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Through a ground-breaking exploration of global journalism in compara-
tive perspectives, the current book offers a diverse set of case studies on the
challenges that journalists face in different situations across cultures. This
includes work from leading scholars addressing four major subdomains:
Journalistic Autonomy, Safety, and Freedom; (2) Mis(information), Crises,
and Trust; (3) Technology, News Flow, and Audiences; and (4) Diversity,
Marginalization, and Journalism Education. The organizing framework
brings together voices from practitioners and scholars—who live and
work in different parts of the world—into a well-integrated whole. As
such, the book can benefit journalism students not just in the U.S., but
elsewhere too. This volume should thus provide a helpful resource for
teaching and research in the fast-moving global journalism context.
David Atkin, Professor, Department of Communication,
University of Connecticut, USA

The volume brings together interesting perspectives from around the

world on some of the most pressing issues facing journalism today. Its
emphasis on empirically grounded case studies of journalistic practices in
the global South is noteworthy. While engaged with the impact of emerg-
ing technologies on newsmaking as a profession and an industry, the chap-
ters also shed light on the evolving trajectories of print and broadcast
media, which remain a significant force in the media markets of Asia,
Africa, and Latin America. Media scholars and practitioners everywhere
will find it a valuable read.
Saif Shahin, Assistant Professor, Department of Culture Studies,
Tilburg University, The Netherlands

The timeliness of this book cannot be overstated, especially in the current

post-pandemic world. This book also focuses on the rising tide of state
surveillance and corporate control on the one hand and the media’s capit-
ulation to state power on the other hand. Another aspect I find is the sig-
nificant contextualization of practice in various nations of both the global
South and so-called developed nations. The book also offers great insights
into journalism practice and the learning of journalism in various national
contexts. Compiling such a volume is a humongous task, and I applaud
the editor for this project.
Ujjwal K Chowdhury, Strategic Adviser and Professor, Daffodil
International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Vice President,
Global Media Education Council, India
Global Journalism in Comparative
Perspective

This book explores how journalism is practiced around the world and how
there are multiple factors at the structural and contextual level shaping jour-
nalism practice.
Drawing on case studies of how conflicts, pandemics, political develop-
ments, or human rights violations are covered in an online-­first era, the vol-
ume analyzes how journalism is conducted as a process in different parts of
the world and how such knowledge can benefit today’s globally connected
journalist. A global team of scholars and practicing journalists combine theo-
retical knowledge and empirically rich scholarship with real-­life experiences
and case studies to offer a storehouse of knowledge on key aspects of inter-
national journalism. Divided into four sections—journalistic autonomy,
safety, and freedom; mis(information), crises, and trust; technology, news
flow, and audiences; and diversity, marginalization, and journalism educa-
tion—the volume examines both trends and patterns, as well as cultural and
geographical uniqueness that distinguish journalism in different parts of the
world.
This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of journalism,
media studies, and mass communication, as well as practicing journalists
who want to report globally and anyone interested in gaining a foundational
understanding of or researching journalism practices around the world.

Dhiman Chattopadhyay is Associate Professor of Communication, Journalism,

and Media and Director of Ethnic Studies at Shippensburg University of
Pennsylvania, United States. Prior to joining academia, he was a journalist
for two decades.
Routledge Research in Journalism

42 Investigative Journalism in Changing Times

Australian and Anglo-American Reporting
Edited by Caryn Coatney

43 The Political Relevance of Food Media and Journalism

Beyond Reviews and Recipes
Edited by Elizabeth Fakazis and Elfriede Fürsich

44 Journalism Practice and Critical Reflexivity

Bonita Mason

45 Literary Journalism Goes Inside Prison

Just Sentences
Edited by David Swick and Richard Lance Keeble

46 The Periodical Press Revolution

E. S. Dallas and the Nineteenth-Century British Media System
Graham Law

47 Afghan Refugees, Pakistani Media and the State

The Missing Peace
Ayesha Jehangir

48 Covering Extended Reality Technologies in the Media

Emma Kaylee Graves

49 Global Journalism in Comparative Perspective

Case Studies
Edited by Dhiman Chattopadhyay

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-

Journalism/book-series/RRJ
Global Journalism in
Comparative Perspective
Case Studies

Edited by Dhiman Chattopadhyay

First published 2024
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Dhiman Chattopadhyay;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Dhiman Chattopadhyay to be identified as the author of
the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chattopadhyay, Dhiman, editor.
Title: Global journalism in comparative perspective : case studies / edited
by Dhiman Chattopadhyay.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Series:
Routledge research in journalism | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023041268 (print) | LCCN 2023041269 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032351698 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032356082 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003327639 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Journalism--Cross-cultural studies.
Classification: LCC PN4731 .G566 2024 (print) | LCC PN4731 (ebook) | DDC
070.4--dc23/eng/20231204
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023041268
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023041269
ISBN: 978-1-032-35169-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-35608-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-32763-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003327639
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by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents

List of contributors x
Acknowledgments xvi

1 Introduction 1
DHIMAN CHATTOPADHYAY

PART I
Journalistic autonomy, safety, and freedom 11

2 The causes and consequences of media freedom 13

ELIZABETH STOYCHEFF

3 The political economy of television news in Pakistan 27

AWAIS SALEEM

4 Safety, reactions, and organizational support: Estonian

journalists’ experiences with hostility 40
SIGNE IVASK

PART II
Mis(information), crises, and trust 53

5 Protracted transition: lingering effects of communism as an

inhibiting factor for journalists in Bulgaria and Romania 55
MLADEN K. PETKOV

6 Freedom of the press and national interests: Russian

information aggression in Ukrainian information space 70
YURIY B. ZALIZNYAK
viii Contents

7 Misinformation, the pandemic, and mass media:

the India story 88
PRADEEP KRISHNATRAY AND SHAILENDRA SINGH BISHT

8 When politics and the pandemic went up the hill, and the
Malaysian media came tumbling down 104
SHARON WILSON AND AFI ROSHEZRY BIN ABU BAKAR

PART III
Technology, news flow, and audiences 115

9 Artificial intelligence skepticism in news production: the

case of South Africa’s mainstream news organizations 117
ALLEN MUNORIYARWA AND SARAH CHIUMBU

10 Election interference strategies among foreign news outlets

and audience engagement on social media during the
US 2020 election 132
LUCAS TOHILL AND LOUISA HA

11 Understanding continuity and mapping digitalization in

the 21st century: an empirical analysis of Indian
print media 148
DURGESH TRIPATHI, PRIYANKA SACHDEVA, AND SURBHI TANDON

12 From authoritarianism to privatization and social media:

the evolution of Colombian TV 175
VÍCTOR GARCÍA-PERDOMO

PART IV
Diversity, marginalization, and journalism education 191

13 Global connectivity: paradigms of China’s international

journalism since 1949 193
GUO KE AND CHEN CHEN

14 Anatomy of the rapid growth of online newspapers and its

impact on online journalism in Bangladesh 206
SHUDIPTA SHARMA
 Contents ix

15 College students’ perceptions about news and how

journalism can regain their trust 222
DHIMAN CHATTOPADHYAY AND CARRIE SIPES

16 Concluding thoughts 241

DHIMAN CHATTOPADHYAY

Index 249
Contributors

Afi Roshezry Bin Abu Bakar is senior lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and
Social Science at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia. He holds a
BHSc and MHSc in Political Science from the Islamic University of
Malaysia (IIUM) and is a PhD candidate at Universiti Sains Islam,
Malaysia. His research and consulting work focuses on areas of political
relations, political identity, and voter behavior.
Shailendra Singh Bisht is an associate professor of marketing and strategy at
ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad, India. His highly cited research focuses
on areas of affordability, natural resource management, microfinance,
health care, and education services marketing. As an academic and
researcher, he has managed and disseminated research on the interface
between marketing, technology, and public policy interventions in India.
He is also part of the Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation at
IFHE.
Dhiman Chattopadhyay is associate professor in the Department of Commu­
nication, Journalism, and Media at Shippensburg University of Pennsy­
lvania, United States, and Director of the Ethnic Studies Program at Ship.
His research agenda is at the intersection of journalism, diversity, and
social change. His work has been published in peer-­reviewed journals such
as the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Global Media and
Communication, Asian Communication Research, and Journalism and
Mass Communication Quarterly. He is the author of Breaking Now:
Social Media’s Impact on Indian Journalism. He is the author of the book:
Indian Journalism and the Impact of Social Media (Palgrave-Macmillan).
He is currently working on two grant-funded studies. One examines fac-
tors affecting minority communities’ trust in journalism and how they can
be addressed. The other focuses on factors affecting college students’ cam-
pus belongingness. He is a former journalist with 18 years of experience
reporting for and editing/leading editorial operations at some of India’s
known newspapers and magazines, such as the Times of India,
best-­
Business Today, and Mid-­Day.
 Contributors xi

