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Thursday, October 18, 2018

Why they kill journalists: The Khashoggi case: Not ‘going away without answers’


“I am a person who believes in asking questions, in not conforming for the sake of conforming. I am deeply dissatisfied – about so many things, about injustice, about the way the world works – and in some ways, my dissatisfaction drives my storytelling.” 
–– ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 


Sometimes even I am surprised by the people I write about. Here's one: a vexatious litigant and a bogus shrink, who has convictions for pretending to be a doctor, has been sprung using forged documents AGAIN www.smh.com.au/national… via @smh

Saudi Charm Offensive Got Hollywood Production Hopes Up. Now Those Hopes Are Dashed

“It's absolutely going to have a profound impact. There’s no question. Everyone was lined up on the tarmac to make films there and make financing deals. That party, overnight, is going to be over.” … Read More


For 14 years, Kathleen Carroll ran The Associated Press with the clear, direct, grounded language for which the news service is known. As chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists, she still doesn't mince words.

Asked about Jamal Khashoggi and the slayings of other journalists in recent years, Carroll answered simply: “Someone feels they have the right to kill someone because they disagree with them. ... If these murders go unanswered, the killers are further empowered."

Carroll praised the Washington Post's "multi-pronged approach" in covering the assassination of Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident and Post columnist. She also credited Reuters with its sustained effort to keep the public focused on the imprisonment in Myanmar of two of its reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who documented the nation's genocide of its minority Rohingya population.

The stakes are high. “If somebody doesn’t create a fuss, then it doesn’t matter,” Carroll said.
Khashoggi's family on Tuesday called for an independent international inquiry into the death of the Saudi journalist, who had been critical of the nation's impulsive, volatile 33-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The reported killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul prompted media partners and business leaders to skip a Saudi business conference, and at least three U.S. public relations firms and a think tank have cut ties with the Saudi government.
The Post launched an ad campaign urging authorities and readers to demand answers into the Khashoggi slaying. That's the right focus, Carroll said. Everyone, she said, should be asking: “What happened to him? And what will happen to those who did what they did to them?”
Powerful figures in the past year have silenced a host of investigative reporters, including Daphne Caruana Galizia of Malta, Viktoria Marinova of Bulgaria, Ján Kuciak of Slovakia and Mario Gomez Sanchez, one of many journalists slain in Mexico.
Transparency International says 9 of 10 journalists slain since 2012 have died in nations it deems very corrupt. The contract killing of Kuciak and his fiancée, both 27, prompted Slovakia's prime minister to step down. 
"When a journalist is murdered, all of society suffers," Margaret Atwood wrote Tuesday, the first anniversary of Caruana Galizia's assassination in a car bomb in Malta. "We lose our right to know, to speak, to learn."
Post columnist Anne Applebaum said changes in technology have increased pressure on corrupt politicians — and on journalists who expose wrongdoing. Those changes make it easier for the officials to stash money overseas, but also can enable journalists to track the funds. Autocrats used to be able to muzzle the dissemination of news in their own country, but technology allows anyone with a smartphone in Saudi Arabia to read what Khashoggi wrote in the Post.
Years ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists would train reporters in trouble spots how to evade kidnappers, Carroll said. These days, trainings are just as likely to focus on government spyware trying to infect your phone and computer, or gain access to your online accounts.
The root of the violence against journalists, Carroll said, is the mentality that people think they can kill another — and wager that they can get away with it. 
Before Caruana Galizia was slain, not only did she get death threats, her bank account was frozen; her house was set on fire; her family’s pet dogs were killed. Even in death, the Maltese journalist's memory has been sabotaged, her reputation tarnished, her heirs sued, Atwood wrote in The Guardian.
"Since her assassination," Atwood wrote, "a memorial that was erected as a protest for justice in her case has been repeatedly demolished by government workers." Activists guarded the memorial Saturday night and Sunday, when hundreds of people turned out to honor the journalist.

Quick hits

BIG CHANGE AT NPR: Houston Chronicle executive editor Nancy Barnes is moving to the public broadcaster as its new senior vice president of news and editorial director. "Nancy has the news judgment to guide our storytelling, believes in the power of the NPR mission, sees the tremendous opportunity in unifying NPR and member station newsrooms, and has the business acumen to think creatively about how we can bring our journalism to even more eyes and ears," said Jarl Mohn, NPR’s president and CEO. Michael Oreskes, NPR’s former SVP for news, quit in November following sexual harassment allegations. The interim news head, Chris Turpin, will become vice president for editorial innovation and newsroom development. In Houston, Chronicle president and publisher John McKeon said a national search will be conducted to replace Barnes, who also was executive vice president and editor of Hearst Texas Newspapers. Barnes told her paper that she was approached by NPR in May and accepted the job last week.
STIFLING: The literary group PEN America has sued President Trump, claiming that he has stifled First Amendment rights — and that is hurting America’s writers. So far, the group is not asking news publishers to get involved, the AP’s Hillel Italie reports.
CHEROKEE NATION NOT PLEASED: Let’s just say Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test didn’t go down well. “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said.
ONCE BURNED: This is agony season for FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver, watching midterm election predictions abound. “Media understanding about probability, margin of error and uncertainty is very poor,” he tells Margaret Sullivan.
PUTTING THE $ in READER$: BuzzFeed is starting a monthly book club, connecting its 160,000-person book newsletter list with a Facebook chat group and a deal from Amazon. Here’s the pitch. The Atlantic and New York Magazine also have bulked up their book verticals. (h/t Shan Wang)
IF AT FIRST: So the blockchain cryptocurrency-based journalism platform Civil failed to reach its goal for capitalization, but said it would try for another, less complicated token sale. Meanwhile, none of the 14 newsrooms seeded by the company would lose any investment, officials told Nieman Lab's Laura Hazard Owen.
 

