New media increases freedom but holds dangers, conference told
19-02-2007 (Paris)
Digital media offers citizens greater freedom of information, but there are dangers that the information can be easily manipulated, an international conference on the press freedom dimension of new media last week at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris.
"Citizens now have much greater control over how and when they receive information and, much more than ever before, they can react to it if they choose, they can participate and they can be active towards it," said Timothy Balding, CEO of the World Association of Newspapers, which organized the conference in Paris with the World Press Freedom Committee and UNESCO.
"On the negative side, the internet has opened up extraordinary new possibilities for the widespread, damaging and sometimes dangerous manipulation of information which is difficult if not impossible to stem," he said. "In my view, this phenomenon will increasingly place a heavy responsibility on professional journalists to maintain high standards of fact-checking, honesty and objectivity. The very fundamentals of our societies and democracies will be lost if we are unable any longer to distinguish between true and false in terms of information."
In recent months, there have been a number of cases that illustrate the internet's potential to spread rumours, speculation and outright lies at the speed of light -- advertising "mocudramas" that purport to be real or falsified entries on the open encyclopedia Wikipedia. Dictatorial regimes are also controlling the information their citizens receive, through "official" information and outright censorship. In this environment, trusted and credible news sources have great value.
The two-day conference, entitled, "New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension", examined the challenges and opportunities of new media for press freedom..
Mr Balding was joined in the opening session by Richard Winfield, Chairman of the World Press Freedom Committee, Mogens Schmidt, UNESCO's Deputy Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, Leslie Harris, Executive Director of the Centre for Democracy and Technology, and Guy Berger, Head of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in South Africa.
Mr Balding said that newspapers, with 1.4 billion readers world-wide, have been at the centre of the global struggle for press freedom. The internet has now joined with newspapers "on the side of pluralism and democracy."
"The internet, without doubt in my view, has been a tremendously positive breakthrough in overcoming the monopoly of information jealously guarded by authoritarian and dictatorial regimes," he said. "At one time, we all thought and said that the distribution of free information and opinion had become unstoppable and that revolutions would sweep the world as citizens discovered what had been hidden from them.
"Unfortunately, that turned out to be too optimistic a vision, as governments armed themselves with the surveillance and technical solutions necessary to block free information and arrest those trying to distribute it. But I like to think, I'm sure in fact, that they are fighting a losing battle; the mere fact that so many cyber-journalists are currently languishing in prison is, paradoxically perhaps, clear evidence of this."
"On the negative side, the internet has opened up extraordinary new possibilities for the widespread, damaging and sometimes dangerous manipulation of information which is difficult if not impossible to stem," he said. "In my view, this phenomenon will increasingly place a heavy responsibility on professional journalists to maintain high standards of fact-checking, honesty and objectivity. The very fundamentals of our societies and democracies will be lost if we are unable any longer to distinguish between true and false in terms of information."
In recent months, there have been a number of cases that illustrate the internet's potential to spread rumours, speculation and outright lies at the speed of light -- advertising "mocudramas" that purport to be real or falsified entries on the open encyclopedia Wikipedia. Dictatorial regimes are also controlling the information their citizens receive, through "official" information and outright censorship. In this environment, trusted and credible news sources have great value.
The two-day conference, entitled, "New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension", examined the challenges and opportunities of new media for press freedom..
Mr Balding was joined in the opening session by Richard Winfield, Chairman of the World Press Freedom Committee, Mogens Schmidt, UNESCO's Deputy Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, Leslie Harris, Executive Director of the Centre for Democracy and Technology, and Guy Berger, Head of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in South Africa.
Mr Balding said that newspapers, with 1.4 billion readers world-wide, have been at the centre of the global struggle for press freedom. The internet has now joined with newspapers "on the side of pluralism and democracy."
"The internet, without doubt in my view, has been a tremendously positive breakthrough in overcoming the monopoly of information jealously guarded by authoritarian and dictatorial regimes," he said. "At one time, we all thought and said that the distribution of free information and opinion had become unstoppable and that revolutions would sweep the world as citizens discovered what had been hidden from them.
"Unfortunately, that turned out to be too optimistic a vision, as governments armed themselves with the surveillance and technical solutions necessary to block free information and arrest those trying to distribute it. But I like to think, I'm sure in fact, that they are fighting a losing battle; the mere fact that so many cyber-journalists are currently languishing in prison is, paradoxically perhaps, clear evidence of this."
Related themes/countries
· Freedom of the Press
· Freedom of Expression: News Archives 2007
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- Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN
- Mogens Schmidt, UNESCO, Division of Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace
- WAN Press Release
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