Washington’s Press Freedom Spring

Cherry blossoms are hardly the only flowers blooming this week in Washington. Press freedom bills are having their best week in memory. Tuesday night the House passed a “shield bill” to help protect reporters from revealing their sources. On Wednesday two House members introduced a new bill, named after the late Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, that would, among other things, require an annual State Department report to congress on press freedom conditions worldwide.

The two spring initiatives have broken ground little more than one month before May 3 or World Press Freedom Day. Designated back in 1993 by the United Nations General Assembly, the day has been officially celebrated by the United States every year since 1999. President Clinton and President Bush have each made proclamations on World Press Freedom Day. The antecedents call to mind what President Barack Obama may say or do this year on May 3.

“This is a problem that’s worldwide, it’s not isolated to Kenya,” then-Senator Obama told reporters in Kenya after visiting the offices of The Standard, Nairobi’s oldest daily newspaper, and one of several Kenyan papers whose offices were raided by authorities during a crackdown in 2006. “But it’s something that all of us have to continually press on governments around the world that we expect the press to provide transparency and accountability to the people to whom governments are ultimately accountable so people are well-informed.”

Accountability is the metal of the shield bill, according to its sponsors. “This is not about protecting reporters,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). “It is about protecting the public’s right to know.” Some groups like the American Civil Liberties Union back the bill while arguing that its current language is too narrow and would not protect bloggers and others who may provide news without necessarily earning a living from it; The Free Flow of Information Act defines a journalist as someone who regularly gathers information and who earns a substantial portion of their livelihood from doing so.

A broad coalition of media organizations and groups including the Committee to Protect Journalists back the bill. “Now, fewer journalists will face jail or bankruptcy for doing their jobs,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the leading independent watchdog to focus exclusively on U.S. press freedom matters including court and information access issues, to Associated Press. (AP supports the legislation as does the New York Times Co., National Public Radio and many others.) “More importantly,” added Dalglish, “the chances will be greater that the public will receive truthful, independently gathered information.”

The Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, meanwhile, was introduced this week by the same Rep. Pence along with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Three years ago, Rep. Schiff founded the Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press whose co-chairs are Rep. Pence as well as Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT). Congress already receives an annual human rights report from the State Department. Besides being in most cases highly professional and including select but important information from independently-funded, non-governmental watchdogs like CPJ, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, Foggy Bottom’s human rights reports also include a limited but significant press freedom section in every country chapter.

Requiring the State Department to provide a separate report on press freedom, as the Daniel Pearl bill would do, would no doubt elevate the issue’s profile; religious freedom is currently the only subject covered by Foggy Bottom’s annual human rights report that is also the subject of its own annual report to congress. Several career Foreign Service Officers have long privately told CPJ that a similarly separate press freedom report might be redundant unless enough resources were behind it to also expand the degree of press freedom research.

Another option, one recently advocated by CPJ, might be to finally establish an Office of Press Freedom within the State Department. Foggy Bottom currently has official offices for religious freedom, anti-Semitism as well as labor and corporate responsibility. But there is no such office for press freedom, even though the topic itself is displayed just as prominently as the above issues on the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor website.

All this leaves press freedom advocates in and out of government with plenty to talk about this spring. One thing is already clear. The view at least this week from Washington has rarely looked brighter.

Note: CPJ is a worldwide watchdog that accepts no government funds as it defends the rights of journalists everywhere to report the news without fear of reprisal.