World Press Freedom Day – May 3 |03 May 2014
Free and fair media or ethical media?
Today, May 3, is World Press Freedom Day and the theme chosen by the Unesco to celebrate the day is: ‘Media Freedom for a Better Future: Shaping the post-2015 Development Agenda’.
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) General Conference. Since then, May 3, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.
It is an opportunity to:
• celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom;
• assess the state of press freedom throughout the world;
• defend the media from attacks on their independence;
• pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
The focus this year is on three inter-related themes: the media’s importance in development; the safety of journalists and the rule of law; and the sustainability and integrity of journalism.
An international conference will be held at Unesco headquarters in Paris from May 5-6, and today there is the annual Unesco/Guillermo Cano World 
Press Freedom prize ceremony at the Unesco headquarters.
Created in 1997, the prize is awarded on the recommendation of an independent jury of 14 news professionals. Names are submitted by regional and international non-governmental organisations working for press freedom, and by Unesco member states.
The prize is named in honour of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador, in Bogotá, on December 17, 1986. Cano's writings had offended Colombia's powerful drug barons.
Unesco also marks World Press Freedom Day each year by bringing together media professionals, press freedom organisations and UN agencies to assess the state of press freedom worldwide and discuss solutions for addressing challenges. Each conference is centred on a theme related to press freedom, including good governance, media coverage of terrorism, impunity and the role of media in post-conflict countries.
The Constitution of Seychelles, under Chapter III, Article 22 guarantees the right to freedom of expression and this right includes the freedom to hold opinions, seek, receive and impart ideas and information without interference.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right as stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
What is press freedom?
According to the Unesco’s website, “media/press freedom and access to information feed into the wider development objective of empowering people. Empowerment is a multi-dimensional social and political process that helps people gain control over their own lives. This can only be achieved through access to accurate, fair and unbiased information, representing a plurality of opinions, and the means to actively communicate vertically and horizontally, thereby participating in the active life of the community.”
In order to make freedom of expression a reality, there must be:
• a legal and regulatory environment that allows for an open and pluralistic media sector to emerge;
• a political will to support the sector and rule of law to protect it;
• laws ensuring access to information, especially information in the public domain; and
• the necessary media literacy skills among news consumers to critically analyse and synthesize the information they receive to use it in their daily lives and to hold the media accountable for its actions.
The Unesco website adds that “these elements, along with media professionals adhering to the highest ethical and professional standards designed by practitioners, serve as the fundamental infrastructure on which freedom of expression can prevail. On this basis media serves as a watchdog, civil society engages with authorities and decision-makers, information flows through and between communities.”
Information is said to be the fuel that drives the engine of freedom of expression. Therefore access to information is critical. Freedom of information laws, which permit access to public information are essential, but so are the means by which information is made available, be it through information communication technologies (ICTs) or the simple sharing of documents, the Unesco website adds.
Still according to the website, information can change the way we see the world around us, our place in it, and how to adjust our lives in order to maximise the benefits available through our local resources. Fact driven decision-making can significantly alter our political, social and economic perspectives.
It is said then that open and pluralistic media are, perhaps, most precious when they simply provide the mirror for society to see itself. These moments of reflection are instrumental in defining community objectives, making course corrections when society or its leaders have lost touch with each other or gone astray.
“The right to access information can be interpreted within the legal frameworks that support freedom of information as it applies to information held by public bodies, or in a wider sense to encompass both access and circulation of information held by other actors, where it becomes intrinsically linked to freedom of expression.
“Freedom of information and the transparency it promotes, has a direct consequence on fighting corruption, which in turn has a tangible impact on development. Former World Bank president James Wolfensohn often identified government corruption as the primary hindrance to development and an independent media sector as the number one tool to fight public corruption,” writes the website.
It adds that ensuring freedom for the media around the world is a priority. Independent, free and pluralistic media are central to good governance in democracies that are young and old. Free media:
• can ensure transparency, accountability and the rule of law;
• promote participation in public and political discourse, and
• contribute to the fight against poverty.
“An independent media sector draws its power from the community it serves and in return empowers that community to be a full partner in the democratic process. Freedom of information and freedom of expression are the founding principles for open and informed debate. New technology will continue to evolve and allow citizens to further shape their media environments as well as access a plurality of sources. The combination of access to information and citizen participation in media can only contribute to an increased sense of ownership and empowerment,” adds the website.
Do free and fair media really exist?
This is quite a difficult question to answer, but what we are sure of is that both the media and freedom are necessary within a society and according to Joseph Rwagatare in his opinion piece entitled ‘What is free media?’, “free media is viewed differently depending on who is looking at it”.
Aga Khan, owner of the National Media Group in Kenya, the most successful media group in east Africa, said in 2010 a conference in Nairobi to mark the 50th anniversary of the group that “a free, productive and responsible media is one which allows spirited debate, conducts intelligent inquiry, makes informed criticism and carries principled disagreement”.
Mr Khan adds that “the appropriate media is one which is independent from various interests … but being independent is not the same thing as being oppositional”.
“Truly independent media cannot be predictably partisan, narrowly politicised, nor superficially personalised,” Mr Khan said adding that “most of those who make the loudest noise about freedom of the media often mean one which sets itself in opposition to the government of the day.”
Joseph Rwagatare adds that for owners of the various media, the media is not about the high, noble ideals for which people are ready to do battle, it is more basic than that. “It is about business and profits. Freedom has a different meaning – the freedom to make money. And the surprising, even annoying, thing is that the battle over the freedom of the media is supposedly fought on behalf of ordinary people. This is one of those lies,” he said.
In his paper entitled ‘What is Democracy? Free Media’ Filip Spagnoli writes that ideally the free press in a democracy should do the following:
• Allow the different points of view in political debate to appear and to debate each other (different political parties and different candidates each with their own ideas about how best to govern the country)
• Facilitate the accountability of elected officials: elected officials have to present their achievements before the next elections, and opposition candidates have to criticise these achievements
• Expose wrongdoing by elected officials and their appointees (investigative journalism in the style of ‘Watergate)
• Reflect public opinion in general, especially new public concerns which haven’t yet made it into the political debate.
A prerequisite for all this, he adds, is pluralism in the media and the absence of information monopolies; the absence of government control on the media or control by wealthy groups which want to push their own agenda; critical and unbiased journalists; protection of sources in the case of investigative journalism; airtime for political debate; restrictions on political publicity in order to guarantee equal airtime for less wealthy groups…
If you as the reader was asked if you feel there is free and fair media in Seychelles, what would you have answered?
The most probable answer would be all media outlets will have some degree of bias, some more so than others. This is because when we speak about free media, we have to understand if it means that the media is free to publish anything it wants without any interference from anyone.
And because free and fair are quite subjective terms, we believe it is best to use the term ethical media instead.
Quotes
"Journalism provides a platform for informed discussion across a wide range of development issues – from environmental challenges and scientific progress to gender equality, youth engagement and peacebuilding. Only when journalists are at liberty to monitor, investigate and criticise policies and actions can good governance exist."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Unesco Director-General Irina Bokova
……………
2013 in figures
• 71 journalists killed
• 826 journalists arrested
• 2160 journalists threatened or physically attacked
• 87 journalists kidnapped
• 77 journalists who fled their country
• 6 media assistants killed
• 39 netizens and citizen-journalists killed
• 127 bloggers and netizens arrested
Source: Reporters Without Borders
Compiled by G. G.