Ideas Illustrated Magazine | Arts Writing & Editing

I worked on London-based design, illustration and advertising agency YCN’s house publication Ideas Illustrated, a quarterly magazine focusing on the arts, culture and design and stocked by leading London cultural luminaries including Saatchi & Saatchi, School of Life, Bistrotheque and more. Each issue of Ideas Illustrated is based around a theme and the following interviews – with press freedom advocacy organisation Reporters Without Borders and online gossip publishing phenomenon Gawker.com – were conducted for the magazine’s ‘Communication Issue.’

A conversation with Julien Pain, Reporters Without Borders / Reporters Sans Frontières (Paris) for Issue One of Ideas Illustrated

Ideas Illustrated: Why is press freedom imperative?

Julien: Why is press freedom imperative? Because without press freedom and without the free circulation of information you don’t have a basis for democracy. Democracy is completely reliant upon press freedom.

Ideas Illustrated: What is the role of the internet in creating an informed public?

Julien: Well, the internet is a major medium now. And in Western countries half the population gets its news predominantly through the internet – more than through traditional media – so internet censorship is a major issue. That said, internet censorship is an issue in democracies as well as in repressive regimes.

Ideas Illustrated: What do you think the biggest current threats to online press freedom are?

Julien: Well it depends on the country of course. The main problem with freedom of expression right now is online censorship which is spreading throughout the world.  Online censorship started in Asia, in China specifically, and it’s now starting to extend everywhere. Without free internet; without access to independent information; without access to news from foreign countries, you simply cannot have a democratic government. It’s impossible.

Ideas Illustrated: So what techniques do governments use to censor internet content?

Julien: The techniques and technologies used to censor the internet are increasingly efficient. Again, let’s take the example of China and the Chinese way of controlling the internet, which is a mixture of technology – quiet, very sophisticated technology from the U.S. – to censor the internet and spy on online communications; but it’s also a matter of human resources. In China they use an army of moderators and insider policemen who actively monitor what people do on the internet almost in real time.

Ideas Illustrated: I’ve read that within a few years internet users in China will overtake those in America…

Julien: Yeah, they’re already second and China will, of course, overtake the United States very, very soon. They already have 110 million internet users and that number is growing amazingly fast.

Ideas Illustrated: Can you tell me about a recent violation of press freedom that Reporters Without Borders is actively combating?

Julien: Yeah, I’ll just give you one example. A couple of weeks ago an Egyptian blogger named Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years in prison because he criticized President Hosni Mubarak and gave his opinion about Islam on his blog. He was sentenced to four years in prison. And Egypt is not even a dictatorship, I mean you can’t compare Egypt to China or North Korea of course, but even in these countries, which are authoritarian but not really tyrannies, bloggers are at the forefront of the fight for freedom of expression.

Ideas Illustrated: Do you think it’s possible to achieve a balance between freedom of press and necessary control over illegal or offensive content online? Denmark noticeably fell in the Press Freedom Index 2005 because of its stance on the Mohammed cartoons, and The Internet Watch Foundation justifies internet censorship on the basis of ridding the internet of images of child abuse. Is press censorship ever justified?

Julien: Well, by nature I’m very cautious about internet control because once you start controlling something you don’t know where that control is going to end. And that’s the problem with internet censorship. Of course I’ve got nothing against banning child pornography but the problem is that you have to be very clear about what is illegal and what is not because if you use very broad terms such as, I don’t know, national security and so forth, then you don’t know where you’ll end up, and that’s the problem.

Ideas Illustrated: Reporters Without Borders has published a ‘Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents’. What would your tips be for bypassing internet censorship?

Julien: Well we gave plenty of technical advice about how to get around internet censorship. And the simplest advice is to learn how to use a proxy, which is not a very difficult thing to do. You just need to change the parameters of your browser and use a different proxy, a different entry point to the internet if you want.  And by using this technique you can bypass most filters on the planet. In most countries, this very simple technique of changing the parameters of your browser will enable you to circumvent censorship.

Ideas Illustrated: In China there are a reported 20 million bloggers. Do you think that there is a correlation between the rise of blogging and civilian journalism and internet censorship?

