A Free Press Matters | Episode 160 TRANSCRIPT

Transcript:

The Inside Story: A Free Press Matters

Episode 160 – September 5, 2024

Show Open:

Unidentified Narrator:

This week on The Inside Story…

We’re two months from the U.S. presidential election.

Worldwide political disinformation is on the rise

And advances in artificial intelligence make it harder to spot.

Now… on The Inside Story: Usa Votes 2024: A Free Press Matters.

The Inside Story:

JESSICA JERREAT, VOA Press Freedom Editor:

Hello, I’m Jessica Jerreat, VOA Press Freedom Editor. Welcome to the Inside Story: A Free Press Matters.

With the U.S. presidential elections less than — two – months–away, efforts to influence the outcome – and disinformation — are on the rise.

We take a look at those issues later. But first, Scott Stearns gets us started.

SCOTT STEARNS, VOA Correspondent:

Donald Trump is campaigning hard on the economy and on Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump, Republican Presidential Nominee:

Here’s what we know about comrade Kamala Harris. She just doesn’t care about the American people, especially hard-working people or middle-class Americans. She just doesn’t give a damn about you.

SCOTT STEARNS:

The Harris campaign says it’s Trump who will hurt working families with tax cuts for corporations.

Kamala Harris, Democratic Presidential Nominee:\

Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.

NATS Commercial Narrator:

She’ll make groceries more affordable by cracking down on price gouging. And she’ll cut housing costs by taking on corporate speculators.

SCOTT STEARNS:

The economy is voters’ top issue in this election. That is a problem Harris needs to fix quickly, says political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.

Hank Sheinkopf, Political Consultant:

She’s got to explain why people are paying what they think is more at the gas pump and why their bread costs as much as it does, and why the manufacturers of those products are giving them less for their dollar.

SCOTT STEARNS:

Trump running mate JD Vance says voting for Harris means losing more U.S. jobs.

JD Vance, Republican Vice Presidential Nominee:

Think of all the powerful interests, the broken bureaucracy in this country, the people who’ve gotten rich shipping your jobs to China. They want Kamala Harris. The only way to beat them and the only way to fight back is at the ballot box this November.

SCOTT STEARNS:

Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, says it is Democrats who are committed to U.S. workers.

Tim Walz, Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee:

Donald Trump and JD Vance, they have something a little different in mind. The only thing these guys know about working people is how to take advantage of them, how to not pay them. Every single chance they’ve gotten, they’ve waged a war on workers and the ability to collectively bargain.

SCOTT STEARNS:

With just over two months to go, this is a close race. Most public opinion polls show Harris with a slight lead over Trump nationally. Michigan voter David Martinez backs Trump.

David Martinez, Michigan Voter:

He’s a true American patriot. I think that he thinks more about people that live in this country than he does [of] himself. Everything that he does is to try to help somebody.

SCOTT STEARNS:

Georgia voter Becca Rush backs Harris.

Becca Rush, Georgia Voter:

You know, it’s 2024, we need some fresh blood, and we need a new brighter future.

SCOTT STEARNS:

While continuing to campaign, Trump and Harris will spend much of the next week preparing for their first presidential debate September 10.

Scott Stearns, VOA News.

JESSICA JERREAT:

With the U.S. Presidential election drawing close, analysts are seeing an increase of foreign efforts to disrupt the outcome. They say information manipulation, political violence… and intimidation are on the rise. Here’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias.

VERONICA BALDERAS IGLESIAS, VOA Correspondent:

U.S. voters are increasingly being targeted by domestic actors who spread false information ahead of the 2024 presidential election. That’s according to an election vulnerabilities report by the human-rights group Freedom House.

Kian Vesteinsson, Freedom House:

People here in the United States who are percolating conspiracy theories and misleading information about politics. Some 70% of Republicans and Republican leaning voters have been captured by the conspiracy theory that the results of the 2020 presidential election were illegitimate. Now, ahead of 2024 we’ve seen that narrative already emerging and dominant.