Chen Chen is an M.A. student of International Communication Studies with

a focus on Spanish at Shanghai International Studies University in China.
She has a B.A. degree in Sociology. Her research interests include Latin
American journalism studies, cross-cultural communication and feminism
studies.
Sarah Chiumbu is associate professor and head of the School of Communi­
cation at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research inter-
ests include media, democracy and citizenship, digital and alternative
media, and African political and decolonial thought.
Víctor García-­Perdomo is a professor in the School of Communication at
Universidad de La Sabana in Bogotá, Colombia, where he works as a
director of the Doctoral Program in Communication. He received his PhD
in journalism and his MA in Latin American studies from the University
of Texas at Austin, United States. A Fulbright fellow, García-­Perdomo’s
research addresses the impact of digital technology on media. His work
has been published in the Journal of Communication, Journalism,
Journalism Studies, the International Journal of Communication, and
Mass Communication and Society. He is the director of the Research
Center for Digital Technology and Society (REDITS) and a member of the
Research Group in Journalism (GIP). He worked for 14 years as a profes-
sional journalist for different media: El Espectador newspaper, Univision
Online, Univision Radio, and Terra TV.
Louisa Ha is founding editor-in-chief of Online Media & Global
Communication, and former editor-in-chief of Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly. She is professor of research excellence in the
School of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University.
Her research interests are in audience research, media technology, online
advertising, and comparative international communication. Her 2007
edited book Webcasting Worldwide, Business Models of an Emerging
Global Medium was the recipient of the 2007 AEJMC Robert Picard Book
Award and was translated into Chinese in 2009. Her latest books include
The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos (editor) and
her coedited book, Asian Women Leadership: A Cross-­Sector and Cross-­
National Comparison, published by Routledge. She has over 100 publica-
tions, including 70 refereed journal articles, 19 book chapters, and many
miscellaneous publications.
Signe Ivask is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Tartu, Estonia.
Her topics cover reporting, news sociology and routines, journalists’ well-
being and working conditions. She finished her postdoctoral research at
Masaryk University, the Czech Republic, on the topic of (local) journal-
ists’ well-being: working conditions (including digitalisation), support
from the organisation and journalists’ working routines (including deci-
sion-making). Her PhD is from the University of Tartu, where she defended
xii Contributors

her dissertation on “The role of routines, demands and resources in work

stress among Estonian journalists”. She has expertise as a newspaper and
radio journalist and as a freelancer for more than a decade.
Guo Ke is professor of journalism at the School of Journalism and Communi­
cation at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), China. He is
one of the founding members of SISU’s international journalism program,
which is known as a pioneer of bilingual journalism education in China.
His research has mainly focused on international communication, global
media, and journalism education. He has published three books on inter-
national communication and media effects, as well as 70 journal articles in
Chinese and English. He earned his BA in English linguistics and literature
at Zhejiang University and international journalism at SISU, his MA in
journalism at Kansas State University, and his PhD in mass communica-
tion at Fudan University.
Pradeep Krishnatray is former director of the Center for Communication and
Change—India and its parent organization, Johns Hopkins Center for
Communication Programs, New Delhi, India. He holds a PhD in mass
communication from Bowling Green State University in the United States.
His areas of research interest include behavior change, health communica-
tion, and mass media. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Creative
Communications.
Allen Munoriyarwa is a Senior Lecturer in the department of Media Studies at
the University of Botswana and a Senior Research Fellow in the Department
of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). His
research interests are in digital media, new media and communication,
journalism and digital surveillance. He is currently co-ordinating research
exploring the growth of digital surveillance practices in Southern Africa
under the auspices of the Media Policy and Democracy Project (MPDP), a
University of Johannesburg research project. Allen has also written widely
on digital media, journalism and surveillance. Allen has researched with
organisations like Privacy International on digital surveillance practices in
the region. His publications have appeared in major global journals includ-
ing Journalism, Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice, Security Dialogue.
Allen has led numerous funded research projects, including the impact of
Covid-19 in newsrooms across southern Africa (funded by the Social
Science Research Council), and the impact of Artificial Intelligence in news-
rooms (funded by the University of Johannesburg Research Council). Allen
is also a Canon Collins scholar. He has published widely on journalism,
media and surveillance practices. His most recent publication is the co-
authored book Digital Surveillance in Southern Africa: Policies, Politics and
Practices (Palgrave Macmillan).
Mladen K. Petkov, PhD, is a Visiting Assistant Professor at University of
Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and a lecturer at Johns
 Contributors xiii

Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts & Sciences Advanced

Academic Programs. His main research focus is journalistic roles and
practices that push back against media oppression. Mladen has several
years of newsroom experience in the United States and Bulgaria. In the
United States, he worked as a news producer for ABC and NBC affiliate
stations. He was also a US correspondent for Bulgarian Nation Radio for
a decade. Mladen completed his PhD at American University in
Washington, DC, in May 2023. He has an MA in communication from
Wake Forest University and an MA in broadcast journalism from
University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom. In Bulgaria, Mladen
earned his BA in social work at Sofia University in Sofia.
Priyanka Sachdeva is assistant professor at the Delhi School of Journalism,
University of Delhi, India. She is the IAMCR (International Association of
Media and Communication Research) PhD ambassador for India. She is a
research associate for an Indian Council of Social Science Research project
on Youth and Social Media Engagement. Her areas of interest include
media literacy, youth, digital media, and political engagement.
Awais Saleem is assistant professor of journalism and broadcasting at Lamar
University’s Department of Communication and Media in Beaumont,
Texas. He holds a PhD from Florida State University. His research inter-
ests are political communication, emerging media technologies, political
economy of media, and agenda setting. Before academia, Dr. Saleem
worked as a reporter, producer, and newsroom manager for print, televi-
sion, and online platforms for more than 12 years in Pakistan, India, and
the United States. A recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, he attended the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008 and received a
UNESCO fellowship for training in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2004. Dr.
Saleem writes op-­eds as a freelancer and runs a YouTube channel.
Shudipta Sharma is assistant professor (on study leave) in the Department of
Communication and Journalism at the University of Chittagong,
Bangladesh. Before joining as a faculty member, he worked as a journalist
for eight years in leading newspapers in Bangladesh. He is currently a PhD
candidate in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green
State University, United States.
Carrie Sipes is associate professor in the Department of Communication,
Journalism, and Media at Shippensburg University. Her research interests
lie in journalism and public relations, especially in the areas of diversity,
equity, and inclusion.
Elizabeth Stoycheff is associate professor of Journalism in the Department of
Communication at Wayne State University, United States. Her research
examines how media freedom contributes to democracy building around
the world. She has previously investigated the role of media in contexts
xiv Contributors

such as the Arab Spring, Ukraine-­Russia relations, Indonesia’s contentious

political system, and government censorship and surveillance in Western
democracies. Her work has been presented in leading international jour-
nals, including the International Journal of Public Opinion Research and
the Journal of Communication, and she has won multiple top paper
awards from the International Division of the International Association of
Communication. She teaches topical graduate and undergraduate courses
in journalism and mass communication, including Comparative Media
Systems, News Reporting, Journalism and New Media, and Media
Literacy.
Surbhi Tandon is a PhD candidate at the University School of Mass Communi­
cation, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, India.
She is a recipient of the Senior Research Fellowship (SRF) from the
Ministry of Education, Government of India. She has presented her
research at various national and international conferences in Europe, the
United States, and India. Her research interests are social networking sites
and digital participation. Before joining academics, she worked as a jour-
nalist at India’s premier news agency, Press Trust of India.
Lucas Tohill has an MA from the School of Media and Communication,
Bowling Green State University) and focuses on communication, informa-
tion society, media, and technology. His research goals and purpose lie in
investigating society’s relationship to technology through multimodal
forms of communication and the entities that disseminate information.
Lucas is currently researching information processing with regard to pri-
vacy policy and terms of service/use and people’s perception and retention
of information from these documents. He has also contributed to research
on foreign interference from foreign media in elections.
Durgesh Tripathi is associate professor and a founding faculty member of the
University School of Mass Communication (USMC) at Guru Gobind
Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), India. He has completed his
postdoctoral fellowship from the Indian Council of Social Science Research
(ICSSR). He is also the recipient of the prestigious Bhartendu Harishchandra
Award (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India)
for his academic contributions. A published author, he has been invited for
lectures at Shanghai International University, China; Burapha University,
Thailand; Hallym University, Seoul; University of Teknologi Mara, Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia; and University of Bonn, Germany.
Sharon Wilson is assistant professor at the Department of Mass Communi­
cation at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia. She holds a
PhD in communication from the National University of Malaysia (UKM).
Wilson was a 2013 scholar of the Study of the United States Institutes
(SUSI) and a fellow of the Summer Institute for Asia Fellow in the News
Literacy Program 2014 (Hong Kong). In 2020, she won an AEJMC
 Contributors xv

