Crackdown an affront to democracy - Protecting a free press

A VIBRANT, independent, and trustworthy press is like anything else we take for granted, until it’s gone. 

Even at a moment of relentless growth in social media and citizen journalism, the traditional press, on whichever platform it operates, still plays a pretty important role in most liberal democracies. That role is even more important but far more dangerous under less tolerant regimes.

The credibility of the press is essential, without that primary quality it is only so much hot air. The ever-more challenging balancing act between commercial viability — or survival — and comprehensive, well-resourced journalism is pressing too. Another reality is the growing indifference the world’s demagogues show to the idea of the freedom of the press, which is nothing more than formalised, organised free speech. A free press is seen as, and is, a threat to those who abuse it as soon as they assume power.

Over the weekend Turkish police fired tear gas to break up protests outside the offices of opposition paper Zaman a day after authorities took control of the publication. Istanbul police used tear gas, water cannons, and plastic bullets to disperse hundreds of demonstrators at the headquarters of one of Turkey’s largest circulation newspapers. This is just the last in a long line of attacks on the Turkish press since President Erdo?gan was elected almost two years ago.

Since August 2014 when Erdo?gan assumed the presidency, 1,845 criminal cases have been opened against Turks for insulting the president. If convicted, critics face up to four years in prison.

If Europe was not so dependent on Turkey, and prepared to offer the country billions, to act as a buffer zone between it and hundreds of thousands of refugees determined to reach Europe the EU might be far more vocal in its condemnation and defer again Turkish hopes of becoming a full member of the EU. Accusations of hypocrisy are hard to refute.

President Erdo?gan is not by any means alone in his contempt for the idea of a free press — or in the unfortunate belief that attacking and weakening the press will win them support. Donald Trump regularly attacks America’s press, accusing them of being dishonest. Revised libel laws are necessary, he claims, to fight what he described as the “dishonesty” of major American newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Trump makes little or no effort to conceal his contempt for the press. Travelling journalists are cordoned off from the crowd at his rallies where he encourages supporters to shout them down — which, in their over-riding, blind anger, they do.

Our outgoing government deserve credit for restoring most of the powers shorn from the Freedom of Information Act by Fianna Fáil, but the tremendous concentration of press ownership remains an issue.

Elements of the press can sometimes, like individuals in all sections of society, be preposterous or vain, foolish or dishonest but, no matter how bumptious a free press occasionally is, it far better than the censored, shackled press imagined by Trump, imposed by Erdo?gan, Putin, and many other tyrants who rely on unchallenged public ignorance to sustain their power.