news blackout
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Media blackout is the censorship of
news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...
related to a certain topic, particularly in mass media, for any reason. A media blackout may be voluntary, or may in some countries be enforced by the government or state. The latter case is controversial in peacetime, as some regard it as a human rights violation and repression of free speech. Press blackout is a similar phrase, but refers specifically to printed media. Media blackouts are used, in particular, in times of declared war, to keep useful intelligence from the enemy. In some cases formal censorship is used, in others the news media may cooperate, as in the UK D- (later DA-)Notice system in the Second World War.


Examples


Historical

Some examples of media blackout would include the media bans of southern
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
during the droppings of the atomic bombs on
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...
and Nagasaki, and the lack of independent media correspondence from Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. During World War II, the US Office of Censorship sent messages to newspapers and radio stations, which were acted on by recipients, asking them not to report any sightings or explosions of fire balloons, so the Japanese would have no information on the balloons' effectiveness when planning future actions. As a result, the Japanese learned the fate of only one of their bombs, which landed in Wyoming, but failed to explode. The Japanese stopped all launches after less than six months. The press blackout in the U.S. was lifted after the first deaths from fire balloons, to ensure that the public was warned, though public knowledge of the threat could have possibly prevented the deaths. News of the loss of over 4,000 lives when UK ship RMS ''Lancastria'' was sunk during the war was voluntarily suppressed to prevent it affecting civilian morale, but was published after it became known overseas.


GHQ in Japan, occupation after WWII

Above the political and economic control that
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the United States-led Allied occupation of Japan following World War II. It issued SCAP Directives (alias SCAPIN, SCAP Index Number) to the Japanese government, aiming to suppress its "milit ...
(SCAP) had for the seven years following Japan's surrender, SCAP also had strict control over all of the Japanese media, under the formation of the Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) of SCAP. The CCD eventually banned a total of 31 topics from all forms of media. These topics included:Criticism of SCAP (individuals and the organization). Criticism of Allied policy pre- and post-war. Any form of imperial propaganda. Defense of war criminals. Praise of "undemocratic" forms of government, though praise of SCAP itself was permitted. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Black market activities. Open discussion of allied diplomatic relations (Soviet Union–United States relations). Although some of the CCD censorship laws considerably relaxed towards the end of SCAP, some topics, like the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were taboo until 1952 at the end of the occupation.


Contemporary

In Nassau County, New York, on July 4, 1956, a 32-day-old baby named Peter Weinberger was kidnapped and held for $2,000 ransom; the kidnapper promised to return Weinberger "safe and happy" if his demand was met. Police arranged for the kidnapper to retrieve the money at a corner near Weinberger's home and requested a media blackout to reduce the risk of the kidnapper harming Peter before the exchange. The ''
New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'' reported on the kidnapping anyway, drawing heavy press attention to Weinberger's house and scaring the kidnapper out of retrieving the ransom money. The kidnapper then abandoned Weinberger in some heavy brush off a highway exit. Weinberger was found dead a month later, having died of
infant exposure In ancient times, a method of infanticide or at least child abandonment was to leave infants in a wild place, either to die due to hypothermia, hunger, thirst, or animal attack,Justin Martyr, ''First Apology.'' or perhaps to be collected and bro ...
. A media blackout was used during the
2005 New York City transit strike The 2005 New York City transit strike, held from December 20 through 22, 2005, was the third strike ever by the Transport Workers Union Local 100 against New York City's Transit Authority and involved between 32,000 and 34,000 strikers. In Dece ...
to allow for more effective contract negotiation between the two sides of the dispute. The 2008 abduction of Canadian journalist
Mellissa Fung Mellissa Fung is a Canadian journalist with CBC News, appearing regularly as a field correspondent on '' The National''. Education and career Fung and her younger sister are the daughters of Kellog and Joyce Fung. She was born in Hong Kong, and ...
was given a media blackout to assure her safe return. All media sources obliged making the Canadian public unaware of the fate of Fung. In 2008, the fact that Prince Harry, then third in line to the British throne, was serving on active duty in Afghanistan was subject to a blackout in the British media for his own safety. He was brought home early after the blackout was broken by foreign media. On 22 June 2009, when news came that '' New York Times'' reporter David Rohde had escaped from his Taliban captors, few knew he had even been kidnapped, because for the seven months he and two Afghan colleagues were in the Taliban's hands, The Times kept that information under wraps. Out of concern for the reporter's safety, ''The Times'' asked other major news organizations to do the same; NPR was among dozens of news outlets that did not report on the kidnapping at the urging of Rohde's colleagues.
Kelly McBride Kelly B. McBride (born 1966) is an American writer, teacher and commentator on media ethics. Personal life Kelly McBride earned a Bachelor of Journalism degree in 1988 from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and a Master of Arts ...
, who teaches ethics to journalists at the Poynter Institute, says she was "really astounded" by the media blackout. "I find it a little disturbing, because it makes me wonder what else 40 international news organizations have agreed not to tell the public," she tells NPR's
Melissa Block Melissa Block (born December 28, 1961) is an American radio host and journalist. She co-hosted NPR's ''All Things Considered'' news program from 2003 until August 14, 2015. In August 2015 she became a Special Correspondent for NPR, responsible fo ...
. McBride says the blackout could hurt the credibility of news organizations. "I don't think we do ourselves any favors long term for our credibility when we have a total news blackout on something that's clearly of interest to the public," she says.Melissa Block (23 June 2009
Reporter's Escape From Taliban Spurs Ethics Debate
NPR.org. Retrieved on 23 June 2009


In association football

In association football, a press or media blackout is also referred to as a ''silenzio stampa'' (literally ''press silence'') from the corresponding Italian phrase. It specifically refers to when a football club or national team and the players refuse to give interviews or in any other way cooperate with the press, often during important tournaments, or when the club feels that the media does not depict the club and their activities in an objective way. The phrase ''silenzio stampa'' was born during the
1982 FIFA World Cup The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain between 13 June and 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy national foo ...
, when the Italian team created a news blackout due to rumors and untrue stories circulating in the press.


See also

* DSMA-Notice *
Freedom of the press Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
* Gag order * Prior restraint * Internet censorship


References

{{Reflist Censorship Mass media