International Communication Division teaching award, making her the

first to win this recognition outside the United States. Her research focuses
on media, crime and society, and women and identity.
Yuriy B. Zaliznyak is associate professor of journalism at the Ivan Franko
University of Lviv, Ukraine and non-resident fellow at the George
Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs Institute for
European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES), Washington DC. He
has been a journalist with BBC Ukrainian Service and Radio Deutsche
Welle. His dissertation focused on ethical intellectualism in the writings of
Ivan Dziuba and Vaclav Gavel. His current research is in the areas of new
media, journalism standards, and information manipulation. In 2018–2019,
he was appointed as a Fulbright Scholar in the United States with a project
on fake news influence on journalism. He trains young journalists in mul-
timedia storytelling.
Acknowledgments

Editing an academic volume is way harder than I thought. At the same time,
the journey of bringing together and working with so many amazing scholars
from over a dozen nations—was more rewarding than I could have ever
imagined. This book is the result of over two years of ideating, hundreds of
email exchanges, and multiple chapter revisions. It also emerged out of long
periods of frustration as the pandemic locked us all in or moments of despair
when a promised chapter did not materialize. If ever I needed reaffirmation
that hard work and perseverance pay—this is it.
I realized when I was deciding whom to invite to contribute chapters for
this book that I needed the help of those whose networks were wider than
mine and who had experience with such edited volumes. I am thankful to my
colleagues (and mentors) Dr. Louisa Ha, Dr. Jatin Srivastava, and Dr. Sundeep
Muppidi for connecting me to so many international scholars, many of whom
graciously agreed to be part of a book being edited by a relatively unknown
scholar. It is their combined effort that has made this volume possible. They
are my coauthors, coconspirators who spent valuable time and energy to
ensure the final product saw the light of day. Some of them battled the pan-
demic as they wrote their chapters; others lived through air raids, gunfire,
and days of darkness. But in the end, they delivered on their promise!
Obviously, working on a project of this magnitude needs both time and
money—neither of which university professors in teaching-­intensive institu-
tions have much of. I am therefore thankful to my department colleagues at
Shippensburg University for supporting and encouraging my research. My
chair, Dr. Carrie Sipes, helped enormously, not by just ensuring that despite
a heavy teaching load, I had dedicated days to pursue my research agenda but
by providing much-­needed summer grants to cover research-­related costs.
I would also like to express my gratitude to the wonderful folks at
Routledge Research/ Taylor & Francis Books for supporting this project,
especially to Suzanne Richardson, Tanushree Baijal, Stuti Goel, and produc-
tion team members who worked with me and helped right from conceptual-
izing the project to the final revision and editing of the book.
The past two years have not been easy on the professional and personal
fronts. Immigration woes coupled with personal and family health concerns,
 Acknowledgments xvii

often made for trying circumstances. But we stuck together as a family, and
hopefully, the worst is behind us.
This acknowledgment page would not be complete if I did not thank my
family. This project would not have been completed without their active sup-
port and encouragement. My wife, Sriya, a journalist and editor with two
decades of experience, was a constant support and critic as I worked on the
manuscript. Despite her own busy schedule as a magazine editor, she helped
correct errors and read through the manuscript. Of course, the responsibility
for any errors that may have crept in is entirely mine. The high schooler and
budding scholar in the family, our son Ishan, deserves thanks too, for making
sure there was no shortage of laughter and smiles even as health issues, the
pandemic, and the usual work-­related crankiness would intervene occasion-
ally. In the time I finished this volume, he went to high school, aced his AP
exams, and earned his senior black belt in Korean martial arts. Now, hope-
fully, I will have more time to test my soccer and cricket skills with him.
1 Introduction
Dhiman Chattopadhyay

Overview
Never before has there been a greater need for journalists (including aspiring
journalists), scholars, and ordinary people with an interest in news to develop
a better understanding of how media organizations source, select, and report
news on the global stage and the diverse range of issues that journalists face
in different geographical, political, and economic contexts as they go about
their business.
While the world is more interconnected than ever, the so-called global
village is disintegrating into a fractured world—mistrustful and more suspi-
cious of institutions and each other (McNeil, 2020; UN 2021). Journalism is
not exempt from this phenomenon. Across countries and continents, public
trust in news is declining (Park, Fisher, Flew, and Dulleck, 2020).
On the other hand, both interest in and the focus on “others” are growing
across cultures. Why? One of the reasons could be that many nations are
international melting pots, where readers, listeners, and viewers belong to
multiple diverse cultures and may consume, interpret, and act upon the same
news differently. In other areas, war, conflict, or cross-national projects are
fueling interest in and focus on the “other.” One clear impact on journalism
is the realization that a story uploaded or broadcast in the United States,
India, Nigeria, or Germany can be seen, heard, and read simultaneously by
audiences in all corners of the world today. Journalists and news organiza-
tions are realizing if they have to present authentic and well-researched infor-
mation to their audiences, then more international and intercultural
collaborations are needed. It is not surprising, therefore, that reporters from
different countries, cultures, ethnicities, and belief systems are joining hands
to produce the best collaborative investigative stories (Quackenbush, 2020;
Sambrook, 2018). All of these changes and trends indicate clearly that the
need to know more about challenges, norms, and practices that journalists
encounter in different cultures is essential for media scholars, journalists, and
students of the field alike.
Indeed, both practicing journalists and aspiring ones must enhance their
knowledge about global media systems, understanding the diversity of

DOI: 10.4324/9781003327639-1
2 Dhiman Chattopadhyay

influences, practices, and pressures on news production in different cultures

and possible effects on their work. What are some of these key issues? In the
ever-changing environment of the 21st century, it is essential to adapt to
emerging global realities. For example, how to report for a global audience
on issues such as climate change (e.g., Rahimi, 2022), war, hunger (e.g.,
Chiwanda, 2020), and increasing economic disparities in society. Each of
these ongoing realities has impacted the practice of journalism. Many global
journalists may be asked to report on conflicts from a remote site instead of
being on-site (Christensen and Khalil, 2021). How does this affect how they
report and what they report? What role do technological advances including
artificial intelligence (AI) play in such work?
The growth of digital media usage and news consumption on digital plat-
forms has been phenomenal, to say the least (Internet World Stats, 2023;
Newman, 2022). Social media platforms are emerging thick and fast and
reaching 100 million subscribers within just a few years—a number that
most traditional media platforms (e.g., newspapers and TV channels) could
only dream of. And while technology may be helping journalists access news
faster, share breaking news in real time, and engage with their key audiences
(e.g., Neuberger et al., 2019; Chattopadhyay, 2022), they have also brought
in newer problems (Chattopadhyay, 2022). As an often overwhelming
amount of information arrives daily on our handheld devices, there are also
growing concerns about misinformation, fake news, source verification, and
other issues that journalists must deal with on an urgent basis. This is espe-
cially true when the information relates to another culture, country, commu-
nity, or group different from one’s own. No surprise, then, that these rapid
changes have raised important questions about journalistic professionalism,
ethics, safety, education, and other issues.

Global journalism from a de-Westernized perspective

No single book can create an exhaustive list of such issues and topics.
However, offering a global perspective on journalism, not just in terms of key
trends and commonalities, but through insights and case studies that cele-
brate both similarities and differences, is an important task, one that this
anthology hopes to fulfill.
There is also growing acknowledgment that historically (a) many books on
international journalism assume Western theoretical and epistemological per-
spectives as the “normal” against which any “international” reality must be
compared (e.g., Dimitrova, 2021, p. xi) and that (b) such Western-centric mod-
els may often fail to truly grasp the political, social and cultural contexts in
which journalism functions in different media ecosystems (e.g., Willems, 2014).
Most theoretical models used in journalism studies (and reflected in academic
work) are from Western nations and assume a “free media.” One, even the
idea that the Western media is uniformly “free” has been challenged (Brüggeman
et al., 2014) and shown to be far more diverse than assumed earlier. Second,
 Introduction 3

nearly 80% of the world’s population today live in nations where the media is
not categorized as “free” (e.g., Dimitrova, 2021). Other studies, such as the
2023 World Press Freedom Index (Reporters Sans Borders, 2023), show that
press freedom is “good” or satisfactory in only 52 of the 180 countries sur-
veyed. They are problematic” or “very serious” in the other nations.
In this volume, we agree with Dimitrova, Rao, and other scholars in argu-
ing that there is no ideal or gold-standard media system. One key aim of this
book, therefore, is to de-Westernize our understanding of global journalism
and to show how different local and regional conditions, as well as different
political or economic situations, can lead to differences in how journalism is
practiced and offer different challenges (and opportunities) for journalists.
Thus, this volume is less about the coverage of international affairs and more
about different journalistic cultures. The chapters explore and emphasize
how journalism is practiced around the world through case studies, surveys,
content analyses, ethnographic work, and lived experiences. What are com-
mon features of the chapters, though, is that they have robust empirical data
and examine areas of journalism practice in different parts of the world to
recommend how such knowledge can benefit today’s journalists, media
scholars, and global citizens.

