Ibrahim Essa, the outspoken editor of Egypt’s independent opposition Al Dustour newspaper has won the 2008 Tueni award from the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (WAN). He used his December 13 acceptance remarks in Beirut, Lebanon, to call on Arab journalists to fight restrictions in the region directed against independent media voices.

“All those whom you see scrambling, competing, calling one another’s names, quarrelling and disputing at summit meetings never come out with any agreement, except on the bottom line of fighting press freedom,” Essa said. “This is the only war Arab rulers have ever agreed upon.”

The Tueni award is given in memory of Lebanese publisher Gebran Tueni who was killed by a car bomb in Beirut on December 12, 2005. Tueni’s family created the award with WAN to encourage other courageous and independent publishers, editors and newspapers in the Arab world.

Essa, who has been sentenced to prison terms and seen his newspaper temporarily shut down due to the Egyptian government’s objections to its material, was praised by WAN for crossing “many red lines” in the cause of press freedom and paying “a high price for doing so.”

In a separate statement, WAN said the hostility of Arab regimes to press freedom and critical voices is “alarming” and those daring to express dissent or investigate and challenge their governments “face charges of criminal defamation, blasphemy or endangering national security, and are regularly sentenced to hefty fines and imprisonment.”

As a further sign of the times in the challenging world of print media, the 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor will cease printing in April 2009 and thereafter be available only over the Internet, the first major U.S. periodical to take this step.

In announcing the action, editor John Yemma said having a daily print edition had become “too costly and energy-intensive.” Online journalism, he said, “is more timely and is rapidly expanding its reach, especially among younger readers.” Yemma added that CSM’s bold step “is likely to be watched by others in the news industry as they contemplate similar moves.”

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal describes an “end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it vibe” among those in the news business these days, and says CSM’s decision is “intriguing.”

“It’s also a test case to be watched intently by anyone who enjoys flipping pages, or at least need something for the bottom of their pet’s cage,” he writes.

When asked about whether a New York Times print edition could disappear, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said a week before CSM’s announcement that “The heart of the answer must be we can’t care.”

Fewer and fewer readers are getting newspapers on their doorsteps or from newsstands, and nostalgia cannot compete with economic reality. “I care very much,” Sulzberger said. “But we must be where people want us for our information. It’s the thought of cannibalizing yourself before somebody else cannibalizes you.”

You probably thought it was the other way around, right? But former New York Times bureau chief Bill Kovach illustrated this point for visiting journalists at the State Department’s Foreign Press Center by looking back before the 17th century’s Age of Enlightenment transformed European society.

Back then most, as impoverished commoners, “had no place in the community except to keep their mouth shut and do their work,” Kovach said. “They had no information about how the community was run and how the people and institutions of power did their business because no one told them.”

Occasionally, word would trickle down of the monarch’s latest proclamation, a local religious leader would relay a few pieces of news, or a traveling troubadour would pass through singing about the happenings in a village hundreds of miles away.

But public opinion “is what democracy is based on,” Kovach says. And there was so little information back then that it was basically impossible to have a real opinion on your leaders or how you were being governed.

When people began compiling newsletters of information for their communities, they not only invented journalism, but for the first time they enabled others to have an opinion about anything, which increased the pressure to allow more to have a say in government.

For more on Kovach’s views on the media, see the article “Media Analyst Urges Revival of ‘Independent’ Journalism.”

The importance of good media relations has long been understood by politicians, corporate leaders and philanthropists, but it seems pirates, even from an impoverished country like Somalia, are becoming media-savvy in the 21^st century, with prepared talking points and authorized spokesmen (spokespirates?).

After the Ukrainian vessel Faina and its crew were hijacked in Somali waters on September 25, the New York Times’ Nairobi-based reporter Jeffrey Gettleman obtained the pirates’ satellite telephone number from a high-level Kenyan contact involved with efforts to bring the incident to a peaceful end.

Gettleman recalled, “It was probably my 50th call. The line had always been busy. Or the phone had been shut off.  But on Tuesday [September 30] morning, someone actually picked up.”  The reporter asked, “Can I speak to the pirate spokesman, please?”

