‘Press freedom endangered’

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32494, 2 January 1971, Page 15

‘Press freedom endangered’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) ZURICH, Jan. 1. The International Press Institute describes the last year as a disappointing one for press freedom, which, it says, has made no important gains in totalitarian countries and faces new dangers in countries with a tradition of press liberty.

The institute, which has 1600 members in 62 countries, entitles the 1970 edition of its yearly review on press freedom, “Under Seige from all Quarters.” The report, by Mr Ernest Meyer, a Frenchman and the director of the institute, says that there was virtually no change last year in the many

countries where the mass media are part of the political machinery of the Establishment.

“In Latin America, press freedom is being bled and battered under the assaults of Right and Left extremism, in a process in which brutality is only equalled by incoherence,” it says. “In the Western world, where press freedom has traditionally been an institution, we are beginning to witness what may soon become an alarming evolution. Motivated by economic pressures a gulf seems to be developing between publishers and their newsrooms.

“Faced by rapidly mounting production-costs, the publishers are less and less disposed to adopt editorial policies which may put at risk either their readers or their advertisers. “A balance of interest must be found if press freedom, and even the physical survival of much of the press of the Western world, is to be assured,” the report declares.

Another threat to press freedom is a growing trend towards concentration .of ownership, which at its worst can reduce editors to rubber stamps, it says. “But perhaps the greatest danger threatening the press is the growing credibility-gap between public opinion in the industrialised world and almost all forms of public institutions. “Because the mass media is the pivot of all other public life this general disenchantment often manifests itself towards the media.” If this disenchantment continues: “The erosion of the foundations of the Free World will begin.” “The press of the United States continues to be affected by the atmosphere of distrust against it in many quarters engendered by Vice-President Spiro Agnew. “The last year has demonstrated the credibility-gap which has developed between the media and the public.”

Referring to South Vietnam’s new press law, which was passed early in 1970 and says that press freedom is a basic freedom in South Vietnam, the report comments: “There is often an Orwellian aura about any regime which feels obliged to

proclaim by law its belief in freedom. “The press law was barely on the statute book before the seizure of Saigon newspapers began, almost en masse.” Among its comments on press freedom in other countries, the 1.P.1. report says: Soviet Union: About 1500 press and broadcasting journalists have been dismissed in 1970 “in a kind of general political purge,” while many Western correspondents have met greater difficulties than in the previous year. Greece: The remaining three or four independent newspapers were systematically harassed, and many journalists were still detained without trial, some since 1967.

Spain: Many Spanish publications were seized during 1970, and the number of foreign newspapers and magazines seized was a new record. West Germany: There were signs that moves towards monopoly situations, caused by increasing concentrations of ownership, might threaten editorial independence. A blatant infringement of the right of a journalist to write without harassment is the case of Mr Don Luce, the information officer of the World Council of Churches, who had his press accreditation withdrawn after revealing in the American press the existence of “tiger cage” prisons in South Vietnam, says Mr Meyer.