please clarify your question, and we will try to respond to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, I would love to ask you a qui if that's all right? I was really curious to hear more about your experiences, and what the greatest challenges are that you faced. You mentioned a lot of detainments, and I’m curious.

Judith Matloff: The situation of foreign correspondents differs. You have an embassy that can try to save you. But one of the biggest problems they faced, and I think that other journalists face is that you don't want to alienate your sources on whom Europe dependent for information, on the other hand, you want to report honestly about them, and one example I can give you, for instance, in Angola, often times, the only way I would travel to the front to see the war as it was going on in the 90s was on military airplanes.

It really created a quandary, because if the government didn't like what I was writing, they could cut off my access and refuse to speak to me. On the other hand, I wanted to write what I wanted to. As it turned out, that worked out okay, but there were various -- there's always a quandary. You write negative about a company, and they won't talk to you any. I had a problem with DeBeers. I wrote negative things about blood diamonds, and it made my access limited.

Likewise, I’ll give you another example. If you're very, very critical about -- for instance, when I worked in Zimbabwe, I was publish articles sometimes not under my own name, and I was very worried, would I be allowed back in the country if I continued to be critical of President Mugabe. Other examples are if one is going to meet with human rights critics or other people who are…from the opposition in a country where, again, like Zimbabwe when I would meet with the opposition, often times I had to meet in quiet ways and make sure nobody was following me. I didn't want to endanger people I was interviewing. That was an ethical problem I had to think about. When I write about people, is there going to be retaliation or reprisals. And that's something to grapple with. You're always trying to balance things. You're always trying to judge your situations. Sometimes you take the risks and sometimes you don't.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): Thank you. And we still have not heard back from Hady yet, but we have another question. Do you think more needs to be done to educate governments about why freedom of press is important?

Judith Matloff: Absolutely. Absolutely. And hopefully events like this will contribute to that.

CO.NX Moderator (Sarah): If you have more questions, please submit them now.

Q [Eka Kemularia]: How to resolve the dilemma: the right to freedom of speech and right to privacy, especially when it comes to minors?

Judith Matloff: Definitely it comes back to ethics. If a minor is considered under law in society as being somebody who is still the ward of someone else, who is not a fully competent decision making citizen. If something terrible happens to a minor, you need to ask about how much can be made available for information. Even when you interview a child, you want to have a trusted adult present when you interview that child. You should never ever have sexual images of a child broadcast.

There was one article that struck me as incredibly insensitive and inappropriate. It was an article about a Rwandan woman who had been raped and given birth to a child who was the product of these attacks on herself and these violations. She had ambivalent feelings about the child, and the journalist who interviewed her, interviewed her in the presence of the child as she spoke about how much she hated the child, and she spoke about how -- what happened -- to led to the conception of this child, and I think that's a case where the privacy of the child should have been protected. The child should not have had to hear that and the child's name shouldn't have been in print. That's one example.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): Our current question: What negative effects might occur from raising awareness about a given group, using the press?

Judith Matloff: I can give you an example. In a place like Zimbabwe you write an article where you're quoting members of the opposition and talk about how they're beaten by militias or what have you. If the information gets out that they spoke to you, a member of the media, the people might come back and attack them again. So the way you get around that is…cite them anonymously or pseudonyms, or if you're filming with a camera, you might want to film with a shadow or film from the back of the head or from the mouth down so that their images are not fully recognizable. But reprisals are a big risk. Say a woman is gang raped by soldiers ordered by a high level of military person toll do what they were doing. Maybe the same soldiers would come back and slit her throat. And the way you judge these delicate situation size look at precedence. Generally in certain countries there's a pattern on how attacks are perpetrated in the media.

In Russia nearly every journalist who has been shot has been shot in the entrance way of their homes. So think about patterns, and do they come late at night. Do they tend to follow you in a car which is a big thing in Zimbabwe, and be vigilant to the ways these attacks are perpetrated…..

Q [Malcolm J Naudi]: With this year's theme being freedom of information, to what extent can state and federal authorities charge members of the media for access to public information?

Judith Matloff:  It's a very good question, you ask. I mean, a TV station needs to survive. I mean, it would be a gigantic investment of a particular government to run a TV station for free. But there are things like National Public Radio which are subsidized in 59 countries. I think radio is a far cheaper means of information. Television is a whole different ball game because of the expense of the medium. But in many countries all you need is a battery or electrical plug for a radio.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): And Malcolm just clarified a little bit more on his question. He said he's referring to information held in government files.

