...but you can't talk without us.
(cross-posted on No Pundit Intended)
By now, everyone has heard about ABC losing their accreditation in Russia after airing an interview with Chechen terrorist warlord Shamil Besayev.
In Russia, anyone who wishes to work as a journalist must have ministry level permission to do so. This began in 1998.-
Yesterday the Duma passed the first reading of the draft law on inserting changes into the federal law on the media. In accordance with it, a journalist may have accreditation revoked for distributing information which does not accord with reality which discredits the reputation of the organization which provided the accreditation, or if the journalist has misused the rights the accreditation provides, so long as this fact is confirmed by a court. However, the editorial board, chief editor, and journalist do not bear responsibility for distributing such information if it is a quote from one of the MPs in session or in a speech at some other function, or from an official speech of a leader of a state institution, an organization, or a public organization. The editorial board and the journalist are similarly not responsible if the information is a quote from information or materials distributed by other media. Kommersant-Daily, Moscow, January 15, 1998
The loss of accreditation for ABC essentially prohibits the news agency from reporting the news in Russia. While some have shown glee at having a MSM outlet essentially shut down - using comparisons to Al Jazeera being shut down in Iraq for a short period - one must realize there are differences. In Iraq, AJ was openly calling citizens to revolt - inciting riot is a crime in almost every nation on earth.
Much like the interview of Saddam Hussein by Dan Rather, Babitsky's interview with Shamil Besayev was seemingly designed to enforce the idea that terrorism (or supposedly in Saddam's case - merely defiance against the US giant) is an outcome of bad faith policy by a belligerent nation. However, neither interview really had any impact on events of the day, save one. In the US, there was an outcry of criticism for Dan Rather's softball approach to the interview - as if his ideology and the fact he was in the tiger's lair would permit him to act otherwise - but in Russia Babitsky and ABC were shut down - silenced.
Russia cites United Nations articles limiting freedom of speech.-
A Foreign Ministry official said by telephone Wednesday that the ministry believed ABC itself violated a 1976 United Nations pact by airing the interview.
The official, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, said Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights set limits on freedom of speech when it comes to protecting state security and public order and also bans propaganda for war.
Russian television station NTV dismissed Leonid Parfyonov, an outspoken broadcaster, following the airing of a program on Chechnya against the wishes of the government. In a statement, the Russian PEN Center of writers, poets, and essayists said, "One of the best television hosts in Russia and one of the best analytic and information programs have not only been censored, they have been destroyed, which definitely indicates that we live in a police state." Anders Aslund of the Carnegie Endowment suggested the firing "is very consistent with Putin's strategy of building authoritarianism in small steps." Mr. Parfyonov said, "I do not have any other definition for what happened, except for censorship…They made the decision to take the piece off the air, but they wanted to make it look like it was my decision…And I decided I was not going to keep my mouth shut." (Source: The New York Times. Similar reports appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Moscow Times.) June 3, 2004
Democracy is a vessel for freedom and one of mankind's inalienable freedoms is absent in Russia. The suspension of ABC accreditation is an obvious indication of how badly the deterioration of democracy is in Russia. Free speech has been a joke in Russia since people stopped referring to Glasnost. While I don't mind ABC getting a punch in the eye for their bias, is wrong. Russia has accused the Babitsky interview, and ABC, of violations of the UN articles relating to propaganda. What Russia has told the world, however, is that the government will decide whether someone is free to speak their mind - and when it comes to Chechnya, the answer is a resounding - NO.
That's too harsh. You have to acknowledge that ABC giving that guy a propaganda spot, especially considering the hundreds of Beslan school children he killed, is like their press giving Bin Laden himself a legitimizing prime time news conference in 2002. If you want to get pissed at them for giving Zarqawi airtime in retaliation for the ABC spot, I'd agree that kind of tit-for-tat helps no one, but pulling ABC's creds after what they did? We'd do the same, and would be right to.
The Osama analogy is apt. Gotta say, I'm on the fence on this one.
what do you think would have happened had a major American network aired a long and sympathetic interview with the leader of the American (German-sympathetic) Bund in, say, 1943? Probably the end of said network in its totality.
Putin's authoritarianism is indeed a worrying trend, and Russian policies in Chechnya have been both brutal and not very effective. But when you cross a line like this, there's an argument to be made that real consequences ought to follow. And when you look at America, Britain et. al. in situations of acknowledged war, we're not so far away from that ourselves.
Which leads to the larger question of how appropriate, adaptable, and necessary those kinds of frameworks will prove in the 21st century of empowered violent extremists.
As repeated terrorist incidents shrink the tolerance margins in our socieites, the press' recent freedom to essentially declare itself above and beyond such conflicts (when not actually supporting and/or enabling the perpetrators) will come into sharper question, and the pendulum will swing back. Recent Pew survey results show that this trend has already started.
Where is the right resting point? How are such threats to be dealt with? That is the question of the first half of the 21st century - and maybe the second half as well.
A bad interview, just got street cred.
And no, the U.S. government wouldn't shut down a network if the shoe were on the other foot. First of all, this is a foreign network. If Syrian TV gave good press to suicide bombers would (a) I know it and (b) it change anything?