He was actually able to talk to several pirates but was told “in no uncertain terms” that Sugule Ali “was the only pirate allowed to be quoted. Or else.”

For everything Gettleman asked, Sugule seemed to have a ready answer, comparing his band of pirates to a sort of Somali “coast guard,” whose goal is simply $20 million in cash which they claim would be used to buy themselves food.  “[W]e have a lot of men and it will be divided amongst all of us,” Sugule said.

Piracy has been a growing problem off the Somali coast for years, with nearly 30 hijackings in 2008.  But the Faina incident has heightened international attention and prompted the intervention of both the U.S. and Russian navies because the vessel is loaded with armaments, including tanks and grenade launchers.  Sugule was able to turn the cargo into a talking point by claiming the hijacking aimed to inhibit arms trafficking and prevent the weapons from reaching war-torn Somalia.  (See transcript.)

Mark Fitzgerald of Editor and Publisher said the notion that pirates now have public relations flacks who can set the rules over who can and can’t be quoted “deserves a place in the history of journalism.”

“And just what are the ethics of dealing with a pirate? … Aren’t the rules turned upside down?” he asked.   But Gettleman “played fair, and that’s probably all to the good for next journalists who have to deal with, you know, pirates.”

The situation certainly says something about the power of the press, but where do journalists draw the line between informing the public and providing a public platform for criminal activity?

How does press freedom factor into current global concerns over the financial markets and the drying up of credit?

I just went to a conference that discussed the relationship between the economy and the rule of law. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was featured as the keynote speaker. (See “Former Federal Reserve Chairman Predicts Economic Rebound.”)

In the middle of his remarks on how legal guarantees accorded to property rights and ownership have elevated general standards of living since the early 18th century, Greenspan pointed to how a free press, along with the protection of minority rights, has proven “the most effective form to safeguard [private] property.”

His argument is that the watchdog role of the press and its ability to inform the population contribute to economic stability.

“[D]emocracies rarely allow discontent to rise to a point that leads to explosive changes in economic regimes,” he said. This stands in contrast with authoritarian states that, even if operating under a capitalist economy, are “inherently unstable because [discontent] forces aggrieved citizens to seek redress outside the law.”

He quoted Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s observation that “no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press.”

Why is this? According to Greenspan, it’s because the news media in authoritarian regimes tend towards self-censorship. “[M]arket-interventionist policies – the most prevalent cause of disrupted distribution of food – go unreported and uncorrected until too late.”

So, if you’re living in a society with a relatively free press, consider the possibility that all the gloomy stories you’re reading about the economy might be helping to prevent an even greater crisis.

To some observers, the current U.S. news coverage of the presidential campaign is becoming nasty and shallow, with recent furors over trivia misstatements rather than issues.

Only dire economic troubles have managed to divert the media’s attention away from the pettier aspects of the campaign in recent days. It’s tempting to join the many voices lambasting journalists for “dumbing down” an exceedingly crucial election, but perhaps the finger of blame can be pointed at the connection between public demand for “info-tainment” and the fierce competition for advertising revenue that is needed to keep the news industry afloat.

It’s not news that traditional media stalwarts like The New York Times and The Washington Post, which regularly offer in-depth coverage of the issues, have entered days of financial insecurity. And a quick check of their Web sites shows which stories the public is reading and e-mailing to friends. In the wake of Sarah Palin’s nomination for vice president, for example, her views on the Georgia-Russia conflict aroused considerably less public interest than her daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

So, when you ask yourself why there are so few stories on the candidates’ positions on U.S. aid to Africa, but so many discussing whether or not McCain invented the Blackberry or debating Obama’s “celebrity” status, you need to follow the money. Or, thinking like an advertiser, follow the ratings.

As Digital Deliverance’s Vin Crosbie puts it: “The more consumers the vehicle attracts, the higher the rates the advertiser are willing to pay and the more money the vehicle earns.”

In the über-competitive world of news, the fight for advertising revenue means attracting the largest audience, which leads to “dumbing down” content to “attract a larger audience by appealing to a lower common denominator,” as Crosbie says. And that raises some questions about the role of the press in creating an informed electorate.

So, that’s what’s up with U.S. election coverage. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.