World press group hits at L.N. body’s bid to curb journalists

Press, 22 June 1979, Page 5

World press group hits at L.N. body’s bid to curb journalists

NZPA-Reuter Athens The chairman of the International Press Institute (Mr Ranald MacDonald) has deplored what he described as an attempt by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organisation to proscribe the role of the journalist. He told the closing session of the 1.P.1. annual assembly in Athens that a journalist’s responsibility was not to governments or institutions, but the body of individual citizens who made up the public. U.N.E.S.C.O.’s aims of preserving local cultures, attacking the immense problems of poverty, disease and illiteracy and of righting the imbalance of news flow between the developed and the underdeveloped world were admirable. “But ’hey cannot be used to justify, and we are not prepared to accept, forma-

lised codes of ethics or behaviour, the imposition of a world press institute, the acceptance of a system of international right of reply, or the licensing of journalists," he said. Mr MacDonald said the 1.P.1. had fought hard to counter U.N.E.S.C.O.’s efforts to force the formation of public opinion into restrictive moulds. It had seemed that some moderation had been achieved in the declaration on mass media adopted by U.N.E.S.C.O. last December. However, a speech by U.N.E.S.C.O.’s deputy director (General Federico Mayor) had alerted the 1.P.1. “The official U.N.E.S.C.O. attitude to the media remains judgmental, prescriptive, and inflexible.” he said. He said there was clear agreement among the 320 1.P.1. delegates that a special status for journalists was undesirable.

Sean Macßride, chairman of the U.N.E.S.C.O. international commission for the study of communication problems, a guest speaker, had suggested journalists should have a special status in international law like diplomats.

“In the rejection of any .status specially conferred by governments, acting either individually or in concert, we reaffirmed the concept that the status a journalist has within society is won and maintained principally by the standards of professional performance,” Mr MacDonald said. The 1.P.1. annual assembly has accused Iran, South Africa, and several Arab and Latin American countries of serious violations of press freedom.

On Iran, the assembly “expressed its concern at the pressures recently brought to bear on the Iranian press which has rever-

ised the progress toward greater freedom of information and opinion in Iran.” On South Africa the assembly, dominated by Western European and American media representatives, charged the South African Government with using the police to intimidate the press.

The other countries the subject of negative resolutions were Argentina, Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, and Arab nations putting pressure on the Egyptian-based Middle East News Agency to shut down following the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement.

On Argentina, the assembly resolution said that “at least 55 journalists have disappeared over the past three years and remain unaccounted for. The assembly called on the Argentine Government to publish the names of journalists held without charge or trial.”