Opinion Analysis by Albert Geokgeuzian, Staff Writer

July 13th, 2020

Lebanon is, constitutionally, a democratic nation, it has been ever since its independence. However, it is more of a Hybrid Regime rather than a democracy, as classified by The Economist. There are many factors that have made Lebanon a hybrid regime; factors such as ‘wasta’, corruption, government functioning, and the status of freedom of press among others serve to give it this classification.

The importance of a completely free press can’t be overstated; The press is often seen as a 4th branch of government, it’s job is to inform the public of the local and national climate. This job is essential to a healthy democracy, and Lebanon’s 4th branch is not fulfilling its responsibility through no fault of their own. The current media climate isn’t due to the lack of ambition on the part of journalists, instead it is due to the laws that have been put in place. The Press law of 1963 for example, states “The printing press, the press, the library and the publishing house and distribution are free, and this freedom shall only be restricted within the scope of the general laws and the provisions of this law.” There's also the Criminal Code of 1943 which allows the government to prosecute journalists for criticizing a public figure.

These laws are blatant censorship of the press, powerful people are able to censor what journalists say about powerful people. What this has led to is our media being extremely politicized and almost every political party having their own station, their own voice. A biased, censored media owned by the powerful and wealthy is not good for Lebanese democracy. This has led to anyone who criticizes a public figure losing air time, and thus losing their voice, their audience.

Everyone gets their news a certain way, whether that’s through social media, through television, or through radio. The information we receive has a huge impact on our decisions; on who we support - as long as the people in power are able to dictate what the media is able to talk about, our democracy will suffer as a result. The Economist releases an annual World Democracy Index ranking the world’s best democracies. Reporters Without Borders release an annual ranking of the countries with the best press freedom. Lebanon ranked 106th and 102nd respectively; moreover a very strong correlation (of 0.95) was shown to be present between a free press of a country and how democratic their government is. 

By taking a look at other countries who have had historically free press, we can understand why the correlation is so strong. For example, the United States of America; their first amendment reads: “The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

 The difference between the US stance on freedom of speech and Lebanon’s is outstanding. In the US, the government can never create a law that breaches the freedom of the press, except in cases of National Security. This has proven to be pivotal in so many instances where the press was able to inform the public of an operation they deserved to know without the fear of prosecution at the hands of the government. However, as the use of ‘excuses’ of threats to national security become more widespread in the US, free press may be threatened in the years to come.

 The American journalist, Seymour Hersh, unraveled the vicious killings of so many Vietnamese civilians in the Massacre of My Lai of 1969; the American public had already started to turn against the Vietnam War and this revelation was a sucker-punch to the US as they wanted to change public opinion on the War for the better. An evident example of the necessity of a free press.

A few years later, in 1972, the Democratic National Committee offices were broken into in what is now referred to as the Watergate scandal. It was seen as a simple crime by 5, seemingly ordinary citizens; that is until 2 reporters noticed an anomaly, and decided to investigate it further. Their report eventually led to the revelation that President Nixon - who was a republican - had given his permission for the break in.

The ensuing legal investigation led to the impeachment and resignation of President Nixon. The biggest recent revelation of government doings surfaced in 2013, the NSA was reported as violating the privacy rights of its citizens by spying on them per The Washington Post and The Guardian which led to the public being wary of government surveillance. Even though journalism is currently under attack, we can’t dispute the fact that in Lebanon these stories could never exist.

In Lebanon the journalists who are even brave enough to start investigating such a negative story could rarely find sources to gain information from because of the fear of being prosecuted. Furthermore, even if they are able to investigate the story and find sources brave enough to share, they would have never had the ability to publish their story. That is due to the fact that in Lebanon, publication licenses are very hard to come by. As one of our writers have previously pointed out, “The license has gained the label of an “imtiyaz” license, and lies only in the hands of the powerful, rich, and/or politically strategic.” 

This fundamental difficulty in the spreading of information is what has led us to this crisis in 2020. An American educator once said: “American democracy relies on its citizens having enough information to make good decisions and hold elected officials accountable. We rely on the press to tell us what the government is doing so that we can decide whether or not we want to let them keep doing it.” We as lebanese are not as informed as we need to be to make the correct decisions and that is due to the censorship that is currently placed on our media outlets by the Lebanese Government.

Every single individual in Lebanon should want a free press, a press that is fair, that is ethical, that is seeking the truth. The fact of the matter is that our leaders are corrupt, if you follow a certain political leader and you disagree with that statement then you should have no problem with allowing our press the freedom from the law and from censorship, so that they are able to investigate the truth and hold corrupt individuals accountable. 

 Journalism shouldn’t be for the wealthy, shouldn’t be for the powerful, or for those who accept being censored. Journalism should be independent from government, it must be if we are to realize our potential as a nation. As the great philosopher Albert Camus once said “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”