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Subject: <nettime> From Asia
From: "<>" <fred@bom2.vsnl.net.in>
Date: 29 Apr 1998 21:39:20 +0200

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ASIAN EXPERTS URGE TRANSPARENCY IN FUNCTIONING OF MEDIA BODIES

NEW DELHI, April 27.
UNITED NEWS OF INDIA

Leading Asian mediapersons, newspaper proprietors, government
officials and educationists have recommended enactment of
legislation to ensure maximum transparency in the media to face
challenges posed by "abuse of ownership and control".

They observed that the move is imperative to ensure greater
accountability of the media to the people and to guarantee the
right to information to them.

This is one of the several important recommendations made by them
while participating in a three-day workshop on 'Media regulation
for the New Times', organised by Asia's leading mass
communication research organisation, the Asian Media Information
and Communication Centre (AMIC), in Bangkok-Thailand recently.

The Press Council of India (PCI) chairman Justice P.B.Sawant, who
presided over one of the sessions, emphasized that the arrival of
newer services, including the Internet, and digital and
interactive TV, had opened a wide debate on how the media should
be regulated.

He said participants felt that in view of increasing demand for
the right to information in Asian countries, the media should be
transparent and accessible for information.

Experts acknowledged that the right to publish was an aspect of
freedom of speech, and as such a fundamental right for every
citizen. They recommended that given the public service nature of
the press, efforts should be made to ensure effective
representation of diverse sections of the community in the press
and similar councils.

Press councils and similar bodies should have sufficient powers
and resources to enable efficient and and effective enforcement
of their decisions, they remarked.

A simple procedure of registration should be sufficient and self-
regulatory mechanisms ought to be in place to deal with
complaints against unfair practices in the press.

"Where press and media laws inhibit and stifle this fundamental
principle (right to information) these should be reviewed and
liberalized to promote a free press," they recommended.

Freedom of information should be made an essential aspect of the
relationship between governments, media and the citizens. "New
technologies, including the Internet, can allow public
information to become more widely accessible and at a lower cost.
Therefore, governments should desist from perceiving these
technologies as a threat but treat them as powerful tools of good
governance."

The workshop noted that any attempt to devalue the independence
and the role of the editor and the editorial staff, by any means,
should be monitored and discouraged by the press council and
other bodies.

It suggested that monitoring of press coverage by media-watch
groups was crucial to ensure fairness about patterns and
priorities of such coverage and that efforts be made to encourage
and promote grassroots and specialised journalism.

On taking the media to the poor and the illiterate, the workshop
called for initiating measures to expand audience choices,
enhance open competition and transparency in the licensing
process, strengthen professionalism and ethical standards in
broadcasting and build a regional consensus on content
regulation.

It also recommended that governments should set up clear
priorities in formulating an Internet policy, and that laws and
policies should facilitate and encourage development of
technology infrastructure related to the Internet. (*)
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