Media ‘underplay risk of war’

Press, 7 March 1978, Page 9

Media ‘underplay risk of war’

NZPA Canberra' i I The principal speaker at; 1 ; I the International Press' Insti-1. 1 tute’s 27th general assembly, i j in Canberra, Mr Sean Mac- - !bride, says the world is not! .'paying sufficient attention to | the threat of another war. ! He is also concerned about j ithe domination by big Western news agencies in- thei I Third World, and wants to] -1 see greater effort for the pro-1 ■ tection of journalists on dangerous missions as well!

as protection against victimisation for expressing their views. The 74-year-old Irishman, : who heads the new International Commission for the Study of Communication 'Problems, was speaking at a press conference at Can- - berrg’s Lakeside Hotel, venue jfor the assembly, which will iopen formallv todav. I Mr Macbride, a founder of ; Amnesty International, was ; Irish Minister for Foreign I Affairs, worked for interl national human rights

• organisations and the United ; Nations, and won the Nobel ! Prize for Peace in 1974. Mr Macbride said he was 'worried about the lack of •; realisation of the threat of i i another war and the insuffii ; ciency -of attention the •(media were paving to the : i forthcoming session of the I (United Nations General Assembly on disarmament. “Unless some progress can i|be made on disarmament, we i ;are really facing a situation -1 in which the world may ;; destroy itself.” he said.

I "There is a very strong! I' Establishment in favour of I Arms, and newspaper pro-| jlprietors and owners are; t! themselves part of the Establishment and therefore they . don’t want to emphasise the ■’■ unpleasant side of govern- > ment military and industrial ;; policies,” he said. I - “As a result of that we! have a recrudescence in the( i; press generally of Cold War (! stories which I think again ! , are intended to justify! I armaments.”