56
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ISSUE 1 2014
|
THE CHANNEL
ur goal is to provide
uncensored,
verifiable fact
based journalism
in the context of
peoples who live in
nations or regions
where uncensored journalism
about those regions is under
repression from authoritarian or
semi‐authoritarian regimes. This is
what we do and have been doing
for 60 years. We have expanded our
reach to the Middle East, also to
Afghanistan and Pakistan, and all in
all we have 29 separate languages
for which programming content is
created daily and distributed by as
many means as are available to us
from shortwave, which is from
another era but still listened to by
millions, all the way through to
social media of every sort.
I have spent my entire life in
journalism and I believe that
uncensored information is a
fundamental partner to the creation
of democratic societies that have
sufficient information to be able to
make responsible decisions about
what kind of leaderships, what
kind of parliamentary democracies
they want. It has to do with local
journalism at the community level
so that mayors and city councillors
can be informed and then an
informed electorate can muster up
the energy and the commitment to
use uncensored information to
achieve the best possible results
which are within their reach.
Where are you making a difference?
I believe that every one of the
languages that we programme in
are essential to our goal because
across these lands the outcomes of
how they will proceed into their
futures are dependent upon access
to independent uncensored news
and information about the current
affairs in their nations and in the
regions nearby. If we look at Radio
Azadi in Afghanistan (over 62%
market share) we are there because
there are issues there arising every
day which challenge civil society.
Failure to achieve peaceful
resolutions of these issues often
results in violence. It seems to me
that quality journalism presents a
model for many voices coming
together to discuss – not to diatribe,
to explore – not to exploit, and that
model becomes the nucleus for a
protected area where people can
reason together.
In the early 90’s the violence in
former Yugoslavia was caused by
essentially ethnic based issues. We
created an integrated language
service in which Serbs, Croatians and
Bosnians established one nomen‐
clature they all agreed to and went
on air together inter‐changeably
using their languages as they did
before violence broke out. Within
six months that service became the
most listened to external radio
service in that part of the Balkans.
Which platforms do you use?
The service is at different rates of
transition. We have tried to tailor
our offerings and our content to the
platforms that are in use country by
country. We have nearly a
thousand indigenous, independent,
courageous, dedicated journalists
across this whole region that we
serve – they now have the means to
bring back through us to their
fellow citizens audio, video and
texts. In the case of the Navalny
trial [anti‐corruption blogger and
opposition activist], we were live in
the courtroom in Kirov streaming
words and pictures to the world
and to Russians across Russia. A
number of Russian Moscow based
channels used excerpts crediting
Liberty’s live journalism from the
Navalny courtroom 1,000km away.
We see a huge future in video
and live video and we are very
eager here to move with support
from our board to expand our
video content. Video however is
extremely expensive and our goal is
to find a way to do it which is very
smart and very modern but also
keeps the values. The legacy is
hugely important to us; it is a
relationship of values not of
transactions and that is the
difference between this kind of an
organisation and commercial
networks. People think of Liberty
as part of the lives of their families.
What motivates journalists to join?
Our journalists come under incredible
pressure. Khadija Ismayilova in
Azerbaijan is just one example.
Hungary 1956: students marching through the
streets with loudspeakers on a van broadcasting
Radio Free Europe, a banned American-funded
news service. Azerbaijan 2014: RFE/RL banned
from the country’s domestic airwaves since
2009. Has the world not moved on? We asked
Kevin Klose, who is returning as President and
CEO to a broadcaster he first joined in 1992, how
he sees the task ahead
O
WEWILL
KNOW
WHEN IT’STIMETOGO
We are
creating an
authentic
space
where
citizens
can watch
and
participate
“
”