Judith Matloff: One is a video of a Reuters cameraman shot, that caused a stink, and the government released it. There is -- I agree, there's not a hundred percent transparency. There are certain things released and others are not.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): Thank you. And I think we have time for a couple more questions from the audience if anybody has additional questions. We welcome them. We're going to take one more question now. And we're still asking for a couple more questions before we run out of time. Thank you. The question is actually about FOIA in follow-up to the last question from Malcolm. They just want clarification on FOIA, what it means.

Judith Matloff:  What it means is that information which is not normally publicly available, a journalist can request that information, so they make a request, and it’s a written request. It's considered, and in the best case scenario, whatever the information s videotape or documentation will be released. So what it is information that isn't publicly available, but can be requested by information organizations to be released. And sometimes it's granted and sometimes it's not. I usually -- when something is not released, it's on the basis of usually an argument made whether it's a security issue. That's actually the argument for not releasing t.

Q [youssouf dao]: What can be negative effect about press journalists at the war time?

Judith Matloff: It can be very negative. You request get hyping of a situation or people reporting rumors. You can get people furthering a very xenophobic message. War time is a time obviously when passions are high and people are killing each other, and you have to be very careful about the information that you're putting out is accurate and does not cause further harm. It's a very delicate thing, and I think actually due to the war, and the stakes, it's probably one of the most difficult and delicate types of journalism to follow.

Q [daou amary]: I want [to] known if today the word can go with the media because we can’t control the media?

Judith Matloff: I’m not sure about the question.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): Thank you. We'll wait for a response, and I hope we get it 99 the next eight minutes of our web cast. In the meantime, we'll take one more question about Derek who asks, is there even a little bit that we can do today to promote freedom of the press?

Judith Matloff: Well, I think that -- are you -- I don't know if you're speaking as a member of the press or not. But I think one thing that journalists should do is strengthen their own journalistic organizations. The only way that you're going to be able to protect your rights is with a unified very widespread voice. So I would urge you to join up with other journalistic organizations and make sure that you as a group have a voice to -- can be heard. Again, if you can link up with some of those organizations I mentioned before that advocate internationally for journalistic rights. You'll be better positioned to bring across to the greater international public the problems that come with freedom of expression.

Q [falaye]: I want to know if we can control the media with safety?

Judith Matloff: in other words, make the way we operate much safer. Again, I’ll go back to the organizations that I mentioned before. The international safety institute which works in London will provide training for local journalists in countries where there are no resources available to learn techniques. They could be defensive driving. They could be how you protect the information on your computer. There's a wide range of things: How to duck when you're undercover, how to figure out you're being followed, how to avoid all of the above. They will actually give you training courses. Tease skills are immeasurable. I think about the risks I used to take when I started out, and now how much more careful I operate. It's crucial.

The second thing is groups like committee to protect journalists. You know, if a journalist is being jailed or has been shot at or whatever, has been a target of an attack or intimidation harassment because of what they're writing, if that information could be conveyed to protect journalists and if it's correct, then the information can be made available to a wider international audience and CPJ would try to advocate on behalf of that journalist. That helps. If you're harassed or intimidated and nobody knows the situation will continue with impunity. But if the people harassing you are infinitely less likely to continue it.

Q [hady]: Can u tell us example for journalistic freedom?

Judith Matloff: Journalistic freedom? You write about whatever you feel you want to write about without harassment or intimidation from other parties, and you are able to give a balanced report, you can give both sides of the story -- not just one side -- that you feel comfortable to give both sides with the knowledge that there will be no repercussions. That you can give a variety of opinions without there being any reprisals against you. That in my view would be free speech. And it's a fundamental right.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn):  Thank you. An excellent point on which to end this webchat. Well, we are out of time today. But I want to thank you for your wonderful explanation on past work and also answering so many questions [from] our global audience. I'd also like to thank all of those participants online for submitting questions. We really appreciate your engagement. I will turn the floor over to Judith for closing remarks, and this web chat will end at 11:00, in just three minutes.

Judith Matloff: I thank everybody for listening to me and for taking the time to be on this chat, this video chat today. Again, I can't stress enough, it is absolutely imperative as a journalist that one continues to struggle to get information out in a free and balanced way. Again, try to seek out the various organizations that I mentioned, because they can help further this cause of a freer press. I appreciate that it's not very easy at times, but it's important that we bow our head and try to continue to properly inform the public, which is our mission. Thank you very much.

Virginia Benninghoff: You can visit CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) at http: //www.cpj.org/.

CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn): For upcoming CO.NX events, please visit: http://co-nx.state.gov.

CO.NX Moderator (Sarah): Thank you all for joining!

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CO.NX Moderator (Jennryn) 2: This webchat is now closed. The views in this webchat do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government. Thank you.