VERONICA BALDERAS IGLESIAS:

There’s also a rise in online intimidation and harassment of election officials as well as political violence, the researcher notes.

Kian Vesteinsson, Freedom House:

We’ve seen political candidates experiencing direct attacks, including, of course, the assassination attempt against former President Trump, hate speech and hate crimes against marginalized groups are on the rise.

VERONICA BALDERAS IGLESIAS:

While the voting infrastructure itself remains protected, cyberattacks are a source of concern, Vesteinsson says.

Kian Vesteinsson, Freedom House:

The most vulnerable targets are campaigns and websites that provide people with information about the voting itself.

VERONICA BALDERAS IGLESIAS:

The FBI is currently investigating alleged Iranian hacking attempts against the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns.

The cybersecurity company Recorded Future also reports an increase in malign influence operations by Iran, Russia and China. They include the use of artificial intelligence to develop inauthentic articles that are then posted on fake news websites that look like mainstream media.

Sean Minor, Recorded Future:

To introduce bias within the content that has a political slant or a political leaning in a specific direction based on the corresponding government’s geopolitical objectives, and how those geopolitical objectives correspond to their best interests with which candidate ends up winning the election.

VERONICA BALDERAS IGLESIAS:

How effective are those efforts?

Sean Minor, Recorded Future:

At this point we have no hard data to suggest that these operations have historically actually impacted the results of the election.

VERONICA BALDERAS IGLESIAS:

U.S. voters are nonetheless encouraged to remain vigilant and wary of grammatical or spelling mistakes found in the articles and website domains they come across, which could give away the impersonation attempt.

Veronica Balderas Iglesias, VOA News, Washington.

JESSICA JERREAT:

We turn to the on-going war in Ukraine where Russia has stepped up its attacks. Strikes in recent days hit a hospital among other buildings. Late in August, a strike on a hotel killed a Reuters safety adviser, and injured other journalists, who used the hotel as a base. When confronted with the evidence, Moscow tried to deny targeting civilian sites. Here’s VOA’s Polygraph fact check team with the details:

Unidentified Narrator:

The Kremlin neither denied nor admitted Russian responsibility for a missile attack on a hotel hosting foreign journalists in Kramatorsk, Eastern Ukraine, on August 24.

The strike killed Ryan Evans, a safety adviser for a Reuters news agency crew, and injured two Reuters journalists and other reporters.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov downplayed the significance of the attack, arguing Russia does not target civilians and that Evans was not a journalist.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov:

I read information from the agency staff that he was not a journalist, but some kind of security advisor. I repeat once again: strikes are carried out on military infrastructure, or facilities in one way or another related to military infrastructure.

Unidentified Narrator:

That is false.

Evans was part of a Reuters news crew and had worked for the agency since 2022. He was entitled to the same protections as other media workers under international law, which also forbids directly targeting civilian objects.

Press watchdogs say Russia has a well-documented history of systematic attacks on civilian structures housing foreign journalists in Ukraine.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the Russian military hunts down journalists in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territory, giving them a choice between “collaboration, prison or death.”

RSF has documented 53 events, in which 121 journalists have been victims, that could be classified as war crimes.

Not including Evans, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented the deaths of at least 15 journalists and media workers covering the war.

Moscow has likewise sought to control the narrative following Ukraine’s August 6 incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia has opened criminal cases against at least seven journalists who have reported from Kursk, falsely stating that they illegally crossed the border into Russia.

Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists documented Russian missile attacks on hotels in Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities popular among journalists, calling it a deliberate tactic “to limit coverage of the war in the international media.”

JESSICA JERREAT:

Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia, has used legislation like its foreign agent law to target critical media outlets. Now, former Soviet countries are replicating that law, in a move that worries critics. Liam Scott reports.

LIAM SCOTT, VOA Correspondent:

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, this year to protest a new law targeting foreign-funded groups.

