The Hindu : International : `Major challenges ahead for media worldwide'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

International

International

`Major challenges ahead for media worldwide'

P.S. Suryanarayana

Call to highlight problems of poverty and deprivation, ensure transparency

SINGAPORE: Press freedom, valuable in itself, will gain greater recognition as a worthy cause across the world if newspapers and other forms of media are seen to play a socially useful role.

Citing this reality check to emphasise the cardinal role of a free press for good governance, N. Ravi, Editor, The Hindu , said in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday that major challenges lay ahead for the entire spectrum of media.

Delivering the keynote address for the observance of World Press Freedom Day-2005 under the auspices of the Asian Institute for Development Communication, Mr. Ravi identified the more critical challenges of relevance to the global media scene at this point. These were: defending the powerless and the voiceless; seeking to prevent wars among nations and also conflicts among groups within nations; and sensitising the democratic system to address poverty and deprivation with urgency.

Shining the spotlight on these challenges in the larger context of press freedom attributes, he emphasised that "the journalistic virtues of truth telling, fairness, objectivity, intellectual depth, and diversity of sources and viewpoints tell on the quality of a newspaper." Certain higher values, too, would serve as "the hallmarks of a great press." These were "promoting peace and tolerance, arguing for justice, providing a voice to the powerless, and holding the powerful to account." These values, cherished for long, were central to this year's theme of "media and good governance."

On the challenge of defending the powerless, he remarked that stories on human rights violations might indeed be seen, in some quarters, as "an incongruous dose of bad news" at a time when readers were preoccupied with an array of other interests ranging from entertainment to jobs and education. However, "the newspapers and the media ought not to lose sight of their ennobling mission" of championing the cause of the victims of genocide or hate speech or racial discrimination and other abuses.

"Journalism tends to be value-neutral," Mr. Ravi noted, but "the demands of objectivity need to be kept in mind." Two instances of a proactive role by the free press related to the exposure of the blinding of suspects in a prison in Bhagalpur in 1982 and the more recent torture and abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners in Iraq by the U.S. military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

As for the challenge of preventing wars among nations and conflicts within states, Mr. Ravi said the democratic system could count on the reasonableness of the people "if only the media is firm in its commitment to peace and plays the role of a sentinel."

U.S. media's role

Examining how the U.S. media had failed to stop the Bush administration's bandwagon in its propaganda tracks over the war in Iraq, he said his own study had indicated that "the problem could lie deeper" than in the American media's own explanations "in terms of flawed journalistic practices."

Drawing upon Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's insight about the effectiveness of a free press to spur public action to meet emergencies such as famines and echoing his call for "a fuller practice of democracy" to address chronic forms of deprivation, Mr. Ravi observed that the challenge before the press in this field was to "bring the democratic system to show a greater sense of urgency in addressing the problems of poverty and deprivation."

The task in the developed world was to ensure the governments' compliance with the Millennium Development Goal of providing 0.7 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product as assistance to developing countries. The press in the developing countries should sharply focus on human development issues, however non-dramatic the job might be, and ensure transparency in the relevant public programmes so as to eliminate leakages and corruption, he said.

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