Organization of the book

The broad, interconnected research questions pursued in this volume are:

(a) What are the unique challenges and opportunities that journalists face in
different geographical locations?
(b) What values, practices, and norms guide journalism practice in diverse
cultures?
(c) How may these diverse experiences and knowledge help journalists,
media scholars, and the engaged public?

This book focuses on four closely linked sections to address these questions.
(a) Journalistic autonomy, safety, and freedom; (b) mis(information), crises,
and trust; (c) technology, news flow, and audiences; and (d) diversity, mar-
ginalization, and journalism education. The anthology brings in diversity in
terms of contributors too. They include senior research scholars, faculty
members, and practicing journalists from North and South America, Europe,
Asia, and Africa. My belief is that students learn best when they can tie in
theoretical knowledge with real-life experiences from credible sources. The
chapters that follow are data-driven, empirically rich scholarly essays that
also offer a rich treasure trove of real-life examples and case studies. Very
purposefully, the chapters follow no single theoretical trajectory. The task of
the contributors is to present multidimensional assessments of the state of
journalism in diverse cultures and the challenges faced by both domestic and
international journalists in carrying out their work.
4 Dhiman Chattopadhyay

Journalistic autonomy, safety, and freedom

The first section examines the foundational issue of freedom of the press.
How, for example, is journalism practiced in countries where governments
have subverted the freedom of the press? What are some of the consequences?
Even in countries where journalists are seemingly free from government con-
trol, how do financial and political forces affect reporting practices? How do
journalists themselves perceive the effects of threats to their autonomy? And
how do different challenges to media autonomy affect journalists’ mental
health, as well as perceptions of their profession as a whole?

Elizabeth Stoycheff starts off proceedings by rethinking and reconceptualiz-

ing ideas of journalistic freedom, arguing that the contemporary media
landscape presents challenges to existing definitions, boundary conditions,
and outcomes identified in the press freedom literature. In her thought-pro-
voking chapter, she draws on her past research studying the mass media
during the Arab Spring, in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, and in
Indonesia to call for a recalibration in understanding what constitutes free
expression in the internet era.
Awais Saleem combines his experience as a former journalist based in Pakistan
with empirical data to analyze the state of news media in Pakistan and the
changes it has undergone since the introduction of privately owned televi-
sion news channels in 2001. He draws on the academic literature, media
reports, and interviews with journalists to show that the institutions tasked
with regulating television content have been subjected to political influ-
ence and that the presence of pressure groups is resulting in increased
censorship and content control.
Signe Ivask takes us to a less-researched corner of Europe, in Estonia—where
she highlights another key challenge that journalists face: enemies within
the organization. In her chapter titled “Safety, Support, and Stress:
Experiences and Perceptions of Estonian Journalists,” Ivask takes us on a
journey to explain her multiyear study of journalists’ safety and well-being
in Estonia.

Misinformation, crises, and trust

A key question that may arise from the first set of chapters is what happens
when various pressure groups or dictatorial entities attempt to throttle the
free press or when multiple levels of influence are exerted on newsrooms to
prevent the free flow of information.
In his chapter on the lingering effects of communism on journalists in
Bulgaria and Romania, Mladen K. Petkov examines the attitudes of journal-
ists from post-Soviet media systems in two former Eastern Bloc nations. One
of the main themes that emerges from the 50 interviews he conducts with
journalists is that while the totalitarian structures of the Soviet era are far
gone, media freedom is still considered fragile and unstable.
 Introduction 5

Reporting from deep into the war zone in Ukraine, Yuriy B. Zaliznyak
writes about the complex connections between freedom of the press, national
interests, and war. Describing Russian information warfare against Ukraine
through local mainstream and social media, he explains that when journalists
and newsrooms are vulnerable to manipulation, the foundations of democ-
racy may be undermined.
Sharon Wilson and Afi Roshezry Bin Abu Bakar further explore how
government control and muzzling of journalists can lead to big challenges
for newsrooms and lead to vicious cycles of misinformation and fake news,
as well as the resultant decline in public trust in journalism. Using the
Malaysian example, she shows how an increasingly dictatorial regime used
the COVID-19 pandemic to throttle media freedom—attacking journalists,
especially anyone seen to be critical of sensitive topics, and the new political
order.
Misinformation, of course, is not just a by-product of conflicts, totalitar-
ian regimes, or war zones. As Pradeep Krishnatray and Shailendra Singh
Bisht write, science, specifically health sciences, and mass media messages
have long had a problematic coexistence. In their chapter, they deal with one
specific aspect of people’s cultural interpretation of disease: the recent COVID
pandemic. As they show, highlighting the case of Indian mass media, the
creative conflict between science and cultural interpretation of the COVID
pandemic leads to many challenges for journalism and mass communica-
tion—not the least of all being a breakdown of trust in news.

Technology, news flow, and audiences

It is clear that declining public trust in journalism is one of the key challenges
facing newsrooms across the world today. Whether in the United States,
United Kingdom, Western Europe, South Asia, or South America—public
trust in news has declined consistently over the past decade (e.g., Edelman,
2022; Brenan, 2022). One of the reasons for this crisis of faith is the prolifer-
ation of fake news on social and other digital media and the myriad ways in
which technological innovations have affected journalism. These challenges,
of course, could change different parts of the world thanks to vastly inequal
access to technology and different types of regimes and rules that govern
digital media use.
The third section focuses on the role of technology in journalism, news
flow, and its effects on audiences. Allen Munoriyarwa and Sarah Chimbu use
South Africa as their laboratory to show that the celebratory acceptance of
artificial intelligence (AI) appropriation is often colored by strong pushback
by skeptical journalists. Yet, as Lucas Tohill and Louisa Ha find, in many
geographical locations, journalists are some of the most frequent users of
emerging technology. Their study shows how journalists from China, the
United States, and the United Kingdom used social media such as Facebook
and Twitter to promote engaging content during the 2020 US elections.
6 Dhiman Chattopadhyay

Of course, it is not just journalists who use social media for professional
purposes. A growing number of people, especially younger audiences in many
nations today, receive much of their daily information via social media.
Durgesh Tripathi, Priyanka Srivastava, and Surbhi Tandon from India exam-
ine younger audiences’ engagement with digital journalism to come up with
recommendations for journalists to make news more accessible to younger
audiences. Victor Garcia-Perdomo takes a more historical approach to the
topic. A former journalist-turned-media scholar, he covers the evolution of
Colombian television from its emergence as a medium at the service of a
dictatorship to its privatization in the ’90s and subsequent digitalization. His
chapter shows how the historical transition of TV has affected journalism
practices in the South American nation and points to the intertwined rela-
tionship between TV news and politics, TV news and economic elites, and
TV news and technology.

Diversity, marginalization, and journalism education

As access to journalistic content becomes more global, with social media

ensuring that content created in Pakistan or Brazil is available to the rest of
the world within a few seconds—never has there been a greater need for
journalists to continually enhance their knowledge of the “other” and for
newsrooms to become more diverse. Also, a better understanding of the
diverse range of issues that journalists cover today—from wars and their
effects on children and laws pertaining to sexuality and disability to religious
events and class or caste conflicts—is not possible without more diverse and
inclusive newsrooms. No new book on journalism practice on the global
stage can be complete without talking about the importance of diversity,
equity, and inclusion in journalism practice.
A key question that stems from the previous chapters is how issues and
challenges such as autonomy of journalists, freedom of the press, crisis situa-
tions, proliferation of fake news, growing power of social media as a source
of breaking news, and issues of trust in news—affect those who identify with
one or more minority groups? Also, how does the pressure exerted by differ-
ent forces affect journalistic work when it comes to reporting about
“others”?
Guo Ke and Chen Chen kick off this section with an analysis of how jour-
nalists in China have historically reported about the world. They argue that
reporting world news, as a practice of international journalism, has remained
a significant information channel for the Chinese public and governments to
know about the world and has thus attached special importance to a nation
largely isolated from the rest of the world after 1949. His chapter explores
the changing paradigms of world news coverage in Chinese media since 1949
and finds three distinct phases or paradigms.
While Guo and Chen’s chapter examines how journalists report about
external others or the international community, Shudipta Sharma examines
 Introduction 7

how internal political and business pressures influence journalists’ reportage

on minority groups and argues that contrary to popular belief, digitization of
news may not have actually democratized the information space and made
news more equitable.
But do audiences care? As more media barons and political elites try and
control mass media narratives in different countries, what do those on the
margins feel about the news they consume? In a survey of over 450 college
students, my coauthor Carrie Sipes and I argue that trust in journalism is
particularly low among the student population in the United States, similar
to what other studies based in the Americas (e.g., Ray, 2021) Europe
(e.g., Tejedor et al., 2021) or South Asia (e.g., Bhaskaran, Mishra, and Nair,
2019) have found. Using the lens of cultural mistrust, we explore college
students’ perceptions of local and community news and what they feel
media organizations can do to re-ignite their interest and trust in
journalism.

