Journalists in Bahrain salute press clean-up call

Manama: A call by an international press watchdog activist to clean up journalism from corrupt practices throughout the world was on Wednesday welcomed by journalists in Bahrain.

On Monday, Aidan White, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Journalists, said that while journalists demand transparency from others, they should also demand the same from themselves.

"Transparency builds trust. As journalists, we request that governments and organisations come clean. We rightly believe they owe the people explanations about their actions and the reasons for doing them. But at the same time, journalists too have a duty to be honest and open and not exploit their profession to further ideologies and sectarianism or promote self-serving interests," said White whose Brussels-based federation is an umbrella for 600,000 journalists worldwide.

Eisa Al Shaiji, chairman of the Bahrain Journalists' Association, said that the IFJ call would reinforce the drive to combat sectarianism and enhance genuine standards in the media.

Corruption

"We launched in May the Journalists Against Sectarianism petition that was endorsed by more than 220 journalists as part of our drive to ensure the media is not used as a political or religious tool. We want to remain vigilant to ensure that journalism in Bahrain is clean of any abuse or corruption," he told Gulf News.

Writing in Akhbar Al Khaleej, columnist Tefla Al Khalifa hailed White's call against abusing the press to further ideological or sectarian ideas.

"He is right about the importance of responsible journalism. We do need regulations to ensure no journalist uses the press as a means to stoke sectarianism," she wrote.

For Radhi Al Mousawi, columnist at Al Waqt, White's stance against corrupt practices such as sectarianism, is a strong wake-up call.

"It is clear many journalists are taking advantage of the existence of a high number of daily and weekly newspapers that reflect a wide spectrum of tendencies. There are journalists who use the press to defend a specific sect and inevitably fan sectarianism, and there are also those who use sects to climb the ladder," he wrote.

Lead columnist at Al Ayam Esmat Al Mousawi wrote she supported the call to "fight destructive ideas."

"We must not be complacent simply because we have heard some compliments about freedom of the press in Bahrain. We do have many failures in our media and these have fuelled sectarianism and deformed normal political differences into a bitter standoff between sects."