Julien: Yes of course! Online censorship is increasingly important when many more people are on the web. I mean if you had one million internet users in China then the authorities wouldn’t put so much emphasis on controlling the internet. But if you have one hundred and twenty million internet users, and probably yes, ten or twenty million bloggers – although nobody has an exact figure – it makes this [blogging] a major issue for the government because it can no longer just censor the traditional mediums.

Ideas Illustrated: So you think it blogging and civilian journalism has increased state focus on the internet?

Julien: Of course!

Ideas Illustrated: Google’s founding slogan was “Don’t be evil.” Who or what at present is the perpetrator of the greatest evils against freedom of speech?

Julien: Well, you know what Google is doing in China, right? Which makes their motto frankly ridiculous I think. Because it’s like, “don’t be evil in the U.S., but be as evil as you want in China,” which doesn’t make sense.  That being said, I don’t want to only criticize Google. It’s a major problem for American companies because obviously China is an important market and they have to find a way to get into the market and respect their own values at the same time, which is not an easy issue.

It’s very easy for human rights activists to blame those people who are in control of these companies but I think censoring the internet and helping these countries to censor the internet is a major ethical problem. And I think in the long run it won’t benefit them.

Ideas Illustrated: You specialise in internet censorship. What are the particular hurdles you face in countering censorship online?

Julien: Well the first one is that it’s more difficult to make people understand the importance of internet censorship because in a sense we all know that press freedom is important as the media have been talking about it for years and years. So there’s an awareness of that.

But when you talk about internet freedom, it sounds like something for geeks. Something so important and complex and technical can actually bore people in a way, and I think that’s what we need to change. People need to realise that in the technological era we live in, it’s important to understand that technical decisions and internet freedoms are a major issue in our society.

Ideas Illustrated: It’s been widely reported that the internet was key in enabling the protest movement that preceded the invasion of Iraq. What role do you think the internet can play in global protest movements and does press censorship endanger this trend?

Julien: Well, of course internet campaigning is becoming increasingly important. Especially during the time of elections. For example, the internet plays a major role in the U.S. primary and secondary election campaigns, because if you want to reach people, the internet really is the simplest and possibly the most direct way of reaching people.

It’s role is important in the war in Iraq, for human rights – for example, for human rights organisations such as mine – and of course, censoring these kinds of campaigns could be a major issue. Without our campaign about human rights in China, there’s no way our emails or our website, or content will be accessible in China, even if we publish it in Chinese, so that’s a major issue of course.  I mean our website is not accessible in China, so that’s it, it’s a major issue.

Interview with Emily Gould, Editor of Gawker.com for Issue One of Ideas Illustrated

Ideas Illustrated: What is gossip? Its raw ingredients?

Emily: Gossip is the spice that turns bland facts into good stories. The raw ingredient that’s most important to gossip is finding out that one new tidbit that puts everything else you already know about a subject in a new light.

Ideas Illustrated: Why do we love gossip?

Emily: Well, we’ve always loved gossip, but I’d venture a guess that we love it now more than ever because these days, the world economy runs on information. The general trend is to want to know as much as possible as soon as possible about as many different things as possible, and the great thing about websites like Gawker is that they bring readers so much news so quickly, but it’s news that’s reduced to its most entertaining essence.

Ideas Illustrated: What influence has the internet had on gossip?

Emily: The internet has made it possible for gossip writers to do more in the way of reporting stories as they happen. It’s taken away the emphasis on being the one to “break” a story and put the emphasis on who can get the most details the fastest and present them in the most interesting way.

Ideas Illustrated: Can you tell me what one of your most popular stories has been? Most emailed? Or controversial? Why?

Emily: Last week we were running excerpts from Madonna’s nanny’s book proposal, which had been bought and then ultimately un-bought by a publisher who ultimately, I guess, decided the material was too legally dicey. The really appalling thing about it, to me, was that the nanny’s agent and ghostwriter coaxed her into presenting it as ‘an open letter’ to Madonna – like, trying to make it seem as if she was writing it for the sake of Madonna’s poor neglected children. Really crass! Anyway, it got a lot of attention.