The who and the why

I am hopeful that this book will be useful not just for journalism students,
and practicing journalists who want to report globally, but for media
scholars, and anyone interested in gaining a foundational understand-
ing of journalism practices around the world. Twenty-two scholars and
practitioners from 11 countries across 5 continents have contributed
chapters for this volume—making it a truly international collection.
Many of the contributors have worked in the field as journalists or
communication practitioners and bring their extensive experience as
scholars and practitioners to enrich this volume.

Why spend close to two years bringing such a diverse group of people together
for this edited volume? Mass media, specifically journalism, plays a vital role
in keeping people informed—affecting public awareness, attitudes, and
actions. Universities and journalism schools in countries around the world
are increasingly cognizant of the need to teach journalism in a globalized
context to students. These include foundational concepts of how journalism
functions in a globalized context and the myriad challenges that journalists
face when they either work in an alien land or find themselves reporting on
or for an audience who are from a different culture than their own. As reali-
zation grows that journalism practice is not uniform across the world, and
what standard norms and practices in one culture may not (and probably
will) not work in another—many universities are introducing new courses in
international journalism, while others are taking a step further and develop-
ing entire programs in global journalism and mass communication. Some
examples that spring to mind are the undergraduate and graduate programs
at Shanghai International Studies University in China; Columbia University in
8 Dhiman Chattopadhyay

the United States; Cardiff University, University of Central Lancashire, and

City University of London in the United Kingdom; and MGM University in
India. I should add that there are many others! To put it mildly, we do not
have enough books or even literature that cover all the different aspects of
global journalism—especially from a non-Western perspective. The objective
of this book is to contribute to a much-needed pool of literature in this
expanding area of journalism studies.
Therefore, without any particular epistemological bias, chapters in this vol-
ume examine both trends and patterns, as well as cultural and geographical
uniqueness that distinguish journalism in different parts of the world. I speak
for all fellow contributors when I say that we hope students, practicing journal-
ists, and all those curious about global journalism practices will use this volume
to gain a deeper understanding of key aspects of global journalism. This vol-
ume addresses some broad questions: How do journalists work in different
parts of the world? What are the challenges and opportunities that bind and
separate journalism in different cultures? Are there any patterns and trends that
seem universal? What are some striking differences when it comes to aspects
such as freedom of the press, the safety of journalists, digitization’s effect on
news flow, how minorities are framed in news, or public trust in journalism?
These chapters represent wide-ranging research on global journalism.
However, I must hasten to add that there are omissions. Given the scope of
this field, it is almost impossible to discuss “all aspects” (assuming we knew
what all encompassed) of global journalism. Instead, we take a case study
approach here so that the chapters do not just skim the surface of a broad
topic but provide readers with in-depth understanding of specific phenomena.
For example, we do not specifically explore vernacular media and how jour-
nalism done in the local languages may differ in their approach and effects
compared to English language media. We also do not cover genres such as
sports, entertainment, or business news and examine whether the pressures
(and outcomes) are different in these specialized areas of journalistic work.
The chapters are organized based on similar umbrella questions, but of course,
as you may notice, some authors will disagree with others on specific conditions,
practices, outcomes, or norms. I sincerely hope this volume serves as a window
to understanding the many hues and colors of global journalistic practices.

References
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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
that he is a Bolshevik; but his enemies did that for him! I inquired
about him at the British Mission and they denied this story. I asked
Dr. Bauer directly if he believed in Bolshevism and received a smiling
but unequivocal reply in the negative. At the time of our talk he was
helping to edit the great Socialist newspaper, the Arbeiter Zeitung, in
the absence of the regular editor, Dr. Austerlitz, who was lying ill. His
influence was much feared by the French. And his policy appears to-
day to be likely to succeed in spite of the prohibition of the Peace
Treaty, which forbids for all time the union with Germany unless with
the unanimous approval of the League of Nations. If the Allies had
determined on an act which would help the Austrians to achieve their
desires they could not have done better than make it a point in the
Treaty. The manifest injustice of refusing to Austria what is granted in
theory to every other country in the world, the right to determine its
own form of government, has united with the Social Democrats
thousands of Austrians who had previously opposed this political
proposal. Now it is clear from the Tyrol plebiscite of 97 per cent. in
favour of the union that the policy has become national and must
sooner or later be successful. The language of the Austrians is
German. There appears to be little hope of substantial co-operation
with the succession states for a very long time to come. The
Austrians are ill-disposed to the eternal spoon-feeding of the Allies,
which must mean expensive and irregular meals, with a constant
threat of the withdrawal of supplies if something does not please the
nurses. To the overwhelming majority of the six millions of Austria’s
population the only means of living appears to be union with
Germany, with a people speaking the same language and a country
lying on their border.
But at the time of my visit to Austria there was a considerable
difference of opinion in Vienna on the subject of the best future
political arrangement for Austria. A number of people formerly of
power and influence expressed hostility to the idea of union with
Germany. They dreaded the merging of Austrian individuality in that
of the stronger partner. They contemplated with real distress the
future of their beautiful Vienna as a second-class city on the frontier
of civilization instead of the sun and centre of culture which it had
been. Some positively disliked the Prussian association because of
its disciplined militarism. A few with the spirit of the flunkey desired to
please the Allies. Others recognized the danger of flouting the Allies.
Of the various alternatives to the proposed union there were two
which received noteworthy support, that which suggested union with
the mild regime of a Bavaria independent of Prussia, and that which
advocated what was called a Danubian Federation which should
comprise the old states, and possibly Bavaria. The economic
dependence of the states comprising the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire was becoming clearer with every day that passed. The
natural advantages as a clearing-house for trade and commerce of
Vienna, in the centre of the system, as well as its amazing cultural
facilities, provided every reason in common sense for a proposal of
this sort. But hostile to the idea were those in Austria who would
have welcomed an economic union apart from a political union, but
who were unable to see how the one could be achieved without the
other eventually following. The new states, particularly Czecho-
Slovakia, jealous of any proposal which might restore to Vienna the
importance they were determined to attach to Prague, pursued a
policy of self-interest which menaced the very existence of Austria as
an independent state, and looked askance at any idea of economic
union between themselves and their ancient enemy. Anti-German
feeling there was too pronounced for any other than the most
individualistic action. Pro-German feeling in German-Austria
favoured the union with Germany. The propaganda for the federation
was conducted chiefly by agents abroad, and as I have already
shown, a succession of events has made the proposal for union with
Germany, originally the proposal of a party, a matter of united
national policy.

Apart from its foreign policy the political problem of Austria

appeared to be presenting itself along the line of peasant versus
town worker. This is more or less true of every country in Europe.
The peasants hated the city of Vienna. They had to maintain the two
and a quarter millions of its population and got no adequate return
for this in manufactured goods. The city could not manufacture for
lack of raw materials and coal. The peasants disliked the “Red”
Government because it fixed the price of foodstuffs in the interests of
the poor of the towns careless of the reduced profits of the peasants.
They disliked the towns because they were irreligious and full of the
hated Jews. All these causes worked (and are working all over
Central Europe and in Russia) at the time I was in Vienna.
“I very much fear,” said Otto Bauer to me, “that the social problem
of Europe for a generation or more will be the town against the
country. And which will win?” The victory of the country seems
imminent. It has conquered in Bavaria and, in a measure, in Austria.
It will conquer in Russia. And the victory of the country in European
politics does not mean maypoles and flowers and flowing beer and
fat living for everybody. It means, at present, the reign of ignorance
and bigotry and superstition and individualism, and the decline of all
the things which make for a cultivated civilization.

The second party in the state then, the first at the present moment,
was the Christian Socialist. How they got the name I have not yet
learnt. There is no means of proving that they are not Christian; but
they are certainly not Socialists! I imagine they came by the name for
a certain historic interest in schemes of municipalization, but their
chief leaders are big capitalists, and their chief supporters the small
shopkeepers of the cities and the peasant farmers of the country.
They approximate to the old Liberals of the Manchester school in
England. Free trade is an important plank in their programme. Their
efforts in 1919 were being directed against the decontrol of food, and
Mr. Julius Meinl’s theses on the subject have appeared in English in
certain journals devoted to a similar policy. Dr. Redlich, the eminent
writer, whose book on the British Constitution is regarded as the
authoritative work upon the subject in much the same way as Lord
Bryce’s volume on the American Constitution is said to be the last
word on that subject, is another gifted leader of this now dominant
party. So far the moderation of its course has saved the country from
the reaction that a too-swift swing of the pendulum almost invariably
produces.