The reported murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly ordered by Saudi Arabia’s violent, volatile 33-year-old crown prince, has created a perfect storm of outrage.
A PR firm and a think tank ditched contracts. High-profile business leaders quit working with the Saudis. Media partners deserted an upcoming Saudi business conference. A bipartisan U.S. Congress called for punishment of Saudi Arabia.
And messages abounded from journalists such as New York Times diplomatic writer Peter Baker, who said the Khashoggi inquiry isn't "going away without answers."
Adding to the momentum: Disclosures of dubious Donald Trump and Jared Kushner ties with Mohammed bin Salman. The NYT's Nick Kristof dubbed him a mad prince. The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt asked why any retired U.S. diplomat or military officer would want to work for a murderer.

On what would have been the journalist's 60th birthday, heartbroken accounts emerged from Khashoggi's friends and from his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.

Experts say the incident and intense coverage might provide an awakening to young people worldwide of Saudi Arabia’s sordid practices, including the deadly Yemen war and its blistering bullying of Qatar. For many millennials and Gen Zers, “this horrific incident” will be first time Saudi actions are on their minds, tweeted Farah Pandith, the State Department’s first-ever special representative to Muslim communities under Barack Obama and an NSC official under George W. Bush.
Pandith says younger consumers will “ask businesses what they stand for." She wonders if the Khashoggi crisis will translate into companies asking "What is our red line?"

Developments in the case:
— If you only have time for one story to figure out this dissident journalist and his importance, I'd suggest this look at Khashoggi and his overarching drive to get the truth out. It's written by longtime intelligence columnist David Ignatius, and covers decades of Khashoggi's life. (Washington Post) 

— The Saudi leader who ordered the operation has admired Putin’s way of getting away with intimidating, deflecting and denying objective facts to his own people. (The Guardian)
— Mohammed bin Salman's dark, bullying side. (The Washington Post)
— The Saudi stock market plunged after Trump suggested "severe punishment" if the oil-rich nation is found to be behind the killing. (AP)
— The Brookings Institution joined tech companies, lobbyists, media partners and international leaders in turning away from a Saudi Arabia business conference. Those ditching from the media include Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, The Economist, Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.  Who hasn't ditched yet? Fox Business Network. (NYT)
— Related: 9 of 10 assassinations of journalists since 2012 came in nations deemed deeply corrupt, says a report by Transparency International. (Foreign Policy)

Jamal Khashoggi murder suspect studied forensic medicine in Australia in 2015

A doctor suspected of killing and dismembering dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi trained at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Melbourne ...







Suspect in Saudi journo's death was in Vic

A Saudi doctor named as a suspect in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi spent time training at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.




Saudi autopsy expert ‘who butchered Jamal Khashoggi’ was trained in Britain

The man accused of butchering Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is a doctor who trained in Britain - it has been revealed.
Daily Mail




Doctor suspected killing Saudi journalist Khashoggi trained in Melbourne sponsored Saudi Government

The doctor suspected of killing and dismembering a Saudi journalist, trained at a facility in Melbourne on sponsorship from the Saudi Government, reports claim.




Marijuana in Canada

by  Tyler Cowen 

Dispensaries selling various strains of marijuana and high-potency extracts, called budder and shatter, have opened on main streets. Regular pop-up markets like the one in Hamilton have sprouted, to the point vendors can attend five a week in the Toronto area. 
Cannabis lounges have expanded, offering not just a place to smoke and take hits, but classes on growing cannabis at home and making cannabis creams. Cannabis-infused catering has gone so mainstream that the national association of food service businesses, Restaurants Canada, is hosting a seminar on it. Cannabis tour companies have opened, as have cannabis “bud-and-breakfasts.”
Universities and colleges across the country have introduced courses on cannabis business, investing, retail and cultivation.
Newspapers, which have hired full-time cannabis reporters, have published cannabis sections, filled with editorial ads by government-licensed producers advertising lines of cannabis-infused beverages, coffee and dog chew toys they are developing for when such products become legal.
…Ms. Roach see cannabis becoming almost like corn in its derivative form, threaded through everyday Canadian consumer products. Although people eat a minimal amount of corn each day, she said, “there’s corn syrup in everything.”
That is from Catherine Porter at the NYT.  I increasingly believe that decriminalization will prove a more stable solution than outright legalization.
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