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The First Amendment and a free people weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s produced by WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. The host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Reuben. What should the international standard for reporting be that governments will not only protect but enhance in every way that they can. What climate can reporters absolutely refuse to accept as a justified climate for their work. What should you Nesco have done at its November 1978 meeting discussing and debating this question in terms of a battle between third world nations in one way and the Western nations and in some cases a battle between the Eastern Bloc headed by the Soviet Union and the Western nations on differing concepts of what developmental journalism is and on what freedom of the press involves in the
most general sense. With me to discuss this is Ambassador Hewson a Ryan the Edward Edward R. Morrow professor of public diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University. He is also the director of the morrow center their public diplomacy formally ambassador Ron was the highest ranking professional officer at what used to be called he was in the United States Information Agency and is now the International Communications Agency. Hewson the end result of the November 1978 conference in Paris of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural organization's controversial meeting over a proposed draft of the press and freedom of the press ended up with a kind of a compromise pushed by the United States which took some of the noxious ideas of a 976 Soviet
resolution which calls for states to guard their frontiers as it were to protect developmental information. But the end result while pleasing to us is not entirely satisfactory in all of its regards and virtually every delegation had reservations about it. Could you give us a little of the background to this particular conference in Paris. Well as you know Bernie this is the bi annual conference of UNESCO's the General Conference and this item on freedom of information is only one of a long series. Topics which are being debated and will continue to be debated in the US go form it had captured the attention of the world press because it had been hanging fire now for several years actually eight years since it was first introduced by the Soviet delegation. The idea being the Soviets had found a topic which for them
brought them into line with the Third World. The problem of the control of information access to information. The problem of coverage particularly the developing world and there was great sympathy for the Soviet posture that something should be done about this that somehow or other that the problem of coverage of third world events should be improved and the next step after improvement or perhaps towards an improvement in some people's view was controlled. The Soviets of course are always very fearful of anything like free flow of information so that on this issue they seem to find congressmen's between their diplomatic goals and the diplomatic goals of the third and developing world. Over a series of meetings beginning in one thousand seventy and apparently ending today with the adoption of the resolution
the full text of which we've not yet been able is by today I mean November 22nd 978 because this program will be heard subsequently. Yes I'm sorry on that score but we have not yet seen the full text but apparently this could be seen as a victory for diplomacy. If there are such things as victory in diplomacy in that a very difficult and thorny issue one which could have torn you Nesco asunder if there had been successful the Soviet initiative with a very strong resolution calling for governments to control the information flow. Within their borders and by their nationals in other parts of the world. Of course this would have been impossible for the United States to accept and would have been seen as a blow to press freedom and all of the things which press freedom and freedom of information and freedom of access to information stands for in the international sphere. Fortunately this did not come about
so that the problem has been managed like so many other problems of diplomacy. There are not necessarily easy solutions and the diplomatist considers himself successful when he has managed a problem and I think that this text as we see it described and the press bulletins today is a victory for diplomacy and that we now have a period of relative calm ahead when some of these very very real issues of the control of information of the. The role of the journalist in the contemporary world will be worked out. Some people might say Houston that is like Legionnaires disease that we have managed to close the hotel but we still have no cure for the disease and the disease seems to be that the Soviets got a good deal of accord from third world countries because they hit a psychological premise that the third world is very much attuned to and that is that it feels as if it is the baby brother
with all of the news that it gets or a great deal of the news dominated by Western news services and controlled by the. The ideology of the large technocratic states of the West. And so even though the Soviets are repressors when it comes to the press by taking this stance they they hit that nerve or they don't have that alliance. But what they fail to see and what is very important to all of this is that the third world saw this also in economic terms that this was seen as a part and parcel of the third world struggle for a new arrangement in the economic sphere the new world international economic order which has been the subject of continual debate since it was first introduced by President you've already had Mexico in 1074. Is a very definite goal of all third world diplomacy and the fact that the new world information order is closely tied to this is a key
