|
Press
Release..............................
UNESCAP News Services
|
2 May 2003
Press Release No: L/08/2003
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
---
MESSAGE ON WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY
2 May 2003
On World Press Freedom Day, we reaffirm the right
of the press to do its job. Unless ideas and information can
travel freely, both within frontiers and across them, peace
will remain that much more elusive. Where censorship is imposed,
both democracy and development are the losers. A free and independent
press is the lifeblood of strong, functioning societies, and
a lifeline to progress itself.
World Press Freedom Day is also an occasion to
remember the many journalists who lose their lives while pursuing
their mission. Uppermost in many of our minds just now must
be the 14 killed - and two still missing - in the war in Iraq.
We do not yet know - perhaps we never will - the exact circumstances
of all those deaths. What we do know, thanks to the Committee
to Protect Journalists, is that as dangerous as war can be for
those covering it, most journalists who die in the line of duty
around the world are murdered - deliberately targeted, as individuals,
for exposing corruption or abuses of power; for opposing entrenched
interests, legal or illegal; in short, for doing their jobs.
Journalists are also imprisoned for the same reasons - 136 at
the end of 2002, according to the Committee. Many hundreds more
face harassment, intimidation and physical assault. Quite apart
from the individual tragedies involved, such acts can have a
chilling effect on society at large - stifling dissent and debate.
Such attacks must not be tolerated. Their perpetrators must
be brought to justice.
This year, World Press Freedom Day comes at a
moment when the press is reckoning with the complexities of
its role in armed conflict, and trying to address the professional
practices as well as ethical norms that should guide media coverage
of war, and their continuing responsibilities during the aftermath
of conflict.
Journalism always involves difficult choices,
but wartime raises the level of intensity, leading you into
a veritable minefield of issues: objectivity versus propaganda;
scepticism versus chauvinism; big-picture context versus single
dramatic images; the struggle by reporters to balance the need
for objectivity with the benefits of access from being "embedded"
with troops; the need to convey the impact of conflict, particularly
on civilians, without displaying images of death and suffering
that are an affront to human dignity; and whether saturation
coverage actually ends up diminishing our capacity to feel,
to care, and to act.
One issue that particularly troubles us here at
the United Nations is that of selectivity: why, we ask, do some
issues and situations attract coverage, while others of seemingly
equal importance fail to achieve critical mass?
There are no simple answers to such questions.
As we continue grappling with them, I would also like to use
this World Press Freedom Day to call for action on at least
one major issue where we should all be able to agree: hate media.
In Rwanda, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the world saw genocide
and crimes against humanity triggered in part by nationalistic
and ethnocentric hate campaigns, propagated through the mass
media. More recently, in C?te d'Ivoire, many media outlets began
to use what were widely regarded as xenophobic messages, political
manipulation, unsubstantiated claims, and incitement to violence
against individuals and groups, especially of specific foreign
origin. The situation has eased somewhat, but the world saw
again that the misuse of information can have deadly consequences.
The prosecution by the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda of the principals involved in the promotion
of genocide by Radio-T?l?vision Mille Collines is a significant
step. But what really matters is that we succeed in preventing
such incitement in the future. The best antidote is the development
of free and independent media that serve the needs of all parts
of society. The United Nations is working closely with media
and non-governmental organizations in many countries to support
objective broadcasting and other initiatives aimed at promoting
professional standards and the free exchange of information.
We need more such partnerships, and we need to sustain them
over the long term.
The World Summit on the Information Society, the
first part of which takes place in Geneva in December, can make
an important contribution to the cause of press freedom. The
term "Information Society" is an attempt to capture
the new contours of our times. Others have called it the digital
era, or the information age. Whatever term we use, the society
we build must be open and pluralistic - one in which all people,
in all countries, have access to information and knowledge.
The media can do more than anyone to help us reach this goal,
and bridge the digital divide. And the press can also benefit
from the Summit, if it elicits a strong commitment from world
leaders to defend media freedom. I hope the press will cover
this event with the full energies of the profession.
* *** *
