Asia

Political and economic pressures threaten independent publications in China

Posted on Leave a Comment

In 2014, the combination of political and economic pressures threatened the quality and market positions of two influential liberal publications, accoring to Freedom House.

In January, Beijing’s municipal propaganda department purchased a 49 percent stake in the Beijing News, supplementing an existing ownership stake held by a party mouthpiece, the Guangming Daily. The move increased direct official control over the paper, and some observers described it as a blow against the process of media commercialization. Separately, in the wake of a January 2013 strike by journalists and related public protests against censorship at the Southern Weekly, numerous editors and journalists have left the publication, disillusioned by the continuation of heightened censorship. These changes have decreased the prevalence and quality of the paper’s investigative stories, reportedly reducing its influence among elite readers and its attractiveness to advertisers.

However, as Freedom House highlights, most media revenue in China comes from advertising and subscriptions rather than government subsidies, even for many party papers. Some observers argue that commercialization has shifted the media’s loyalty from the party to the consumer, leading to tabloid-style and sometimes more daring reporting. Others note that the reforms have opened the door for economic incentives that serve to reinforce political pressure and self-censorship.

Source: Freedom of the Press Index 2015 – China
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/china#.VYvmu0v_9EQ

Pakistani authorities use advertising boycotts and bribes to manipulate the media

Posted on Leave a Comment

Provincial and national authorities have used advertising boycotts and bribes to put economic pressure on media outlets or provide incentives to keep journalists in check, Freedom House reports.

A ban on official advertisements with the Jang Group, whose Geo television station and various newspapers are known for their increasingly antigovernment editorial line, remained in effect in 2013. Both state and private interests, including the powerful intelligence agencies, reportedly pay for favorable press coverage, a practice that is exacerbated by the low salary levels of many journalists. In April 2013, the Supreme Court released a list of names of journalists, news agencies, and other entities that received payments totaling 1.7 billion rupees ($16 million) through a secret fund administered by the Pakistani government.

Source: Freedom of the Press 2014 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/pakistan#.VUHi10v_9ER

Chinese authorities pressure private advertisers in Hong Kong

Posted on Leave a Comment

Publications known for their criticism of the Chinese central government have reported difficulties in attracting advertisers in recent years because of fears among private business owners that the association would damage their economic interests on the mainland, Freedom House reports.

In 2014, as a confrontation over Hong Kong’s electoral reform loomed, a number of companies began pulling their advertisements from such outlets. In January, the head of AM730, one of Hong Kong’s few remaining print newspapers without a pro-Beijing editorial perspective or ties to the CCP, revealed that mainland Chinese companies had recently started to withdraw their advertising from his publication. Separately, Mark Simon, an executive at Next Media, announced in June 2014 that the British-based multinational banks HSBC and Standard Chartered had pulled millions of dollars in advertising from Apple Daily starting in late 2013. Simon attributed the decisions to pressure from Beijing, though the banks and the Chinese government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong denied the claim.

Apple Daily also suffered financially from efforts by thuggish Occupy Central counterprotesters to disrupt distribution of the paper and destroy copies en masse.

In July 2014, the prodemocracy news website House News shut down, with the owner citing political pressure and a lack of advertisers.

 

Source: Freedom of the Press Index 2015 – Hong Kong:

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/hong-kong#.VY0Rg0v_9EQ

Aggressive campaign by Azerbaijanian authorities against independent news media Azadliq

Posted on Leave a Comment

The newspaper Azadliq, widely recognised as one of the last remaining independent news outlets operating in Azerbaijan, is facing imminent closure. The aggressive campaign by the authorities against the newspaper and the denial of advertising shows the desire of the authorities to stifle the newspaper, according to the news site Contact.

A statement from the paper, quoted in the news site, outlined its “difficult financial situation”. “If the problems are not resolved in the shortest possible time, the publication of the newspaper will be impossible,” it read. Azadliq has long faced an uphill battle to stay in business.

In July 2014, Azadliq was forced to suspend print publication. Editor Rahim Haciyev told Index on Censorship that the government-backed distributor had refused to pay out the some 75,000 EUR it owed the paper, which meant it could not pay its printer.

The paper has also seen its finances squeezed through being banned from selling copies on tube stations and the streets of Baku, and being slapped with fines of some 73,500 EUR following defamation suits in 2013. The paper was also evicted from its offices in 2006 and authorities have repeatedly targeted its journalists.

