Jerry Huffman behind jail bars installed at a local TV station in rural Uzbekistan in the late 1990s. The local government ordered jail bars to be put up at the station as a security measure. The next day, firefighters ordered the bars taken down as fire hazards. Contradictory orders were a common form of government harassment of independent media. The faces of everyone in the group except Huffman are blurred more than two decades later out of concern for government reprisals. (Courtesy of Jerry Huffman)

New Year’s Eve. The traditional time to look back on the year that’s been and toward the year that will be. Unless you’re a journalist Trump is targeting.  

Donald Trump will live out his ultimate political fantasy, being inaugurated as president for a second time. His BFF, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, is  likely counting on an easier year with less interference from Washington with Trump in the White House. Both men —  long time media manipulators — can be expected to continue their history of attacks on a free press.

I know. For a couple of years, I worked as a correspondent and a journalism instructor in states that were once part of the former Soviet Union.

The thought of Trump launching a nationwide media attack in America leaves my soul cold. As a journalist who has worked worldwide, I’ve reported from countries where there is no such thing as a free press, as well as in formerly Communist countries — including Russia — where the “wrong story” can land you in jail or get you killed.

Trump learned media domination from his cadre of autocratic sidekicks around the world. Especially Vladimir Putin, Russia’s longest-serving leader, who set the gold standard for media control.

The Berlin Wall collapsed 35 years ago, and Putin has been either president or prime minister of Russia for the last 25 of those years. His own media lessons came from the leader of Russia’s  1917 Communist Revolution: Vladimir Lenin, who famously said, “Ideas are more dangerous than bullets.” 

Today Russian journalists are banned from calling the Ukraine conflict a war or an invasion. They also risk 15 years in prison for spreading what Putin considers “fake news.” 

Although technically the old empire is gone, Putin still pulls strings across the former Soviet states. Working for a non-governmental organization as I did across Russia and Central Asia, we often hired local workers as support staff. Today Russia and its  satellites (Yes, countries surrounding Russia that remain under its influence are still satellites, even if the USSR is no more) have passed new laws saying any local worker accepting pay from an NGO that brings outside money into Russia must first declare themselves a “foreign agent.”

Since NGO funding routinely comes from outside Russia, if you take your weekly pay you will carry the self-professed tag of foreign agent. A 21st century Scarlet Letter, if you will, making a local journalist or even the  janitor who sweeps the newsroom an easy target for arrest.

The thought of a government-orchestrated media control enrages me. There is nothing more integral to a functioning democracy than an independent media.

My father fought in two wars, in Europe and in Korea, defending democracy. To not stand for his sacrifices would be an insult to his memory.

In the beginning

Hired by Internews, a California-based NGO, I moved from Wisconsin to Kazakhstan in 1999. My job was to teach journalists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to do fact-based reporting instead of  parroting government-controlled state propaganda.

But even in the post-USSR, interference was common. In Uzbekistan, one station was ordered to put jail bars up to protect from terrorist threats. The next day safety inspectors ordered the bars taken down as a fire hazard. The ping pong harassment of up and then down continued for weeks.

A station manager might get a call from a governor, the mayor or anyone who had the illusion of power and be told to bench a reporter for a few weeks because he or she seemed “tired” on the air. 

If the power brokers didn’t like the news, your spouse would lose their job. Your children might be suspended from university. Tax audits were routine.   Every day was a battle between what the government and journalists considered news. If a story upset local leadership, the list of potential violations was long and often imaginary.

The most insidious type of censorship was the media’s own self-censorship. Most news organizations would simply ignore stories they knew would upset the government. Without lifting a finger it meant the government would win, because critical stories would never see the light of day.

Some situations had the air of the ridiculous — a Laurel and Hardy feature — but nevertheless, they point to the larger issue: Trump, like Putin, likely doesn’t need to invent a new army (remember the Space Force?) to throw his weight around. All it takes are MAGA loyalists with shiny badges to harass immigrants, chase protestors or try to stop the media. 

Give them a gun and they are instantly convinced of their own power.

My own case in point:

One spring day my boss, Eric Johnson, a fellow Midwesterner, and I set out to visit some remote broadcast stations in the region. For a week we traveled the same Silk Road Marco Polo had centuries ago.

Our first sign of trouble was when we tried to cross the border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Under the old Soviet Union we would have needed a transit visa to cross the border, but no longer.  When we tried to drive across the border, however, the guys with the guns said, “not so fast.”

The Tajik border police insisted the visa was still necessary. We had the choice of paying or being arrested.

Despite a passionate argument by Eric, the one fluent in Russian, we lost. We were right, but the Tajiks had the guns. On the other hand, we had a car: We ended up driving the two guards, at their insistence, back to the jail so we could be locked up.

At the jail the border police had a courtroom of sorts. I wasn’t allowed to attend our hearing because I couldn’t speak Russian. Instead, they locked me into the commander’s empty office.

Imagine the look on his face finding a foreigner in his office. In a moment of unexpected kindness, he flipped on an ancient television and we passed the time watching cartoons.

Eventually Eric came back to the office grinning. We were free to go, but only because a local judge who knew that the visa law had been eliminated insisted on abiding by the country’s new rules. I am well aware that only this one honest man kept us out of jail.

And for the final act in this nonsensical drama? They asked and we gave the border guards a ride back to their post so they didn’t have to walk. 

A final thought

Could censorship happen here? In some ways it’s already started. Last November major newspapers pulled routine political endorsements just before Election Day. 

Trump screams bias if the media criticizes him instead of singing his praises;  some less-than-stellar media dropped the traditional editorials to avoid potential legal threats, or perhaps just the fear of losing access to the incoming administration. In the end, when the voice of a community — the media —  goes silent, viewers and readers lose yet another source of information. 

A Washington Post or 60 Minutes may have the resources to fight the federal government, but local news outlets can’t. At some point, the cost of battling administration lawyers with bottomless pockets becomes financially pointless. 

Battles that could cost each of us a piece of our freedom, one story at a time.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE