Opinion: Longtime US welcome to foreign journalists now under threat
As globe-trotting journalists, we learn a routine for covering news under dictatorships.
In such countries, it’s usually difficult to obtain press-visas for more than short periods of time. If longer-stays for accredited foreign journalists might be available, reporters know they’re always under surveillance and risk being kicked out for the slightest critical report.
Now the current U.S. administration has issued orders through the Department of Homeland Security to impose severe visa-limitations on working foreign journalists’ stays in the USA.
Here’s the drill often followed for foreign news coverage in countries with limited press access:
Hustle to obtain whatever short-term visa allowed to get into that country. Rush in for the dateline, ever ready to leave fast.
Understand most news organizations’ expectation that your story fit prevailing, negative narratives about the place, especially perpetuating stereotypical images of its dictator.
File a sensational story to claim for on-the-ground coverage. Report little or no nuance — no complexity in story-telling.
Maintain focus on the authoritarian ruler as national symbol. Land an interview with photos showing the autocrat performing as expected. Foreign correspondents learn dictators’ smiles usually won’t make the news-cut.
Grab as many critical stories as possible in limited time. If managing to stay longer, know you can be deported instantaneously for any story upsetting the ruler’s court.
Caveat: Expulsion from a dictatorial country may be viewed by journalists as a badge of honor for heroic reporting, but be aware many media-owners won’t be pleased if it hurts sales there.
By contrast, international journalists working in press freedom-honoring countries expect to report without much fear of censorship or being expelled for a critical story. Accredited foreign press can often obtain working visas at least a year renewable. Democratic leaders recognize longer-staying reporters can gain deeper understanding about the country beyond sensationalism.
For foreign coverage of the U.S., traditionally, New York City and Washington, DC, have long been world centers welcoming international news organizations, with other cities, such as Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco, viewed as ideal journalistic hubs for regional coverage.
Now, that American welcome for foreign journalists is under threat by the U.S.DHS visa order.
“Proposed journalist visa restrictions would have catastrophic consequences for press freedom,” Reporters Without Borders RSF-USA’s executive director Clayton Weimers warned.
The U.S. Foreign Press Center with offices for accredited international journalists in the nation’s capital has long been a diplomatic display of this country’s historic claim to protecting the Constitution’s First Amendment right of freedom of the press. In the same building in Washington, DC, the National Press Club has served over a century promoting a free press, including welcoming the international press corps.
“Foreign journalists are not guests in our democracy — they are witnesses to it,” NPC president Mike Balsamo said in a statement. “Their reporting has told the story of America through world wars, civil rights struggles, and the end of the Cold War. This rule would make that work harder, not easier.”
Notably, on longer-stay visas, resident foreign journalists tend to report more objectively and fairly about that country, not as on short-stays seeking world alarming headlines.
As a U.S. reporter who worked globally, including years’ residence as a foreign journalist based in London covering world news, earlier as the first foreign correspondent ever accredited in Maldives, and later based three years in Cairo, plus various lengths of journalistic stays on assignment in many other countries, I experienced vast differences in covering news under democratic and dictatorial governments.
New anti-press freedom actions limiting foreign journalists in the U.S. will also work against American journalists abroad.
“The proposed regulations could not only damage free _expression_ for the foreign press based here but also American interests—if they prompt retaliation from foreign governments to similarly impose undue restrictions on American correspondents living abroad,” the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the United States (AFPC-USA) warned in a news release.
Whatever this American government’s intent in seeking to impose severe limits on working members of the press, foreign journalists might soon begin to follow the routine for covering news in countriesunder dictatorships.Let’s hope that won’t become world journalists’ standard approach to covering news in the USA.
Elizabeth “Liz” Colton, author, Emmy Award winning journalist who has worked in all news media, mass-communications professor, diplomat, now teaches diplomacy and media for UNITAR and partner international universities. Currently, she serves pro-bono as board-chair of Reporters Without Borders/Reporters Sans Frontieres RSF-USA.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Longtime US welcome to foreign journalists now under threat