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Award-Winning Women Journalists from China and Mexico Fight for Press Freedom
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| Elena Poniatowska Amor |
WASHINGTON, October 26, 2006 — Two very different women journalists, one from China and the other from Mexico, came to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to speak about the challenges facing the media and working women in their respective countries.
The two journalists are among four from different countries to be honored with awards from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). Elena Poniatowska Amor, 74, a Mexican journalist and author known for her dedication to the promotion of equality and human rights, is the recipient of IWMF’s “Lifetime Achievement Award.” Gao Yu, 62, an economic and political reporter from China who has been twice jailed for her commitment to democratic values and continuous struggle against censorship, is a recipient of the “Courage in Journalism Award.”
Gao and Amor spoke on a panel co-hosted by the International Reporting Project, the Department of Western Hemisphere Studies, and the International Women’s Media Foundation.
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| Gao Yu |
Responding candidly to questions from a public composed of students, journalists, and policy watchers, Amor and Yu addressed issues ranging from the Yahoo’s cooperation with Chinese censors to the recent hotly disputed Mexican presidential election. Although the two women come from very different countries, each of them discussed a common theme of struggling with and overcoming a powerful adversary.
In Mexico, according to Amor, this adversary is embodied in the wealthy business class who at one time completely controlled Mexican media in order to “defend their businesses” at expense of Mexican workers. The situation is strikingly reversed in China. According to Yu, the antagonist is not the wealthy businessman, but the nominally Communist single party government whose declared purpose is “to fight against capitalism in people’s thoughts.”
Within their countries, the two women have very different degrees of freedom to act. While Amor plans to actively and openly support the defeated leftist presidential candidate Lopez Obrador in his bid to gain power in Mexico, Yu speaks of the innovative ways that Chinese bloggers disguise themselves online in order to avoid being persecuted by the government. Alternative media sources in China are scarce after a 2004 “housekeeping” conducted by the government agency which oversees the media, but Yu sees the Internet as the brightest hope for free speech in the country.
On the role of women in the media, both journalists expressed enthusiastic support. Amor asserted that, in Mexico female journalists “are much less corrupt then men.” Although Yu does not share the same opinion about women in China, she is optimistic about the impact that the growing number of female journalism students will make on the industry.
Amor and Yu defended the freedom of expression, in particular, the freedom to criticize and bring to light abuses committed by either the very rich or the very powerful. Amor, reflecting upon a lifetime of work, challenged her public today to believe that “any problem stems from a lack of believing in ourselves.”
Copyright © 2005 International Reporting Project. All Rights Reserved.