Media organizations petitioned President Barack Obama to prevent federal agencies from withholding information from the public. The groups voiced their dissatisfaction with a list of grievances including agencies’ practice of vetting interview questions in advance and monitoring interviews. (Poynter Institute, August 12, 2015, by James Warren)
And this week Reporters Without Borders wrote a letter to the Defense Department objecting to their Law of War Manual released in June that potentially includes journalists in the category “unprivileged belligerents.”That would seem to deprive journalists of the protections as civilians that they had traditionally enjoyed. (Reporters Without Borders, August 11, 2015)
A New York Times editorial, August 10, 2015, said the Defense Department needed to revoke the sections of the manual pertaining to journalists. The document stated that reporters were engaged in activities that were similar to collecting intelligence or spying. The editorial stated that language would make journalists’ work more dangerous and difficult and prone to censorship.
Critics of the manual claim that countries such as Russia, China and even allies like Egypt could use the Pentagon document to justify actions on American journalists. (The Guardian, August 11, 2015, by Alan Yuhas)
The Committee to Protect Journalists thinks the vague language in the manual gives unfettered license to the military to detain reports without due process. (Reason, August 11, 2015, by Scot Shackford)