But to no effect. When the law goes into force in September, nonprofits and media with more than a fifth of their funding from foreign sources will be required to register as so-called foreign agents or risk inspection and hefty fines.

The law’s supporters say it will bolster transparency and Georgian sovereignty.

But analysts warn the legislation could be used to silence government critics — and push Georgia further from the West.

Gulnoza Said, Committee to Protect Journalists:

If they have to register, it will limit their ability to report freely and critically of the authorities. But if they don’t register, then they can be ruined financially.

LIAM SCOTT:

Georgia was celebrated as one of the freer former Soviet countries. But it has grown closer to Moscow in recent years, amid declining freedoms and rising corruption, according to Said.

Gulnoza Said, Committee to Protect Journalists:

Georgia is basically at the crossroads between Russia and the West.

LIAM SCOTT:

Some groups in Georgia say they will pay the fines rather than register as a foreign agent. That includes the Media Development Foundation, a press freedom group.

Tamar Kintsurashvili, Media Development Foundation:

It’s quite [a] complicated time for independent institutions in Georgia, but it’s our fight, and we should defend our rights, and we should defend democracy in Georgia.

LIAM SCOTT:

Georgia is the latest in the region to adopt the Russia-style law. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have enacted similar laws, too.

And while the United States has its own Foreign Agents Registration Act, watchdogs say the Russian law is more expansive and used to target critics.

Moscow has designated dozens of media outlets as foreign agents. Among them, VOA and its sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, known as RFE/RL.

Stephen Capus, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President:

It becomes more difficult, but we’re not going to be deterred. We continue to stay on the mission.

LIAM SCOTT:

Failure to comply with Russia’s law brings steep fines and the risk of imprisonment. It is one of the reasons RFE/RL and other outlets moved teams to other European cities.

SENANU TORD, Reporting for VOA:

From the studios of Citi FM in Accra, Bernard Avle’s voice reaches tens of thousands of Ghanaians every weekday.

Along with his team, the radio and TV host engages the nation on the award-winning “Citi Breakfast Show”.

Bernard Avle, Citi FM Journalist:

I use a talk program, platform, to raise important developmental issues, but I also use the power of good interviews to question our duty bearers to actually demand for accountability.

SENANU TORD

But that voice of accountability has been hijacked.

Bernard Avle, Citi FM Journalist:

Somebody called me and said, ‘Bernard, I am calling to check on the sex enhancement medicine that you discussed on your TV show last week.’ And I was like ‘Woah, what are you talking about?’

SENANU TORD:

Avle says perpetrators used artificial intelligence tools to clone his voice and show, then broadcast it on Facebook. To make it authentic, they used his show’s introduction.

SENANU TORD:

But instead of talking about current affairs, the AI version promoted products. ((end courtesy))

Bernard Avle, Citi FM Journalist:

This is me they are using, and then a voice that sounds like mine, somehow learns how I introduce my show.

SENANU TORD:

Computer scientist and researcher Kweku Andoh Yamoah notes a surge in deep fake cloning technologies since 2022, with tools now easily accessible.

Kweku Andoh Yamoah, Computer Scientist:

They charge you a dollar, which gives you access to clone your voice in like three steps. You repeat three phrases and then you have a cloned version of your voice saying anything.

SENANU TORD:

In an election year, the easy access of AI poses a serious threat to Ghana’s peace and security, analysts say. During the 2020 election, fake news and misinformation led to unrest and at least eight deaths linked to political violence were recorded. Some worry that cloning technologies could make the situation worse this year.

Citi FM has already seen increased disinformation. It says perpetrators are using the media outlet’s brand and credibility to spread disinformation

SENANU TORD:

For this reason, Citi FM is introducing security features to flag fake news and cloned content in their widely circulated photos and stories. Using QR-code technology, audiences can easily verify images.

It is also piloting a fact-checking project funded by the Danish Embassy in partnership with the Ghana Center for Democratic Development. It brings together forensic and investigative journalists.

