Some of the most important challenges that journalists face are the killings, kidnapping, threats, the new antiterrorist laws and legal frameworks to control the media. Another challenge is how to face corruption in the profession and how to better use the language. Also, women journalists face special challenges in certain countries such as Bangladesh.
In Afghanistan and the Middle East, the killings, kidnappings, threats and imprisonment of journalists are the biggest challenge. Jamila Omar, investigative journalist and lecturer from Afghanistan, pointed out also to the restrictions of movement and the self-censorship that derives from the threats to afghan journalists. Jamil Azar, senior announcer and member of the editorial board of Al Jazeera, explained how the network has become a target in many places of the Middle East, journalists have been killed and imprisoned for doing their job. The new antiterrorist and security laws are also having an impact on the profession, especially when journalists are imprisoned for interviewing a terrorist. On her part, Blanca Medina explained how the media became the enemy for the Venezuelan government, and how Venezuelan journalists face besides threats to physical integrity, also new regulations compiled in five laws to control the media. The closing of Radio Caracas Television to establish a new public channel is one of the examples of the challenges to the media.
Suggestions:
• To develop networks to support each other in immediate issues such as killing of journalists, closing of stations or the threats to physical integrity
• Put pressure on the governments to rescue kidnapped journalists
• To develop solidarity from within/ to strengthen national union of journalists
• Promote international solidarity, protests for killings, kidnapping and threats to the press
• Create workshops on the safety of journalists/ to develop affordable special training for journalists covering war, how to cope with kidnapping/ start with online courses
• To monitor and follow up on the judicial cases of killings and threats to journalists/ prepare regular reports and pressure for public reports
• To take protective measures such as taking journalists who face threats out of the country for short periods of time
• To create or strengthen the journalistic institutions at national level to investigate crimes against journalists
• To develop post traumatic stress disorder treatment
• To make campaigns to change laws, to improve the legal framework to protect journalists
• Promote exchanges between journalists from developed and underdeveloped countries to take ideas to improve law frameworks
• To create an award on diversity or to promote the fight on corruption
• To adopt gender sensitive understanding of threats to women journalists/ to focus more on women issues
• To create a global press freedom violation’s index, a web portal where you can find the statistics on killed and imprisoned journalists, as well as harrasment on the media all over the world
• To develop an email list with the forum participants to share alerts
• To build cooperation exchanges to help each other to run stories from distant places in order to improve our understanding of other cultures
• To do a study on how new media can be used to promote citizen journalism.
• Fight against corruption by promoting standards of ethics
• For the next conference, to use case studies to discuss how different media deal with the issues