Exiled, not silenced: promoting freedom of expression in Myanmar

Lucinda Jordaan
WAN-IFRA

WAN-IFRA has announced its 2024 Women in News (WIN) Editorial Leadership Award Laureates. The WIN Editorial Leadership Award is a career achievement award that recognises an exemplary contribution of an Editor to her newsroom – and under her leadership the contribution of her newspaper – to society.

The WIN Editorial Leadership Award is awarded to three outstanding woman editors, representing Africa, the Arab Region and Southeast Asia, who are first amongst their peers in inspiring and paving the way forward for the next generation of leaders.

Here, Asia Regional Laureate Nan Paw Gay, Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Karen Information Center in Myanmar, shares her journey in exile.

Paw Gay is also Chairperson of the newly-formed Independent Press Council Myanmar and Executive Director and spokesperson for Burma News International (BNI), a key coalition that brings together independent media groups reporting on ethnic communities in Myanmar.

Paw Gay’s career as a journalist and media developer began more than two decades ago with the independent Karen Information Centre. For years, she reported from the Thai-Myanmar border, exposing human rights violations, including the use of sexual violence against women as a tool of war.

A graduate and former nursery school teacher who had lived and worked in Bangkok, she also worked for the Karen Women Organisation (KWO) to deepen her understanding of gender issues. This is an association she maintains to this day.

Paw Gay has actively developed grassroots journalism in a region where ethnic minorities struggle to have their stories heard in the face of the dominant community’s influence. To this end, she set up Karen News – the English-language service of the KIC – in 2011 to reach a wider audience. In 2018, she was awarded the Women Champion in Social Work Award by the KWO.

Now in exile, Paw Gay’s commitment continues.

WAN-IFRA: You have played a major role in not only amplifying the voices of the Karen ethnic group in Myanmar, but also creating and growing grassroots journalism in the area. What have been your biggest wins?

NPG: Mainly, that we have a strong community, and the target audience’s trust – that is our big win; that other media platforms accept that our news stories are accurate and reliable. Another big win is that our loyal audience are not only Karen, but also other ethnic people in Myanmar, and that media in neighbouring countries, and international media agencies, trust our information.

Myanmar’s media and political landscape is dire. Is there hope that independent news outlets can keep telling the story when many journalists have been forced into exile?

After the military coup, the independent media could no longer carry out their news business safely and freely inside the country. So we had to move to a safe area to work to give news to the public. Therefore, I could say that we are still able to tell the stories as the exile media better than under Myanmar’s Special Advisory Council (SAC).

You yourself are in exile. What does this mean for you, and what are your daily challenges?

My daily challenges are monitoring the daily newsroom management with a group and, individually, confirming the primary information, encouraging the reporters’ mental health and being mindful of the impact of our news stories after they are posted.

Despite severe limitations, you’ve managed to expose human rights violations and report on issues beyond your community. What is the most memorable interview or coverage you’ve done?

This would be an interview with Colonel Tun Tun Lat, the chief strategist of the military council based in the Karen State which surrendered on 5 April with a force of more than 600 people. This SAC colonel committed human rights violations in other regions in Myitkyina, Kachin State, before arriving in Karen State.

As chairperson of the new Independent Press Council Myanmar, what do you hope to achieve – and can this have any impact under the current regime?

[The] Independent Press Council represents independent media. We aim to promote the value of independent media which is not a propaganda tool, and to promote freedom of expression in the country.

At the moment, we are working on successfully promoting the media code of conduct and media and information literacy for our readers and within the respected communities. I believe that our success might influence and have a positive impact on these community groups.

• The other two WIN Laureates for 2024 are Beatrice Bandawe, Managing Editor, The Guardian Ltd, Tanzania, and Dima Khatib, Managing Director, AJ+ Channels, Palestine/Syria.
• This article was first published here.
• Read more about the Independent Press Council here.
• WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 27 to 29 May 2024.