Emmanuel Paa Kwesi Owusu, Citi FM Head of Digital:

Then we are going the step further of also getting tech involved, combating it and actually showing proof of the behind the scenes of we getting the verification of those disinformation content.

SENANU TORD:

Alongside fact-check initiatives in Ghana are calls for greater public education in media literacy and the detection of fake media in the run up to elections.

Senanu Tord, VOA News, Accra, Ghana’

JESSICA JERREAT:

Countries including China, Russia, Iran use a range of tactics to try to influence the global stage. Beijing, for instance, sends foreign reporters to its cities to showcase culture, technology, and tourism. But often what’s missing, say analysts, is an uncensored picture of China and its human rights abuses. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi.

VICTORIA AMUNGA, Reporting for VOA:

Kenyan veteran journalist Zubeidah Kananu still thinks about a trip in July that changed her world view.

Zubeidah Kananu, Kenyan Journalist:

The minute you get there, you feel like you are at home away from home.

VICTORIA AMUNGA:

Kananu, a news editor and the president of Kenya’s editors’ guild, says she was among five senior journalists on a Chinese embassy-sponsored media tour.

Zubeidah Kananu, Kenyan Journalist:

It took us through how media has evolved in China, the new technologies that they are using, the use of AI, the use of ChatGPT in telling their stories on daily basis.”

VICTORIA AMUNGA:

Kananu wrote about Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China. Her article, published in Kenya’s local daily, is one of many stories about China she has in the pipeline. The trip gave Kananu first-hand experience interacting with people in China.

Zubeidah Kananu, Journalist:

They’ve embraced Africa in a way that I have never seen, and they introduce you to their culture through food.

VICTORIA AMUNGA:

China sees these trips as key cultural exchanges, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu tells VOA. He says, “Media cooperation can not only improve the level of the media itself, but also help deepen the political, economic, social and cultural exchanges and cooperation between countries.”

China’s efforts include sponsoring press tours to China, and even sending some journalists to Xinjiang a region where Western media have accused Beijing of human rights abuses.

Joyce Ho, Human Rights Foundation:

China literally wants to, in a very dark way, take these officials and take these foreign journalists to the very exact location where these human atrocities are happening and basically, in this very censored and policed environment, tell them look around, there is nothing to be seen here.

VICTORIA AMUNGA:

China has sought to boost its image abroad by developing an international media network and signing agreements with local outlets from Europe, Latin America and Africa, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

In Kenya, Beijing has set up media houses that employ hundreds of local journalists.

Chinese broadcasters are aiming to compete with Western outlets with content in local languages, including Swahili.

Noah Midamba, KCA University:

They want to do something different now. They want whatever they are investing (in) to be associated with massive information and penetration to the village level.

VICTORIA AMUNGA:

While Chinese-funded, large infrastructure projects have been visible examples of Beijing’s influence on the continent, hosting local journalists from around the world, say experts, is a more subtle, soft-power approach.

Victoria Amunga, VOA News, Nairobi.

JESSICA JERREAT:

Experts on China’s disinformation and rights record say Beijing uses these trips to try to secure positive coverage. Earlier I spoke with Yaqiu Wang, of Freedom House, about what Beijing wants out of the media tours, and what journalists should be aware of.

Thank you for being with us, Yaqiu.

Yaqiu Wang, of Freedom House:

Thank you so much for having me.

JESSICA JERREAT:

China says that this is a chance to show journalists their culture, their technology. But what is the reality of these trips? What is China not showing these journalists?

Yaqiu Wang, of Freedom House:

Well, those trips are usually very orchestrated and very restrictive. Journalists can’t go venture to talk to whoever they want. They cannot even go to another location that is not authorized by the Chinese government. So it’s very, very restricted. They can only go to places that the government send them to. They can only talk to people that the government send them to talk to. China’s become very restrictive recently with visas and with access to foreign media without having Chinese minder on one of these trips.

JESSICA JERREAT:

How easy is it? If you wanted to go and speak to an everyday person in China about what’s happened?