Sources:

Milana Knezevic, “Azerbaijan: Independent newspaper Azadliq faces imminent closure” (25 June 2015) Index on Censorship

“Azadlig Newspaper Could Suspend Its Publication” (25 June 2015), Contact.az

Russia silences independent broadcaster

Posted on Leave a Comment

Broadcasting licenses of the award-winning channel TV-2 in Tomsk were withdrawn by the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRS) and the federal oversight body for telecommunications, as Freedom House reported in February 2015.

Its broadcasts were suspended for a month in spring 2014 due to technical difficulties of a local division of RTRS, the state monopoly that owns terrestrial air broadcasting facilities across the country; in November 2014, RTRS announced it would not renew TV-2’s contract after its expiration in December. Also, Roskomnadzor, the federal telecommunications agency, reversed its decision to renew its cable broadcasting license until 2025.

“The government’s haste and secrecy in silencing Tomsk’s only independent TV station shows that this broadcaster has become inconvenient to the state,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of the Freedom of the Press project at Freedom House. “TV-2 has become known in Tomsk, Russia, and abroad as a regional media outlet providing objective coverage of social, political and economic issues rarely covered by state-owned broadcasters. To lose such a champion is a serious blow to the dwindling freedom of speech in Russia.”

Russia is rated Not Free in Freedom in the World 2015, Not Free in Freedom of the Press 2014, Partly Free in Freedom on the Net 2014, and received a democracy score of 6.29 on a scale of 1-7, with 7 being the worst possible score, in Nations in Transit 2014. 

 

Read more

Jordan only allows ‘licensed’ news sites

Posted on Leave a Comment

News sites continue to be subject to closure in Jordan unless they accede to the licensing demands, as IPI denounces in an interview with the editor of the news site 7iber.com, Lina Ejellat. She, as other editors, explains in an interview that the law has had a significant effect on Jordan’s media landscape.

According to her: “Ever since the [licensing] law was debated in Parliament, we took a very strong position against the idea of requiring online media to get a government license. We believe that not even print media should be required to get a government license with the kind of conditions that come with that license, because we think that the idea of getting permission to start a media platform is something that is a form of censorship”.

Now nearly two years have passed since Jordanian authorities blocked over 200 websites for failing to obtain a license in accordance with a then-recent amendment to the country’s Press and Publications Law. The amendment requires online news sites to be licensed to operate as such and to have an editor affiliated with the Jordan Press Association, a professional syndicate founded in 1953 with the majority of its members working for state media. Notably, all editors of newly licensed sites are considered legally accountable not only for the journalistic content, but also for reader comments.

7iber and other news sites have tried relentlessly to circumvent the ban by switching domains, but after being blocked repeatedly and risking fines, they have found no other solution than applying for a license.

Read more

Corruption continues to take place in Mongolia among the media

Posted on Leave a Comment

ASIA – MONGOLIA – BRIBERY

Journalists accept free lunches, dinners, stays at holiday resorts, presents from members of parliament, cars, houses, political posts, or trips to Korea or China, according to the Asian Media Barometer study dedicated to Mongolia.

Up to the early 2000s, bribery and corruption used to take place openly. Since then, the number of cases appears to be more limited, but the report notes that the diminishment is because corruption is being practised in a more secretive manner.

Read more

The Thai state allegedly manipulates advertising to control editorial content

Posted on Leave a Comment

ASIA – THAILAND – ADVERTISING AND INFLUENCE

Although the advertising market in Thailand is fairly large, the state has established methods of interfering with editorial independence through manipulation of advertising, according to Freedom House. The state advertisement budget provides private outlets with incentives for the dissemination of pro-government information and viewpoints. Relationships between politically inclined media owners and government officials also facilitate the control of editorial content.

Read more

Alleged China’s pressure to prevent banks from advertising in critical media

Posted on Leave a Comment

ASIA – HONG KONG  – ADVERTISING AND INFLUENCE

Two major British banks stopped advertising with one of the city’s biggest newspapers in what may be an escalation of pressure by mainland China on Hong Kong’s independent news media, according to The New York Times.

The commercial director of Next Media Limited, Mark Simon, said two London-based banks, HSBC and Standard Chartered, ended long-time advertising relationships in late 2013 with the paper, Apple Daily, after being told to do so by the Chinese government.

As reported by Simon, a representative from HSBC told him that the decision to stop advertising came after the deputy director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Yang Jian, told the bank to end its advertising relationship.

Next Media Limited, a newspaper, television and Internet company based in Hong Kong and Taiwan, is known for its strong advocacy of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.

Read more