Amongst the women friends I made in Vienna one stands out with
peculiar interest. She is the lady to whom I have already referred,
Frau Zuckerkandl, the widow of a very eminent Austrian physician,
and one of the most delightful women it is possible to meet
anywhere. I saw her first in her dainty flat, dressed in a fluttering
loose robe of diaphanous silky material, a fairy figure with heaped-up
masses of bright hair and rather tired blue eyes. Less than fifteen
minutes sufficed to teach each of us that there were intellectual and
spiritual bonds between us that made friendship ripe at the first
contact. Both of us are devotees of good music. Both passionately
admire the drama. Both recognize in art the living spirit of a true and
lasting internationalism. Both feel the service of the oppressed to be
a glorious privilege. Only twice or thrice in one’s life comes a
friendship so rare and precious as I felt and feel this to be.
Frau Zuckerkandl’s father was the editor and proprietor of a great
newspaper. She is a writer of merit, and was the musical critic for a
Viennese journal. We visited the Opera together several times. This
marvellous people, half-famished and almost wholly despairing,
crowded the Opera House night by night, to revel at the feast of song
which was the only rich banquet left them, and the last table they
would willingly leave. “We can live without bread, but not without
roses.”
My friend is related by marriage to the great Clemenceau. Her
sister is the wife of “The Tiger’s” brother. I think it was she who told
me the story that was afloat in Europe at that time of how, when
Clemenceau was charged by some of his insatiable fellow-
countrymen with having made a peace bad for France, he replied:
“But how could I do better, with a fool on one side who thought he
was Napoleon, and a damned fool on the other who thought he was
Jesus Christ?”
 Another good story which was going the round of the Vienna cafés
deserves to be repeated. In one of the cafés, years before the war, a
young Jew sat sipping his coffee day by day. Nobody was in the
least interested in him, and he was distinguished for nothing except
a shabby dress and a wild mop of tangled hair. His name was
Trotsky.
In those days everybody was talking about the Russian
Revolution. Many were fearful of it. The Vienna Foreign Office was
constantly being warned about its coming, and worried to death
about the consequences upon Vienna of its coming.
Exasperated beyond endurance by the endless fears of his
colleagues, and full of contempt for them, one of the higher officials
exclaimed: “But what nonsense is this talk of a Russian Revolution;
who is to make the revolution? There is nobody. Perhaps”—and here
came a gesture of superb contempt—“Mr. Trotsky of the Café
Centrale!”

A trip to Semmering was one of the excursions which consoled

one a little for the desolate spectacle of empty markets and idle
factories, of a disintegrating civic life. Semmering is a four hours’
motor drive from Vienna, beautifully placed near the Styrian frontier.
It is a health resort full at that time of rich refugees. At a simple
guest-house on the slope of one of the hills President Seitz and his
wife, with a few members of his Cabinet, recuperated during the
week-ends for the arduous duties of the week. His secretary took me
out there for the day. We were again a curiously mixed group. The
overworked and courteous secretary was a baron of the old regime.
Professor Leon Kellner, hearty in manner and ruddy of complexion,
the famous Shakespearean scholar, was there; Otto Grockney,
Minister for Education, gravely peering through spectacles at the
new-comer; and Dr. Seitz.
 Of this first President of the Socialist Republic of Austria, Karl
Seitz, I have written before. He is a kind, amiable, benevolent,
distinguished-looking man with a keen sense of humour. Someone
hearing him thus praised exclaimed: “But what else do you expect
from a President of Austria?” Looking at this polite and suave man of
the world, every inch a president, it is with difficulty that one realizes
that he was once on a time the fiercest leader of the Socialist
Opposition in the turbulent Austrian Parliament. He started his career
as an elementary school-teacher, became the fire-brand of the
Lower Austrian Diet and ended as the President! He is a speaker of
very great eloquence and power. He was always well liked, even by
his opponents, and is extremely popular. Very few of the new type of
potentate have the heart, the mind, the manners so ready to fit the
new position.

Dr. Max Winter, the kind-hearted Vice-Burgermeister of Vienna, is

the man to whom I owe most of my acquaintance with the civic life of
the city. Day after day he or his secretary or his son, who had been a
prisoner of war in England, took me out to see in particular what was
being done for the children. Dr. Winter is always spoken of as “the
children’s Mayor,” for the children are his very serious concern. In his
company I saw the public feeding centres of the Americans, the
clinics supervised by the Friends, the children’s hospitals so sadly
lacking funds, the open-air play-centres in the public parks, and the
country schools. The houses of rich nobles who have fled and the
palaces of the ex-Kaiser were used for this purpose. There was a
particularly attractive little hospital and feeding centre in a corner of
the Schönbrunn Palace for those children whose parents could
afford to contribute a little towards their keep, I think two crowns a
day, worth at that time about one penny. At the holiday camps in the
parks the children ran about all day in bathing suits, and very brown
and jolly they looked with the exposure to the sun and the regular, if
scarcely sufficient, food. “Freundschaft! Freundschaft!” they cried,
running to kiss my hand after the custom of the country. Sometimes
they sang their little songs and danced their pretty dances. Beautiful
brown-eyed Viennese children dancing in paper dresses, and
crowned with wood flowers in the Wiener Wald! I see them now in
the mind’s eye, waving their thin arms and smiling sweetly, with not a
thought of the bitter, cruel thing which is robbing them of health and
life in their innocent young hearts.
After a sad excursion one day to the market, where little girls of
twelve lay all night with their baskets waiting for the opening of the
butcher’s shop, and the scramble for the ration of meat for the family
dinner, I found waiting for me in the hotel about twenty women and
one child all robed in deep black. They had come with a petition. It
was to ask me to help them to get their husbands out of Russia,
prisoners of war there. Some had not been heard of for four years.
Terrible stories of their sufferings had come through. The women
were frantic with grief. They had been to the Mayor; he could do
nothing. They had been to the Government; the Government had
made promises but done nothing. They had been to the Allied
Missions and had been sent away empty. They were beginning to
believe that the Government and the Allies were in concert to keep
the men in Russia because of their fear of Bolshevist infection—
afraid that the men had become converts. Someone had suggested
that perhaps I could help. They begged with quivering lips that I
would do something. Suddenly the child, a little fair-haired thing,
sprang from her mother’s side, and falling on her knees at my feet,
clasped her tiny hands and said in lisped English: “Dear kind English
lady, do bring my daddy back to me.” The women burst into tears,
such a sobbing and a wailing as would have melted a stone. It was
deeply painful. What could I do? I promised to interest the women’s
organizations of England and the Labour Party, and immediately
wrote to both. Alas! when the relief came, thousands, tens of
thousands, had died in exile, destroyed by hunger and disease.

The journey back to Berne was much quicker and more

comfortable. By special permission I returned by the children’s train.
Six hundred small victims of the famine came every six or seven
weeks to hospitable Switzerland; I travelled with one train load. I can
add nothing to the description of the sufferers I have already given;
but I can add a word of praise of the Swiss. They have raised for
themselves a lasting monument in the affections of the Austrian
people, and have set an example of practical internationalism which
should shame all those whose faith in blockades and tariffs and
embargoes and prohibitions is not yet dead. But for the Swiss and
the Americans Austria’s plight would have been beyond hope, and
the world would be the poorer by the loss of one of the most
cultivated, artistic and lovable races which have contributed to the
happiness and elevation of mankind. Very late in the day the men of
Paris have moved towards the relief of Vienna. Perhaps it is not
quite too late to save the remnant. But the martyrs have been many,
and the agony long.
 CHAPTER VIII
AFTER ONE YEAR

At the first meeting of the International in Berne in 1919 I was very

much interested in a lively little man from Alsace-Lorraine. His name
was Grumbach, and he had a house in Berne, and a handsome wife
with bright hair and a plump figure. In appearance he reminded me a
little of an English coachman. He was smooth-shaven, with a bit of
hair left on either cheek in the old-fashioned way. His face was
round, and he had a sweet and rather childlike mouth. His eyes were
very merry, and his manner kind. But the roar of him when he spoke
was like that of a mad bull. He was very angry with the Germans,
and could not contain himself on the platform, foaming at the mouth
almost, as he lashed out at those unfortunate men on the front row.
He made an excellent double bass to Renaudel’s tenor and
Thomas’s baritone, whenever the wild music got going. And just as
suddenly he melted into the utmost amiability. He disliked their past,
and suspected the future policy of the Germans in relation to his own
country. I have not seen him since the early days in Berne; but I
have heard that his present discontent is with French administration
and French behaviour in the restored provinces and that he favours
an independent Alsace-Lorraine within the French orbit. I wonder
what is true?
Another Alsatian of a different type was René Schickele, one of
the leaders of the younger German poets. I met him also in Berne,
but not at the Conference. This young and distinguished dramatist
was introduced to me by Annette Kolb. He impressed me as shy and
diffident; but that may have been the embarrassment of not knowing
English. There is no barrier like that of not knowing the language of
an acquaintance. He promised to learn English for our next meeting,
and I promised myself to learn enough German to be intelligible. But
how can one learn foreign languages when everybody abroad wants
to practise his English?
During the war Schickele placed himself in opposition to the
German Government. He was a German citizen then. Now he is in
opposition to France. He is a French citizen now. The cynic would
smile and talk of the passion for self-advertising; but I think there is a
reasonable case for this position in a pacifist, who is out to smite the
ugly spirit of militarism whenever and wherever it raises its offending
head.
His play Hans in Schnakenloch was an attempt to give a just
exposition of the psychology of French and Germans in Alsace-
Lorraine. The Germans called it Francophile, the French considered
it pro-German. It had an immense success in Germany in 1917, until
it was suppressed by the military censor. Schickele belongs to the
Clarté group. Fried, who died a short time ago, the kindly
sentimentalist, but courageous Austrian pacifist, so long exiled in
Switzerland, who won the Nobel prize, was another member of the
band. René Claparéde of Geneva, Barbusse and Anatole France
belong to the same group. Their policy is very much the same as
that of the Union of Democratic Control in England. The poet’s
ultimate aim in politics is the friendship and conciliation of Germany
and France.