point in consideration of exactly what was going on in Paris because the Third World position has been that they cannot take charge of their own economic future and development until they can to get control of their own information order in the world. Now we have a we have two years now the United Nations has appointed a special commission which will report in 1980 on what to do about international communications so between Nairobi when the Soviets really pushed this in 1976 this closing of international news and 19 78 when we managed to fend it off with a neutralizing kind of semi satisfactory conclusion. And 1980 we have got to come up with something novel A new we have got to answer the hard questions being posed to us by the Third World people. What would you say the hardest one
of those questions is. Well one of the hardest questions is the flow of the news from the Third World to the first world that is from the developing countries to the United States Great Britain Japan Australia and the other western democracies. There is a great feeling that what does come out of the developing world is what is of interest and what will sell in the first world rather than what is significant and what is important to the people of the Third World. And there's no doubt that they have a case there. The country reporting from the Third World is often ill informed. It's often sensationalist. It's often nonexistent. And it's very important for us to realize that there is a strong pressure among all human beings and among nations and national groups to somehow be recognized as functioning units in world society not that we can expect the
AP or the UPI to carry stories about every new dam that's built in India are in. In Nigeria. But on the other hand we should have a definite effort on the part of the Western news services to try to cover and to give. Definite importance to what is happening in the rest of the world and not base it entirely on the sensationalist need for our hard news as it is defined in the West which is mostly disaster. No that's that's the from the party point of view of the large Western news services associated press and the German services and the British services and so on. And I can comment to this. Bernie is of course as we have discussed on other occasions the need for raising the professional level of the Third World journalist himself. One of the great problems in the production of new and comment from the Third World is the dearth of professionalism among the Third World
journalists and the lack of professional training Oh that's where I wanted to ask you a very specific question. In 1976 our delegation in effect said give us two years. Let's not rush into this argument now let's not decided no give us two years wait till 978 in Paris and now we are going to develop all sorts of programs that will in effect be quite good remedies for your complaint. I don't think we really came to Paris with those remedies. And if that is so are we preparing. To meet the problem through our government and other governments by any programs that would be considered to be reasonable practical and on a scale large enough so that third world new services and third world desires can be met. Well at the 76 meeting in Nairobi our delegation promised made a solemn declaration that it would take steps necessary to
increase the flow of training materials and training opportunities from our country to other parts of the world. Unfortunately a political campaign. The changes in the administration of our aid organization foreign assistance. Act as it was modified all militated against any immediate implementation of this program however I understand now that Ambassador Ryan Hart who heads our delegation to the Nesco meeting has made a definite and formal commitment in terms of amounts of money and the commitment of a United States owned satellite to assistance with the development of third world news gathering and news disseminate information and more important the training and support of training institutions in the Third World. The satellite offer is most interesting because it certainly represents a field in
which the United States technology leads the world and we hope that we will see some very interesting and profitable results from the use of the satellite for educational purposes. As far as training goes it's my understanding that Ambassador Ron Howard has offered the support of the aid. Institutions to underwrite sending American professors and contracts with American institutions to provide technical support for the establishment and for the strengthening centers of excellence in the training of communicators in the Third World. Now in addition to that a ID which sounds like a good one to me. It seems that the private institutions in the private publishing houses and broadcasting services universities should be behind a program of their own perhaps funded by the Congress but entirely left to the initiative of private sources because if we are to be
trusted. Houston and I know that you agree with this we must be trusted as a representative of our own constitutional ideas. The government to government idea doesn't work as well as the people to people or the professional to professional idea. Well I think this may very well take place because as I understand it there is a commission being set up which will include representatives of the private sector to elaborate a plan to be presented to the Congress for the implementation of this act. I also might mention that the new services both the Associated Press and the United Press have also indicated their willingness and determination to support a strengthening of the news services within many of the countries of the developing world in this regard. One of the initiatives of a conference held under the auspices of the morrow Center for Public Diplomacy in 1076 is a proposal to underwrite a development news and news agency developing world news agency