A US network, on the other hand, would be accountable through the market -- market share would be lost, heads would roll and rival networks would keep stirring the drink. Well, keep stirring the drink until the government tried to make the network a First Amendment martyr.
I have to admit that I, like Joe, am on the fence. But I also agree that this assessment is too harsh. I think that we would probably get more sympathy from the Russians in our WoT if we were perceived to give their terrorism the same credence we give our own. It wasn't until recently that we unconditionally condemned Chechen terrorism, and even still we have a way of hedging about it. This interview only underscores that; and I'm sure that not only did it leave a significantly bad taste in a lot of Russians' mouths, it probably also didn't increase the sense of urgency for terrorism that we consider important.
Leaving to one side the freedom of speech vs promoting terrorism angle for a moment, I have to say that I'm somewhat puzzled as to why Russia is taking such a strident line on this issue. It certainly didn't react in such a strong manner when a British tv channel (Channel 4) showed a similar interview earlier this year - the interview in which Basayev, ironically and obscenely, posed in a t-shirt emblazened with the logo 'ANTI TERROR'.
I've said on my blog that if the Russian government had any sense (which it quite clearly doesn't much of the time) it would have actually recognised the ABC interview as a propaganda coup for itself. Here is Shamil Basayev, Russia's public enemy number one, publicly proclaiming himself as a terrorist. Not only that, but doing so on tv in a country whose public enemy number one (Bin Laden, in case anyone had forgotten) is also a self-proclaimed terrorist.
The Russian government (from their perspective, and not necessarily from the perspective of furthering the cause of peace in Chechnya) would have been much better served by using this as an opportunity to gain sympathy among the American public by saying, "look - we have a common enemy, a common cause". I'd wager that they could have persuaded many in the US to turn a blind eye, even to more actively support Russia's actions in Chechnya.
ABC, the network that celebrates the death of every American soldier, but only when the president is Republican. By citing ABC, you vitiated your own argument.
Maybe, Andy. then again, Putin may have simply paid attention to the media's pattern of consistently sucking up in order to gain or keep access. CNN prostituted itself in Iraq to keep that, and many networks have done the same in the Palestinian "Authority".
Russian developments matter on a business level in a way that many other places don't. Not being there is a problem, but formal arrangements with local Russian agencies that might get around this will be seen as... ah... risky on the Russian end if the government is annoyed. So ABC could end being really shut out here.
In addition to discouraging fellationary interviews with the terrorists who raped Russian schoolchildren, Putin may have also made a crude calculation. One that goes: leveraging his strong position on this issue to eviscerate ABC in Russia will also cause the rest of the foreign media with interest in Russian coverage to bow, scrape, and hold their silences a bit more in future.
It's a pattern he has followed domestically as well (Khorodovsky, anyone?), and our media have certainly given him every reason to believe that it will be effective here too.
I'm not sure that I'd bet against him, myself.
There's considerable evidence to support the assertion that Russian intelligence services are collaborating with Arab extremist organizations, just as they did during the first and second Cold Wars. See this article from Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper, by Alexander Nekrasov:
http://halldor2.blogspot.com/2005/08/chechnya-dirty-war.html
Good point, Joe, and RFE/RL, the day to day employers of the interviewer are already doing their utmost to distance themselves from him - claiming that what he does on his vacations has no relation to his employer.
But still, I think Putin has grabbed the wrong end of the stick. It's what he regularly does - it's probably what almost any government in Russia would regularly do to be honest. But, all the same, it's depressing to see Putin time after time eschew every opportunity to up Russia's status in the world, instead choosing every time to try and defend an ever weakening position.
Long term, I think Putin is going to discover (probably the hard way) what Tony Blair and his spin doctor Alistair Campbell discovered here in the UK - the more control one has over one's message, the less people believe it.
Joe,
A better question to ask is what is it about ABC and Western electronic media that makes a Russian tyrant right.
ABC got what it did the old fashioned way. It earned it.
ABC, like most Western liberal/leftist dominated institutions, is under the delusion that Freedom is Free.
That it isn't earned again and again in every generation.
That it can be abused without thought or reaction or retribution.
ABC is like someone screaming "fire" in a crowded theater when there wasn't one and later claiming that those killed in a panicked stampede afterwards wasn't their fault.
After Beslan, the only thing anyone in the world needed to know about Shamil Besayev is his current GPS coordinates.
ABC's abuse of press freedom has limited press freedom for everyone and there is no one to blame for it save ABC. They made their bed, now they have to lay in it.
The day the American networks have American military censors sitting in their news rooms, just like the American government did in WW2, will be welcomed by the American public for the same reasons Putin's move is welcomed in Russia today.
ABC's actions are making that day inevitable. Those who cannot exercise self-control with power will have it exercised upon them by others.
People who are that stone deaf cannot help but make that same mistake over and over, and blaming anyone and everyone else but themselves for the retribution that follows.
It looks to me like the Russians looked at our campaign finance laws, liked what they saw, and just extended the range a bit.
Coming next to a blog near you.
Free speech. It is not for Americans any more.
Trent,
The proper course is that the retribution comes from the people (fewer ad sales, not murder) not the government.
It is always a bad deal when the state decides who the stupid reporters are. The state is not smart enough for the job. The state also has conflicts of interest.