Chapter 3 The Case of Reporters Without Borders
3.1 Reporters Without Borders in France
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Chapter 3 The Case of Reporters Without Borders
This chapter first provides a brief overview of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the organization’s French roots, and its expansion into Taiwan. The chapter details activities commonly taken up by employees in RSF’s Taipei office. Chapter 3 then explores the case study of advocacy done by Taiwanese employees at this office on behalf of a Chinese journalist named Huang Qi. By analyzing how United Nations human rights experts reacted to the advocacy, I evaluate how this case study shows the ability of Taiwanese people to use NGOs to influence intergovernmental organizations.
The research for this chapter was dependent on five interviews. Three were with RSF staffers: one conducted on March 26, 2019 at RSF’s Taipei office with Cédric Alviani, RSF’s Taipei bureau chief; another conducted on March 26, 2019 at RSF’s Taipei office with Anonymous A, an anonymous Taiwanese full-time staffer of RSF’s Taipei office; one conducted on April 26 via Skype with Paul Coppin, head of legal desk for RSF at its Paris headquarters; another conducted on April 26 via Skype with Anonymous B, an anonymous Taiwanese former intern for RSF’s Taipei office; and one conducted via email on May 06-07 with Seong-Phil Hong, chair-rapporteur for the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. I am able to confirm that the advocacy in question was considered by the relevant authorities, and I classify this case study into the third and highest tier of advocacy influence.
3.1 Reporters Without Borders in France
Reporters Without Borders is an international NGO headquartered in Paris that defends journalistic freedom around the world. Founded in 1985, and registered in 1995 as a non-profit organization, the French NGO engages in a wide range of advocacy
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activities relating to media freedom. RSF has consultative status at several intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations. Since its founding, RSF has grown to be the largest non-profit media freedom watchdog in the world. On its website, RSF explains that, in addition to the Paris headquarters, it has foreign bureaus in 10 cities and correspondents in 130 countries, giving RSF “the ability to mobilize support, challenge governments and wield influence both on the ground and in the ministries and precincts where media and Internet standards and legislation are drafted”
(RSF, Presentation).
Also on its website is an explanation as to why journalistic information is so important for the well-being of society: ”Freedom of expression and information will always be the world’s most important freedom. If journalists were not free to report the facts, denounce abuses, and alert the public, how would we resist the problem of children-soldiers, defend women’s rights, or preserve our environment?” (RSF, Presentation).
In 2002, RSF began what would become one of its signature initiatives, its global press freedom index. The index is a ranking of countries and territories around the world based on their relative levels of press freedom. The following information is taken from an RSF webpage dedicated to explaining the index (bolded as on the webpage).
The Index ranks 180 countries and regions according to the level of freedom available to journalists. It is a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country and region. It does not rank public policies even if governments obviously have a major impact on their country’s ranking. Nor is it an indicator of the quality of journalism in each country or region. (RSF, The World Press Freedom Index)
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One interesting thing worth noting is that, as mentioned on the explanatory webpage, the index not only takes into account the legal rights given to journalists by the state, but also examines the levels of safety in which journalists operate. For example, India and Mexico have laws in place promising freedom and independence for the media, but they both rank poorly on the RSF index because of the danger commonly faced by journalists in those countries. Taiwan ranks at 42, compared to China at 177 and Hong Kong at 73.
Taiwan is the second highest-ranked country in East Asia in the 2019 index, behind only South Korea. From 2013 to 2018 Taiwan ranked the highest country in East Asia for press freedom, but was surpassed in 2019 by South Korea. Hong Kong has seen one of the most precipitous falls in media freedom in recent years, going from 34 in 2010 to 73 in 2019.
The index gained RSF considerable attention, and has earned a reputation as a valuable tool in assessing a country’s adherence to liberal values. As noted on RSF’s website, the index is used by prestigious groups like the “UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the World Bank, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation in determining the allocation of development aid. Their reliance on the Index has helped to increase the attention that governments pay to freedom of information” (RSF, Presentation). Alviani, during our interview on March 26, 2019, said the following:
Our biggest advocacy tool is the map of the freedom of the press and RSF world press freedom index. This is used to engage with governments and engage with the local populations because of course an index means that you set countries over other countries, territories over other territories.
This creates a lot of interest and sometimes frustration from people who would not understand why their country is ranked so low. And this is very interesting for us because it allows to start a discussion. And of course it
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allows to impact because some countries would be proud to have a better ranking. Some countries, some politicians might want to act.
In addition to the work that goes into the index, as an advocacy NGO focusing on media freedom, RSF publishes articles relating to press freedom violations, trains and offers support to journalists in dangerous regions, conducts research and publishes in-depth reports on topics relating to freedom of information, and interacts with intergovernmental organizations and governments in order to promote adherence to freedom of the press.