which would provide news of development for dissemination both in the first world and the third world. Roger to Terry in a former vice president of the United Press International who is now a professor at the University of California at Fresno has offered a rather elaborate plan for starting such a project involving the use of both Third World and first world news man. The United Press International and Associated Press have both indicated their willingness to support this project and we are hopeful that within the next two to three months we will have a meeting to go further into the feasibility of this which will involve representatives both of the major third world news agencies and some national news agencies. We have jointly sponsored our last two meetings with the faculty of mass communications of the University of Cairo in the Middle East News Agency and a further conference under the sponsorship is expected within the
next two to three months with the Middle East News Agency Middle East new back in Cairo. No it won't be in Cairo but it will be under the joint auspices of Middle East and Morrow center where you and I were in Cairo last April when the Tarion plan was presented. It came as a bit of a surprise to everybody and it was more written about after the conference and discussed after the conference than debated or discussed during the conference. It was perhaps the one electric thing to come out of it. Now again that proves the point that it takes private initiatives rather than the massive governmental initiatives to to bring some new change some new movement. I couldn't agree with you more and I think that it's because it was somewhat of a surprise and not well staffed out that we feel it necessary now to do examine it very closely with a small group of some 16 First World and Third World News executives and news producers who will then
move forward we hope within the next year or so. What did you think of the position during the Paris Conference in November of 78 of the director general of Eunice Combest in the bar. Who is from Senegal. He seemed to come right down the middle of the road between the Soviet ideas and our ideas. Was this tactical move a good diplomatic move from a man who's running a conference. I think so you have to look upon it as typical of the international the better international civil servant a man of considerable diplomatic skill and talent and not without personal ambition. They tell me that he has also ambitions to be the first African director our secretary general of the United Nations and this may very well color the manner in which he addresses many of these problems.
But he has to be admired for his caution and his diplomatic skill in handling a very thorny issue one which is basic to two very different political systems. Certainly the Soviet system feels very strongly that it would not exist if it not did not have full control of information. And in our own system the First Amendment to our Constitution is one of the most sacred hero shrines. The United States therefore to try to come up with some sort of compromise language was a tremendous challenge to Mr. Bo and if it has come out as well as the cables report he has to be congratulated. Should we concentrate on getting our ideas across through key countries in addition to general organizations for for example if we were to make progress in convincing Nigeria and India and Brazil to too to go along with certain ideas perhaps to join in a group or trying to initiate new
ideas would that not be the crucial new element in this international dialogue that it's not between Third World and first world or first second and third world but between key countries who are very influential in this whole affair. Of course the basic principles of. International intercourse do have to prevail. The countries you mentioned of course are extremely different as we know that the Nigerians have been going through a series of re evaluations of the entire international news handling operation. They have drafted more on the autocrat area strict and highly authoritarian rules and regulations. But as good pragmatists have not really implemented them. The Brazilians have a fairly strong censorship not prior censorship and it has to constantly come front with a fairly strong tradition of respect for our freedom of
information so that there is certainly nothing like total control of information in Brazil. India after having had several years of this is Gandhi's total control of information is again rejoicing in its British tradition of free flow of information and I think that we would find India the closest to our philosophy and attempting to work out the training arrangements and. Experimental use of satellites the experiment with India by the way did have the use of our satellite for some experimental work in education. Just two years ago as you know but for any broad gauge international use of satellites I think we would find a strong base of support in India. I found at the Cairo conference that the pleasure school directed on this side with the Middle East News Agency that the Indians are perhaps I will say this that those from the great continent were amongst the liveliest of all the
speakers. It's not that they have a tradition of a great press alone but also a tradition that they have such a vast culture to deal with that there isn't a single problem in the human experience that the Indians don't face. You know of course that can be used to speak for the problems of international news coverage. India is such an enormous continent there after all 700 million people. And how many different language stocks and ethnic groups and areas with different geographical and social problems and to try to cover India with one correspondent who may also have to cover Salaam and Pakistan and Bangladesh is I think an example of the tremendous problems that face the international news media in the world today. We have met those those types and we've also met. The spokesman for the various individual newspapers and broadcasting stations
