8 Years for Reporting

The Front Page of  The New York Times features Roxana Saberi this morning, after Iranian authorities sentenced her to eight years in Prison for allegedly spying. We all know this is bunk. Saberi is a respected journalist who has worked for National Public Radio and The BBC. Saberi was arrested back in January on charges of buying alcohol. Then she was charged for working without press credentials and eventually with spying for the United States. I have been following the case of Saberi with great interest because it concerns me as I get ready to graduate from Annenberg and forge into my own freelance journalism career. Gone are the days when one could sign up to be a foreign correspondent the way one might sign up for the Navy Seals or the Army Rangers. Now you are on your own. And if you get shot in a war zone or arrested by a repressive regime there is no one at home to worry about you and work out the details of medical care or your release from Prison. It is good to see the New York Times, NPR and BBC working together to draw attention to Saberi's plight. But do they have the resources to really get her home? This will be one to watch. In the meantime the world of freelancers is growing and begs for a new association to work specifically on these such issues. The Society of Professional Journalists is one such organization that could step in to fill the void left by the  fragmenting of newspapers and the dispersion of correspondents. But SPJ seems more concerned with the things that made the old world of journalism go round -- awards, libel cases and basically celebrating itself. Yes they have a token blog and some ridiculous article about webcasting, but what the journalism world really needs right now is an online community for those of us who are brave enough to actually go out be journalists despite a global economic downturn, the collapse of newspapers and governments who will throw us in jail for telling the truth. Maybe SPJ is like an old newspaper forcing its writers to blog and post some video once in a while, but really not wanting to change much ... as long as the money keeps rolling in. I am a member of SPJ, and I believe it is an important organization. But I had hoped to see more leadership from them as the industry hit these tumultuous times. How about getting together a health insurance cooperative for all of the journalists who can no longer rely on corporations to cover them and providing a networking forum for journalism entrepreneurs? And I believe, member or not, they should be speaking up in defense of Saberi. Instead I see big articles about SPJ turning 100 -- and my thoughts are that they'd better watch out. If they don't make the leap, somebody more innovative might just jump in and do the job they should be doing, standing up for journalists and helping them through this transition ... and they just might start giving out their own awards too.