From the editor
“When journalists get arrested at protests in the United States, those images echo around the world and they send a message to so many places that this is the way police behave even in democratic countries,” Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told The New York Times earlier this month, as he announced plans to step down by the end of the year. “And therefore, arresting journalists at protests in Moscow or covering protests in Myanmar, which we’re seeing now, is less shocking and generates less attention.”
Nieman Reports explores how independent journalists in both Russia and Myanmar are responding to crackdowns on the free press, a struggle taking place around the world, from Hong Kong to Nicaragua to Zimbabwe.
Elizaveta Kuznetsova profiles some of the Russian reporters and news organizations providing an independent alternative to federal networks like RT. Though the space for free speech in Russia is shrinking — as exemplified by the Kremlin’s designation of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation as “extremist” — these outlets are reaching audiences mistrustful of official government information, around the Covid-19 pandemic, for example.
In Myanmar, independent journalists who have not already been detained have largely gone into hiding for their own safety. Jared Downing describes how reporters are relying on grassroots networks of young amateur stringers, who funnel information to news outlets through VPN connections and single-use SIM cards. The situation in the country is bleak, but this generation of the Myanmar press has something its predecessors didn’t: the memory of democracy.
“Of course, I’m afraid of being arrested,” one young journalist told Nieman Reports. “But if I don’t do this … no one will know what is happening in our country.”
Lessons from the Pandemic, our essay collection exploring whether journalism can — or should — return to a pre-pandemic normal, continues with pieces by, among others, Kyle Edwards, managing editor of Native News Online, on why Indian Country’s recovery from Covid-19 is just as newsworthy as the virus’s devastating impact on tribal communities, and Deb Pastner, photo/multimedia director at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, which just won the Pulitzer for breaking news for its coverage of the death of George Floyd, on why photojournalism can’t go back to business as usual.
Look for more essays from this series in the weeks to come.
Sincerely,
James Geary
Editor, Nieman Reports
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