third world journalism is amongst the more exciting forms of journalism the people personally involve some of the complaints that they make against our system that we are all caught up in this great monopolistic kind of approach that makes their work so charming they're able to reach their audiences directly they know who their boss is. They complain rather affirmatively. I do think and I'm not being entirely serious as we were a few minutes ago but do you think we're going to lose some of this is they come in and get trained and as they get bureaucratic it is more bureaucratic. But a good example of the problem of the Third World journalist as he reflects the feelings of his country comes with recent stories from a guy and I think Guyana has probably had more of these mass killings in Guyana. They have Guyana has probably had more notice in the international press during the last several weeks with this mass killing than in its entire history as an independent nation. And yet Guyana has a lot of interesting
problems it's the one Marxist Leninist declared Vollard Li Marxist Leninist government on the South American continent. It's a black American versus a guy and he's Indian dispute. Colonization of the border area with Venezuela reflects their great preoccupation with their front tear struggle. There are conflicting claims over territory which the gaieties of attempted to buttress by allowing American colonization groups many of them religious in origin into the area. All of this story of course has been ignored in the sensationalist coverage of the cult and its leader and mass suicide. But I remember a few years ago the minister information from Guyana came up to talk to some of us and he concentrated his entire talk practically on the price of book site and the aluminum industry because he structured his talk in such a way as to appeal to what he thought were our interests.
It's been killed here that we don't realize that our interests are the same that stories about human condition about labor and our music can play in family can be transported quite easily if only the facilities would transport them and if only the reporters would dig out those. Let's roll that again. There's a tremendous challenge for the the reporter who has to be guaranteed certain freedoms which is another aspect of this declaration of your Nasco a fact that included our several statements concerning the right of a reporter to freedom of movement the right of access to news sources which of course is always a problem in the Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union the other totalitarian areas of the world and growingly increasingly in Africa. This has been one of the great problems with Nigeria the Nigerian press law which as I indicated before has not been enforced but is on the books requires that all stories from from and about in Nigeria pass through the Central Office of Information of the Nigerian
government. Well that's just isn't going to happen with Western news man. The Western news tradition is so strongly opposed to the acceptance of government handouts and yet this is typical of what we see developing in many of the areas of Africa. The Tanzania law is very similar. On a less than cosmic level we're observing this I have a hunch that many local newspaper publishers are not. They're really not paying too much attention to this at all. They will not increase the foreign coverage in their papers whether it's a big city paper in Boston or a big city paper in Philadelphia that we've got a lot of soul searching to do would you agree with that I don't know I would. And it's again a problem for the gate keeper the editor the man who sits at the news desk and decides whether his public wants to read about the guy and he's development and vox I are about Jackie Kennedy's latest styling eyeglasses are hem lengths. There is this constant problem of the the gatekeeper in deciding whether he
should continue the trivialization of the news or why should whether he should attempt to seek other fields of interest for his readers. I think it was Will Rogers who one point said he only believed half of what he read. And of course our goal is to get twice as much for Will Rogers type to look at in the first place so that his comprehension will be more than double. I want to thank you Houston. Ryan Ambassador Ryan for joining with me in this discussion of what the NSA conference of November 978 really meant. And let me just say that we all look forward to your next comments when you tell us about your upcoming conference on News in the international world for this edition. Burna driven by. The First Amendment and a free people. A weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s. The program is produced in cooperation with the Institute for democratic
communication at Boston University. I w GBH radio Boston which is solely responsible for its content. This is the station program exchange.
Series
The First Amendment
Episode
Hewson Ryan / Unesco
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-354f50sx
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Description
Series Description
"The First Amendment is a weekly talk show hosted by Dr. Bernard Rubin, the director of the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University. Each episode features a conversation that examines civil liberties in the media in the 1970s. "
Created Date
1978-11-22
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Social Issues
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:28:00
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 78-0165-11-23-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
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Citations
Chicago: “The First Amendment; Hewson Ryan / Unesco,” 1978-11-22, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-354f50sx.
MLA: “The First Amendment; Hewson Ryan / Unesco.” 1978-11-22. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-354f50sx>.
APA: The First Amendment; Hewson Ryan / Unesco. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-354f50sx