Poor job prospects and a deeply divided society are stopping Spanish journalists covering certain subjects, reports Silvia Nortes
Silencing the Spanish media
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CATEGORY: Magazine
Complicity
What role do we play in our own free speech issues? This is the question we pose in the Index on Censorship spring 2020 magazine. From the journalists who self-censor and the academics who don’t stand up to their arrested colleagues to the average person who shares lots of data with a third party, we are all playing a role in giving away some of our basic rights, information and privacy. Whether we don’t realise we are doing it, we don’t have much other choice or we simply think the trade is worth making, we can be complicit in letting our own rights erode. The ways we are complicit are multiple. Noelle Mateer offers a personal account about living in Beijing under a landlord who embraced the growing trend for video cameras at home. Nathalie Rothschild introduces us to the Swedes who are willingly having microchips inserted under their skin. Is this a great way to keep your own data very, very close to you or a gateway to further data exploitation? Helen Lewis talks about how our fears to enter certain heated discussions might be making vulnerable groups more vulnerable. And Mark Frary tests out the apps to see just how much we are giving away. Elsewhere Stephen Woodman talks to Colombian journalists living in fear of drug cartels. We also publish extracts from a Brazilian documentary that was censored by Jair Bolsonaro, plus a short written exclusively for the magazine by Najwa Bin Shatwan.
Freedom of expression in India from The Emergency to the present, a reading list
A reading list of articles from the Index archives covering press freedom, shows of patriotism and online trolling
In the name of liberty…
Editor-in-chief Rachael Jolley argues in the winter 2019 issue of Index on Censorship magazine that a new generation of democratic leaders is actively eroding essential freedoms
El futuro es robótico
Generar noticias locales por ordenador es una práctica habitual. Mark Frary plantea si la automatización es la única manera que tiene la industria de sobrevivir.
Playlist: The Big Noise
The winter 2019 Index on Censorship magazine reports on how macho male leaders around the world are silencing their critics through attacking the media, censoring and spreading disinformation.
Quiz: Which macho man said what?
Take our quiz to find out if you can tell one macho man from another from some of their more controversial quotes.
Podcast: The Big Noise with the Real Donald Drumpf, Leonardo Bianchi, Patricia Campos Mello and Viktoria Serdült
The winter Index on Censorship magazine podcast with Richard Hine (@realdonalddrumpf), Leonardo Bianchi, Patricia Campos Mello and Viktoria Serdült explores the battles journalists and citizens face under macho leaders determined to silence people
Contents: The Big Noise: How Macho Leaders Hide their Weakness by Stifling Dissent, Debate and Democracy
The winter 2019 edition of Index on Censorship magazine looks at how the current macho world leaders are hiding their weaknesses by crushing dissent
The Big Noise
We are living in the age of the macho leaders. All around the world, these so called “strong men” have stormed the polls and are coming to power. They are being voted in democratically yes, but what they stand for is disastrous for democracy. Not only do they have little time for free speech, their entire image is often constructed around a very delicate type of masculinity that does not accept criticism or dissent. This is what we discuss in the winter 2019 issue of Index on Censorship magazine. In this issue Rappler news editor Miriam Grace Go writes about how the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, tries to position himself as the man by being as foul-mouthed as possible. If you’re a critical journalist – and especially a woman journalist – you can expect vitriol from him. Indian journalist Somak Goshal reports on how Narenda Modi presents an image of being both the guy next door, as well as a tough guy – and he’s got a large following to ensure his message gets across, come what may. And Stefano Pozzebon talks to journalists in Brazil who are right in the firing line of Jair Bolsonaro’s vicious attacks on the media. Meanwhile Mark Frary talks about the tools that autocrats are using to crush dissent and Caroline Lees looks at the smears that are becoming commonplace as a tactic to silence journalists. We also publish a poem from Hong Kong writer Tammy Lai-ming Ho, which addresses the current protests engulfing the city, plus two short stories written exclusively for the magazine by Kaya Genç and Jonathan Tel. Also Rob Sears creates a handbook for the modern dictator.
A quarterly journal set up in 1972, Index on Censorship magazine has published oppressed writers and refused to be silenced across hundreds of issues.
The brainchild of the poet Stephen Spender, and translator Michael Scammell, the magazine’s very first issue included a never-before-published poem, written while serving a sentence in a labour camp, by the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who went on to win a Nobel prize later that year.
The magazine continued to be a thorn in the side of Soviet censors, but its scope was far wider. From the beginning, Index declared its mission to stand up for free expression as a fundamental human right for people everywhere – it was particularly vocal in its coverage of the oppressive military regimes of southern Europe and Latin America but was also clear that freedom of expression was not only a problem in faraway dictatorships. The winter 1979 issue, for example, reported on a controversy in the United States in which the Public Broadcasting Service had heavily edited a documentary about racism in Britain and then gone to court attempting to prevent screenings of the original version. Learn more.