When I was invited to attend the French Socialist Congress in

Strasburg in January of 1920, exactly one year after the first meeting
of the Second International, I thought of these two personalities, the
only human connexion I had with Alsace, and hoped to meet again in
their capital city of ancient fame and modern interest these two able
men. Neither, however, was present.
But Renaudel was there, and Longuet and Marquet, and all the
hosts of fighting French Socialism.
The battle of the two Internationals was by this time waxing fast
and furious. The Italians had split in two, the French were about to
follow, the British were threatened. My commission to the French
congress was to convey greetings from the British Labour Party to
the delegates; but also to make it clear that the Labour Party
intended to cleave to the Second International in spite of the efforts
of a few voluble intransigéants to draw it into the Third.
These various Internationals must be confusing to the average
reader. The First was founded by Karl Marx and Professor Beesly in
1866, and dissolved in the wars of 1871. The Second was re-
established in 1889, and discontinued its activities during the world-
war. Its meeting in Berne I have already fully described. The success
of the Revolution in Russia filled with arrogance the souls of the
dominant Bolsheviks who determined to unite the entire world-
Socialist Movement under their flag. They would dominate,
command, discipline from Moscow every country in the world. They
drew up twenty-one theses which they insisted should be accepted
by all who would join them—the Third International. These included
dictatorship instead of democracy, revolution by violence, and the
abolition by force of the whole institution of private property, as
against other methods of securing a just social and industrial order.
Round these two sets of proposals and methods the conflict has
raged. Every Socialist Movement in Europe was split from top to
bottom. America copied. New and ever new Internationals
threatened to be born of the dissident sections. Capitalist Europe
rocked with laughter. To keep the working-classes divided amongst
themselves has always been the wisdom and the joy of the
intelligent in the possessing classes. The Socialist Movement began
to look ridiculous. It has not yet got back to common sense and
sweet reasonableness. In the various national movements, arrogant
and conceited young men are continually making fresh “caves.”
Offshoots of bumptious young people and venerable idiots, who
think that wisdom will die with them, keep the general movement in a
turmoil of quarrelsomeness whilst the enemy consolidates his ranks.
The pity and the folly of it!
So far as I could discover there were at least five sections in the
French Conference apparently hating one another far more keenly
than the outsider. There was the Extreme Right, which had
supported the war without question. There was the Extreme Left
which had opposed it without tact. There was the following of
Renaudel who opposed the Moscow International. There were the
adherents of Vaillant-Couturier who supported it. There were the
friends of Longuet, who did both. I do not mean that these last
belonged to the cult of the jumping cat! They were not mean and
“discreet.” They simply wanted to leave the door open for a future
reunion of the two bodies of disputants.
I spent the first day listening to the eloquent wranglings of the
sections, and then went to view the city of Strasburg. The old parts
are French, but the solid new parts of the city are German. It is a
quiet old city of cafés and quaint streets and houses. It is dominated
by its wonderful cathedral with the historic clock. The small hotel
where I stayed, with its German proprietor, was a model of
cleanliness. In front ran the canalized river. Bands of troops, black
and white, marched through the streets, but the citizens paid little
attention to them. Only once did I see a touching thing. A few bold
boys marched singing a tune with a familiar sound about it. I stopped
to look and listen. Near me was a student, a boy of twenty-three or
four, with a broad round face and rather long fair hair. He had tears
in his eyes, and held his cap in his hand. What had moved him? Not
that simple, boyish singing? Was it the song? I caught the word
“Heimland” as the lads marched past, and—yes—there was just one
phrase in the song which brought to mind the English melody,
“Home, sweet home!”

On the second day I made my speech. The gallant Frenchmen

received it well, and I left the platform in a storm of cheers. But that
was for the woman and not the speech; for they did not understand a
word, and they voted heavily for the Third International at a
subsequent meeting! The split was inevitable.
The next day I left for Berne en route for Geneva and the
conference of the Save the Children Fund. I had to spend several
hours at Basle and arrived in Berne at six in the evening. But what
was the matter with the place? The station was as quiet as a church
on weekdays. And the Hôtel Belle Vue was like a huge crypt, cold
and clammy and empty. In that great lounge and immense drawing-
room capable of holding comfortably a thousand persons, there were
not three people! The drawing-room was dark; and the lounge lit by
only a few dim lights. Were all the people in their rooms, or what was
wrong?
“You are very quiet, aren’t you?” I asked the hotel clerk as I signed
the register.
“Yes, madam,” he replied. “Most people are leaving Berne. Here
are several letters for you which are probably from some of your
friends.”
I tore open the letters one after the other. Mr. Rudolf Kommer had
gone to Berlin. Mrs. Lord was in Lugano. Prince Windischgraetz was
in Paris. His wife had left for Prague. The group of German pacifists
had returned to Berlin. Dr. de Jong was in Basle. M. Zalewski, the
Polish Minister in Berne, whom I had met in England, and with whom
I had renewed my acquaintance in Switzerland, was rumoured to
have gone as Minister to Athens. Madame de Rusiecka, another
Polish friend, was living in Geneva. Baron Szilassy and his sister
were in Bex. Mr. de Kay was in Lucerne. Mr. Savery had been sent
to the Legation in Warsaw—all, all had gone, the old familiar faces!
And what a desolation they had left!
I gathered up my letters and prepared to take a walk to discover if
there were anybody left. Was the Assyrian giant with the Gargantuan
appetite still sitting in the Wiener Café? I have referred before to Dr.
Ludwig Bauer, but he deserves another word. For he was a truly
remarkable journalist. From the early days of the war he wrote every
day, without exception, the leading article on politics for the Basle
National Zeitung. His articles were always marked #—so he became
known as the “Kreuzlbauer.” They were read all over the country, a
thing which happened for the first time in the journalistic history of
Switzerland, it was said. The little Basle paper became suddenly an
organ of national importance. The international representatives,
diplomats, foreign correspondents, propagandists read the articles
with great care. It is a curious fact that this Austrian was spoken of
as “the only neutral in Switzerland.” The French Swiss were more
French than the French. The German Swiss were more German
than the Germans. The Swiss Government tried to steer an equal
course between the two sets of belligerents. There the Austrian
journalist was useful. He expressed neutrality day by day. His
articles were quoted in Paris and in Berlin. Occasionally his paper
was excluded from one or the other, he himself being bitterly
attacked by both sides. Most of all was he attacked by his Swiss
colleagues who resented the great success of the foreign intruder,
with a mentality more Swiss than their own. Another and a greater
alien, Friedrich Schiller, whose “Wilhelm Tell” is the classic reading of
Swiss youth, never saw Switzerland, but had caught the Swiss spirit
better than some of the sons of the soil!

Dr. Bauer was not at the café. Neither were the jewelled and
fragrant women who used to sip its sparkling wines, whilst they
waited in the ante-chamber to Paris for their visa for the Heaven of
their dreams. The war produced large numbers of this feminine type.
I knew several of them. Sometimes beautiful, often wealthy, in spite
of fallen money values, they played their game of coquetry in Berne
to while away the time till better things came in sight. The ghastly
tragedy of famine passed them by. The sufferings of the war left
them cold. The colossal spectacle of Europe’s downfall was nothing
to them. Clothes, jewels, fine furniture, a good social position were
the only things which counted with them. Their lovers from the
broken countries they flouted. They had just enough practical sense
to see that the things they wanted were not to be found in the land of
their birth. Their men had become ineligible. They would take
husbands from the lands of the conquerors. The “Entente husband”
became an institution and the fair husband-hunters a joke. Beauty,
wealth maintained by gambling in exchanges, in return for an
“Entente husband” and a visum for Paris and the glory of silks and
scents and a place with the conquerors! I know one such woman, a
beautiful Pole—but let me be merciful!

On my return to the hotel I found a note from an American friend

asking me to dine and saying she would call for me at eight. This
was cheering. How it is known so quickly that one is in a place
passes my comprehension! Punctually at eight she burst into my
room, looking as radiant as the May, although she is nearly forty.
“Tell me,” I asked. “How do you keep yourself so young, you
amazing woman?”
“Simple enough,” she retorted. “Massage and a blameless life, my
dear.”
We dined with several members of the Hungarian Red Cross,
gone crazy with hate of Bolshevism, who talked themselves hoarse
about the iniquities of the Jews and ate so many oysters that I began
to be nervous for their constitutions. And so ended the last of my
days in Berne.

