Duas importantes tendências no exercício do jornalismo em diversas partes do mundo foram identificadas e detalhadas por organizações de direitos civis nos Estados Unidos e publicadas em sites como a rede Global Investigative Journalism Network e o Journal of Democracy.
As duas tendências são o aumento das pressões de governos sobre organizações da sociedade civil e o uso pelo Departamento de Defesa dos Estados Unidos de órgãos da imprensa em países afetados pelo terrorismos em estratégias publicitárias contra entidades como o Estado Islâmico e a al Qaida.
Segundo a Global Investigative Journalism Network, entre 2004 e 2010 mais de 50 países, especialmente na África e Ásia endureceram as restrições impostas a organizações não governamentais (ONGs) como controle de doações vindas do exterior. As ONGs preocupadas com direitos humanos e liberdade de informação e expressão foram as mais duramente atingidas.
Estas limitações coincidiram com a tendência identificada por Douglas Rutzen, num artigo onde ele analisa a relação entre as estratégias publicitárias do Pentágono e o aumento dos subsídios a emissoras de rádio, jornais locais e sites na internet em países como Síria, Iraque, Etiópia, Irã, Líbano, Afeganistão, Paquistão e emiratos, contrários ao Estado Islâmico. O artigo “Authoritarianism Goes Global (II): Civil Society Under Assault”, publicado pelo Journal of Democracy, destaca o caso da Etiópia, que passou a controlar severamente todas as iniciativas de imprensa independente , inviabilizando a cobertura jornalística das atividades dos serviços secretos norte-ameircano neste pais africano.
Publicamos a seguir extratos (em inglês) do informe “The Pentagon, Propaganda and the Independent Media”, publicado pelo Global Investigative Journalim Nertwork:
The U.S. Defense Department has long had an uneasy relationship with independent media. On the one hand, it needs the trusted voice of media to portray U.S. military activities in a positive light, both to maintain the support of citizens at home and to help fight its battles abroad. And to the extent that U.S. military intervention serves as a lever to encourage and create democracies, the support of free and independent media in those countries should be part of the plan. On the other hand, an unfettered media may be critical of the U.S. military and its allies, making its operations more difficult, losing it support at home or overseas, and even giving comfort to the enemy.
Such tensions came into sharp focus during the heat of the U.S. military’s participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when the U.S. military felt the need to use media to shape the battlefield. While the U.S. State Department and USAID, as well as European governments and NGOs, were working to create free and independent media outlets in these countries, the U.S. military’s information operations at times were at odds with their efforts.
Concern mounts over “an increasing shift away from supporting genuinely independent media towards what might be termed counter-propaganda”
A report issued by the Center for International Media Assistance in 2010, The Pentagon, Information Operations, and International Media Development, covered in great detail information operations activities of the Department of Defense (DoD) that caused tensions and difficulties for independent media and its developers. The activities included creating “good news” stories under fictitious bylines and placing them in media in Iraq; paying handsome sums to fledgling radio stations in Afghanistan to run military messaging, in some cases eroding their credibility; creating eight news and information websites targeting global conflict regions, an action thought by some to have veered way too far into the realm of public diplomacy, the province of the State Department or the Broadcasting Board of Governors. These and other activities occurred while—and perhaps because—the information operations apparatus at DoD was becoming an octopus with tentacles in a dozen agencies, with no one person in charge, and a budget that was nearly impossible to track and parse.
O texto integral do informe “The Pentagon, Propaganda and the Independent Media”, pode ser acessado aqui.
O texto integral do artigo “Authoritarianism Goes Global (II): Civil Society Under Assault” está disponível aqui.
