Club member helps Myanmar rewrite constitution, move toward press freedom

“Three Piglets Born with Physical Deformity,” reads a headline in the government-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

The English-language newspaper’s motto is “The most reliable newspaper around you,’” said former Pulitzer Prize winning White House reporter and National Press Club member Jim McQueeny.

“It’s an ironic play on words because it’s pretty much in the country, the only paper around you,” he added.

As Myanmar undertakes political reforms, it has invited outside experts, including McQueeny, to help it amend its constitution and guide it along the path to democratic elections in 2015.

During a whirlwind 10-day trip to Yangon and the capital city of Naypidaw in May, McQueeny advised the country’s leaders on new media laws and educated them about what it means to have a free and independent press, something that “is taken for granted in the developed world,” he said.

McQueeny represented the London-based International Public Relations Association to the United Nations Department of Public Information. Previously chief of staff to the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and now chairman of Winning Strategies Public Relations, his work in Myanmar was pro bono and funded by the World Learning Institute, a non-governmental organization.

Other members of the delegation included the heads of think tanks and media lawyers. Their goal was to bring international standards of media transparency to the country. For example, McQueeny urged the leaders to set up an equivalent to the Freedom of Information Act.

For now, the military retains veto power in the parliament, McQueeny said, but the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and the promise of a new constitution suggest its stated desire for reform is sincere.

In spite of the scheduled election, the military rulers’ commitment to democracy and a free press remains tentative, McQueeny said. The fledgling independent newspapers are underfunded and lack a strong distribution network.

McQueeny worries that the Myanmar’s leadership is content to “let the inefficiencies and undercapitalization of those [independent] papers do themselves in.” Paradoxically, the ads which the small, independent newspapers sell are often for government-run businesses, he said.

Quoting Mark Twain, McQueeny said the difference between the country’s independent and government-owned media is the difference between “lightning and a lightning bug.”

Although largely limited to urban areas, the fledging newspaper industry is still a step forward for the country of 55 million people. The threat of jail time for writing stories against the official line has diminished, McQueeny said. He hopes that the delegation’s advice on telecommunications, printing and publishing enterprise and broadcasting and media law will become part of the constitution and formalize and advance the reforms already underway.

During meetings with the military leaders, government ministers and state media, McQueeny informed them that “everyone in Burma [another name for Myanmar] is your boss.”

“This was baffling to them,” he said. “It shows the amount of work ahead.”

Unlike their counterparts in the Middle East, Myanmar’s military rulers have little to fear from social media because Internet access is very limited, according to McQueeny.

While change appears imminent, there is no guarantee that it will be of the type the Club and other advocates of press freedom seek. Many countries are vying for influence and wish to sell goods and services to its millions of previously cut-off consumers, most notably neighboring China.

The rulers “might find Chinese media a model to emulate as well,” McQueeny said.

During McQueeny’s consultations, Myanmar officials would remind him of the violence of the U.S. Civil War. The military rulers said they are leery of giving up too much power too fast for fear of inciting a similar revolt in their own country, which consists of many tribal ethnicities and is torn by divisions between Buddhists and the minority Muslims. McQueeny recalled seeing taxicabs with “Buddhist only” stickers posted by members of the anti-Islamic 969 Movement.

McQueeny sympathized with the ruler’s concerns and advocated for a gradualist approach. The outside world should not overwhelm Myanmar with a “fire hose” when all they want is a “glass of water to quench their thirst for freedom,” he said.

McQueeny hopes the Club can help advance Myanmar’s reform movement by hosting some of its independent journalists.