I was too late for the Geneva Conference. The delegates had had
their last sitting, and only a social function to say farewell remained.
There I met a number of dear friends full of good works. I have
written of Mrs. Buxton and her sister. These and their like
compensate the world for the idle and mischievous butterflies waiting
for their Paris visa and frocks and jewels.
At the theatre that evening a curious little international group
talked of their many adventures of travel, with the difficulties of
getting passports as a conspicuous item of conversation. One spoke
of the amount he had had to pay in bribes in Rumania, another of
having lost his passport. “But I had a receipted tailor’s bill in my
pocket. The Austrian Royal Arms were at the head. It was an old bill.
And they accepted it as my passport without a question. It looked
important and the fellow who looked at it couldn’t read a word, so
there was no trouble!” A little picture of Balkan Europe which tells a
story one can read only too well.
Baron Ofenheim is reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in
Austria. I only know him as the kindest of friends and the most
tender-hearted of men. He has a connexion of many years’ standing
with England and is a man of great business capacity, which he has
devoted to helping his unfortunate country out of her terribly trying
situation. He was one of the most helpful delegates to the Fight the
Famine Conference in London. He attended the Geneva Conference
urging a better organization than he believed the Save the Children
Fund had then achieved. He favoured activity on a larger scale by a
more representative body of people than he considered the
organizers of the Fund to be at that time. Doubtless the much
superior organization that the Fund has achieved under the able
secretaryship of Mr. Golden would satisfy the most severe critic,
including the Herr Baron. With him was Sir Cyril Butler, at one time a
British official in Vienna. With the opinion of these two distinguished
men that Vienna would be a far more useful centre for the League of
Nations than Geneva, I heartily agree.

Seven months later, in July, 1920, was held in this same city of
conferences the second full gathering of the Second International. A
further description of its proceedings is not necessary. Controversy
followed the same lines as before. But there was a new tone, a
better spirit. Germans, French and Belgians grew amicable once
more, friendly without being effusive. The British Delegation
numbered this time a few delegates of the “extreme left.” They were
attending an international conference for the first time. They found
the quiet unity too tame. They spoke of the Conference, in private,
as dead if not damned. They turned their eyes, if not towards
Moscow, away from the work in hand. With the mistaken judgment of
the new-comer they made fiery propaganda speeches, forgetting
that they were not talking at the street corners, but to a body of
Socialists, many of whom were of the best and most intelligent minds
in Europe, some of whom had suffered long years of imprisonment
and exile for their political faith. They wanted a demonstration and
welcomed the interruptions from the gallery which made Huysmans
threaten to close it. The interrupters were a band of very young men
with wild hair and red ties. A foolish business....

I had a call one day from Baron Bornemiza, the able Hungarian
Minister to Berne, whose practical common sense is a great asset to
his country, falling from a frenzy of Red fever into a fury of White. He
speaks wonderful English and is not un-English in appearance, tall
and straight and broad-shouldered. He was concerned about the
cartoons of Admiral Horthy which the International was said to be
exhibiting on its stall at the Conference. I imagine the local Socialists
would be responsible for the literature stall. I never saw the alleged
cartoons. They were probably as tasteless and vulgar as most such
things. But it is a pity to pay any attention to them. In England one
laughs when one is the subject of these exaggerated and generally
offensive pictures. I told His Excellency so. Admiral Horthy must be
like the King of England. The King is above the law of libel. Or at
least he must not condescend to notice his traducers. To do that is to
give them an importance they would not otherwise possess. The
atrocities of the Hungarian White Terror, for which Horthy was
believed to be responsible, would be the cartoonist’s justification of
his pictures.
One other person must be mentioned here and then this narrative
closes. Dr. Marie de Rusiecka is a Polish lady doctor who served
during the Serbian retreat. The stories she is able to tell of that
appalling disaster to the Serbian Army make one sick with a
shuddering horror. She became an enthusiastic propagandist for
peace and all the things which make for peace. She exiled herself
from her native land and took up her abode in Geneva. Like all
holding her views she was persecuted and slandered. The terribly
pro-French Genevese declared her to be pro-German and made life
in Geneva impossible for her. She went to Berne. She did more than
any other woman, and probably as much, or more, than any one
person, to organize the League of Nations Conference. I met her
there. Afterwards she took part in the women’s conference at Zurich,
and organized for Mrs. Despard and myself a highly successful
meeting in Berne on the subject of the Treaty of Versailles.
She is a slight little woman, of fair complexion and energetic
manner. She has a soft voice, but is quietly convinced and
determined. No effort is too much which will advance the cause of
peace. She is almost too grateful for any assistance. She is, I
believe, deeply religious. She took rooms at the Hôtel de France, a
small and humble hotel in Berne, and there she worked like a Trojan.
I do not think she is a rich woman, but she must be spending the
whole of her means on this work for peace.
Dr. Rusiecka has produced a French edition of Foreign Affairs.
She is helping to edit a newspaper in Geneva along with the
distinguished pacifist M. René Claparéde.
Nothing can discourage this gallant little woman. I have known
things happen to her which would have driven most women into the
haven of private life. But she goes on—brave, strong, defiant of
wrong, and defendant of right. Wherever in Europe the word peace
is spoken and meant the name of Dr. Rusiecka will be found to be
associated with it.
 CHAPTER IX
MORE ABOUT RUSSIA

I have told the story of my visit to Russia in a separate volume. A

reference to the last chapter of “Through Bolshevik Russia” would
help towards a clearer understanding of the few additional pages
upon Russia which are all that can be spared to it in this book. That
chapter speculates upon the future of Soviet Russia.
I have seen no reason since writing that book to revise in the
slightest degree the judgment of Bolshevism there expressed. One
of the points of criticism levelled against it by those who questioned
the wisdom of its publication, but not the sincerity of its writer, was
that I had not been sufficiently careful to distinguish between
Bolshevism for the Russians and Bolshevism for this country. The
one, it was argued, was necessary for the break-up of capitalism in
Russia. It is unnecessary for the break-up of capitalism in a country
where every adult person is equipped either with the vote or with the
right of industrial organization.
With the argument I am not for the moment concerned; but I have
indeed written foggily if it is not clear from my writing that I am hostile
to Bolshevism as a political creed and system, and to its application
to Russia only less than to its imposition upon England. The attempt
to destroy an idea with guns is stupid at any time. To try to destroy it
by force of arms in Russia was an unwarrantable cruelty on the part
of the Allies, an impertinent interference in another country’s internal
affairs, and the crowning act of folly of an Entente which has
distinguished itself for acts of madness since the days of the
Armistice.
Perhaps it would be as well to state once again some of the
reasons which moved me to criticism of the Bolshevik leaders, their
programme and their policy.
 First, let it be admitted once more, and emphasized in a manner
which can leave no doubt in the reader’s mind, that for the nameless
sufferings of the Russian people from hunger, cold and disease, and
for the state of war which has kept Europe restless, unsettled and
distressed for the two and a half years since the Armistice, the Allied
Governments must bear the chief burden of responsibility. During the
whole of that time Russia was engaged gallantly beating off one
military adventurer after another, equipped by the Allies with arms
and stores. She did not want war. She desired above all things
peace. With her wireless she filled the air with cries for peace even
whilst she dealt triumphant blows to the right and left of her, as one
foe succeeded another. These wireless waves struck upon the ears
of the whole world and turned pitying hearts towards Russia who had
no love for Russia’s Bolshevism. Still peace was denied. France,
crazy with fear of a possible Russo-German alliance, supplied one
adventurer after another with the necessary equipment, in pursuit of
a policy which made for the very thing she dreaded. England with
her ships blockaded Russia’s ports, sowing a deadly hatred for this
country in the hearts of mothers and fathers of little children dead of
hunger, and making inevitable a Russian policy in the East
unfavourable to British interests.
But this fully granted, the Russian Bolsheviks must accept a very
considerable part of the blame. These men and women are not fools.
The chiefs are highly educated and widely read. They have an
incomparable knowledge of world affairs. I very much doubt if there
is a man living with a larger acquaintance with the foreign politics of
the world than the brilliant Radek, or a woman who knows more of
Socialist history and organization than Madame Balabanova. What
outsider can judge with perfect fairness the act of a great man in the
critical epochs of his country’s history? It may have seemed to the
Bolshevik leaders, in order to stop the fatal disintegration of Russia’s
economic life which was the first fruit of peace and the Revolution, of
the first necessity to seize power and destroy the beginnings of
democratic growth exemplified in the Zemstvo and the National
Assembly. Their contempt for any democracy other than a
Communist democracy may have sincerely justified itself in their
eyes in the miserable circumstances of the time of the Second