A popular misconception about Gawker is that it’s a celebrity-focused site. While we do maintain the ‘Stalker map,’ which records all the celebrity sightings we’re sent by readers, our main focus is media gossip. One of my favorite features we’ve done recently was when we put a call out to find the worst boss in New York. We unearthed a lot of truly, truly horrifying stories. Our most linked to stories do tend to be about celebrities exposing their intimate body parts, though, because that’s just how the internet works.

Ideas Illustrated: Here in the UK it feels as if a new celebrity weekly is springing up every month, why do you think celebrity/media gossip is so popular?

Emily: I think celebrity and media gossip is popular because it taps into that desire in all of us that wants to sort of be closer to celebrities or powerful media figures, to feel as if we’re not so different from them. And increasingly, it seems, we’re not!

Ideas Illustrated: What is the difference between gossip and scandal and gossip and news? Can news and gossip be distinguished when national newspapers and news channels feature an increasing amount of celebrity coverage?

Emily: The line between gossip and hard news does seem to be becoming slimmer. I think every publication has different standards about how thoroughly they report out their stories. Sometimes the items we run on Gawker are wildly speculative, and if that’s the case, we’re always sure to say so. I mean, that’s the main difference between what we do and what a newspaper, for example, does: a newspaper isn’t going to say “We heard this crazy rumor and who knows if it’s true but we’re throwing it out there.” But sometimes, it’s true, we do report things out just as thoroughly as they do, especially if we’re reporting on the media.

Ideas Illustrated: Do you think that the phenomenon of the gossip website/blog is contributing to an international culture of gossip? Or is celebrity gossip simply replacing gossip about people we actually know?

Emily: I don’t think celebrity gossip is replacing gossip about people we actually know — at least, not for me! I gossip about people I actually know constantly. Maybe what’s changing is our relationship to people in the news. Often the people I write about on Gawker aren’t celebrities except in the loosest possible sense of the word. Maybe it’s that the culture of blogs and social networking sites is redefining privacy and changing what it means to be a public figure.

Ideas Illustrated: You say that websites like Gawker bring people “so much news so quickly.” Do you think online journalism and journalism for print differ enormously because of this quick turnaround?

Emily: The speed of online journalism does enable us to go out on a limb. If a gossip magazine gets a big story wrong, that cover’s sitting on newsstands for a week making them look foolish. If we’re wrong, we’ll correct course and go on. We often still take a beating, but it’s not as bad!

Ideas Illustrated: You also say that some of the people discussed on Gawker are only celebrities in the “loosest sense of the word.” What do you think defines celebrity and who is Gawker’s favourite non-celebrity? Do you think Gawker is helping to create a new kind of celebrity?

Emily: I think that the internet has created a new kind of celebrity. For one thing, there’s no longer a strong association between fame and riches!  It used to be that if you were in the public eye, you generally also had the resources to protect yourself from scrutiny. Because of the democratization of “fame” that we’ve seen because of YouTube, MySpace, and blogs, that’s often no longer the case. Of course, if you’ve invited media coverage into your life, then you have to learn to deal with attention, even if some of it is unwanted.

Our favorite non-celebrity at the moment seems to be Julia Allison, who’s an unemployed former sex columnist with a very active, um, social life and a knack for shameless self-promotion. It really shows how little you need to do in order to be momentarily Gawker-famous. I like to write about anyone who’s actually capable of being shocking, and the things that “real celebrities” do have almost ceased to be able to shock: the unabashed flashing, rehab, and drug use stories were fascinating, you know, and then suddenly they were so boring. I think it’s more interesting to write about “real people” in the media or in our culture doing the same types of things, or misbehaving in more exotic ways.

Ideas Illustrated: Do you think media/celebrity gossip has a valid social function?

Emily: You know, I actually do think that media and celebrity gossip has a valid social function.  These are the stories people are talking about, and it’s fun to have a different take on things than the person you’re chatting with, or to have more information than he does. You know that moment when you’re telling someone a gossip nugget that’s really great and they react and they’re so amused and entertained and horrified and most of all grateful to you for telling them? I absolutely live for that.  I think it’s so great.

Ideas Illustrated: I’d really like to vote for London’s worst media boss! Any plans to launch a London version of Gawker?

Emily: Ha, not that I know of! It certainly needs looking into…

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