Yaqiu Wang, of Freedom House:

It has always been very difficult, but in recent years it’s getting really, really difficult. You know, that applies to everywhere in China. And that’s, you know, as I said, applied to everywhere in China, especially in regions like Xinjiang Tibet. It’s in Tibet, it’s just banned by law, but in Xinjiang, technically, you can still apply for a visa to get into, get into Xinjiang. Even when you actually get into Xinjiang, you’re followed everywhere. You know, journalists have sent pictures of themselves, having cars behind their own car, having people who are, you know, look suspicious, following them wherever they go. Some of the journalists, you go on them they, you know, they get to travel. They get all this access to sort of Chinese culture and new ideas presented, you know, as presented by Beijing and come back with positive stories.

JESSICA JERREAT:

How does China typically respond to foreign negative coverage?

Yaqiu Wang, of Freedom House:

Well, you know Freedom House research does show that you know people who actually went African journalists, who went to China, who does those who participate in those stores? Some did come back with a lot of positive coverage about just parenting. Chinese government Ghana generally, I think it’s the to the Chinese government advantage that, you know, they did those trips and then people foreign had positive coverage. But sometimes it doesn’t always work as they wanted, in terms of when you are actually doing critical coverage of a child of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in China, there are a lot of repercussions, even in the country that you know the journalists live in, whether it’s by the council who denounced them, saying, you know your coverage expires, you’re smearing the Chinese image or that.

JESSICA JERREAT:

Even in the most censored countries, media and dissenting voices can play an important role as watchdog. A group of North Korean defectors in Seoul has started a news website to expose North Korean human rights abuses. And, they want to provide a more nuanced perspective about their homeland. Bill Gallo reports from the South Korean capital.

WILLIAM GALLO, VOA Correspondent:

When North Korea appears in global newscasts, it’s usually scenes like this that dominate. The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, overseeing a weapons test.

But those kinds of martial images obscure much of what’s really going on in the country, says North Korean defector Lee Seong-min.

Lee Seong-min, Director, NK Insider:

North Korea is more than nuclear weapons and Kim Jong Un. There are a lot of people with different perspectives and hopes and goals for the future of their country.

WILLIAM GALLO:

Lee fled North Korea in 2012. He now helps run a website called NK Insider, whose goal is to elevate North Korean voices.

Lee Seong-min, Director, NK Insider:

A lot of people are talking about North Korea, scholars and experts, but there are subtle differences when you hear the voices of North Koreans who lived there in that system.

WILLIAM GALLO:

About eight North Korean defectors write for the website, launched earlier this year. They communicate secretly with sources inside North Korea for their reporting. Some don’t want to appear on camera.

Zane Han, a former Pyongyang resident, fled North Korea just two years ago.

Zane Han, North Korean Defector:

Nobody can imagine what the situation is (like) inside North Korea, what the people experience inside North Korea – really as a slave inside North Korea. [But] I was there. I know.

WILLIAM GALLO:

Han is one of very few North Koreans to recently make it to the South.

That’s because North Korea has tightened border security since the pandemic.

Lee Shin-wha, Former South Korean Ambassador for North Korean Human Rights:

It’s getting more and more difficult to see new defections from North Korea. That’ s a new trend ordinary North Korean people’s chances, I think, are almost zero.

WILLIAM GALLO:

Lee says one of his goals is to speak for North Koreans who have no voice and cannot leave.

Lee Seong-min, Director, NK Insider:

To give a platform to North Korean defectors and by extension to those still living in North Korea.

WILLIAM GALLO:

Doing what he can to provide a more nuanced perspective of his homeland.

Bill Gallo. VOA News. Seoul, South Korea.

JESSICA JERREAT:

That’s all for now. Thanks for watching.

For the latest news you can log on to VOA news dot com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at VOA News.

To get all the Press Freedom related content, follow me on X at Jessica Jerreat. Catch up on past episodes at our free streaming service, VOA Plus.

I’m Jessica Jerreat. We will see you next week, for The Inside Story.

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