2018
May
16
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

May 16, 2018
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Monitor correspondents have often shared anecdotes about behind-the-scenes experiences with readers. Some are humorous: A pronunciation error recently resulted in sitting down with the wrong (and puzzled) source. Others surface the emotional and physical challenges of reporting events like Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

But when I attended the International Press Institute’s annual gathering of international news editors Monday, a darker and growing side of reporting came up: harassment. The Committee to Protect Journalists lays out some of the heaviest tolls, including murder with impunity, and the 262 correspondents imprisoned globally in 2017. But there are less visible developments. Reasonable reporters have been manhandled out of political rallies, aggressively challenged at national borders, and targeted online with sexualized threats. An attitude creeps in: If journalists are under attack, isn’t it really their fault? Don’t they all have an agenda anyway?

Most journalists are motivated to inform, accurately. If they are gradually silenced or young people decide the profession’s costs outweigh benefits, what happens? In Burundi, critical coverage of a referendum Thursday on whether the president can govern indefinitely is disappearing as publications are shut down and journalists jailed. In Hungary, a national opposition daily is the most recent casualty of an increasingly authoritarian atmosphere. In the United States, legitimate work is dismissed as “fake,” giving members of a democracy a pass on shouldering a key responsibility: being informed.

The many news outlets that produce such work take complaints seriously and are trying to be more transparent about how they work. It's worth thinking about how to engage with them on that journey.

Now to our five stories, including a global report on the impact of the US's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and how Ohio is trying to help businesses and potential employees overcome obstacles posed by opioid use.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Global report

Yves Herman/Reuters
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif leaves the European Council headquarters in Brussels May 15.
Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor
Flying High, a nonprofit that helps those dealing with substance abuse get back on their feet, offers a 15-week welding training program in Youngstown, Ohio. Trainee Kennedy Stewart, who was nearing completion of her course, hones her skills April 30.
Venezuela was the first country to outlaw capital punishment, in 1863. It wasn't until the late 20th century that the idea gained global traction.
SOURCE:

Amnesty International

|
Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Breakthroughs

Ideas that drive change

The Monitor's View

AP Photo
Argentina's President Mauricio Macri attends a lunch at the government house Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in March. His government is seeking a financing deal with the International Monetary Fund.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Philippe Wojazer/Reuters
Migrants’ tents are lined up along the Quai de Valmy of the trendy Canal Saint-Martin neighborhood in Paris. Aid groups warned of the drowning danger to migrants after two young men were recovered from the canal this month, according to Reuters. 'France, which has received far fewer asylum-seekers over the past years than neighboring Germany, has nevertheless been struggling with tackling new arrivals,' said the report.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by , Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow, the Monitor's Peter Grier will help us sort through everything that's happened since special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed one year ago to investigate possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election. 

More issues

2018
May
16
Wednesday
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