(WAN/IFEX) – The following statement was released by WAN on 1 June 1998, in Kobe, Japan: Industrialised nations and international aid agencies must provide greater support to independent newspapers in developing and transitional countries because a free press is crucial for sustainable development, the President of the World Association of Newspapers said Monday, 1 June […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following statement was released by WAN on 1 June 1998, in
Kobe, Japan:
Industrialised nations and international aid agencies must provide greater
support to independent newspapers in developing and transitional countries
because a free press is crucial for sustainable development, the President
of the World Association of Newspapers said Monday, 1 June 1998.
“The existence of a free media — economically viable and independent — is
a veritable pre-condition for the development not only of democracy but of
lasting political, economic and social stability”, Jayme Sirotsky said in
his opening speech to the 51st World Newspaper Congress and 5th World
Editors Forum being held in Kobe, Japan.
“There simply is no real and durable development without transparency and a
free flow of information”, said Mr. Sirotsky, whose two-year term as
president of WAN, the global association of the newspaper industry, ends at
the Congress.
WAN, which assists the press in developing countries through its Fund for
Press Freedom Development, has been meeting with governments and
international organizations — most recently the World Bank — to appeal for
more financial support to independent newspapers, said Mr. Sirotsky — an
appeal that is being made on solid economic grounds.
“It would be satisfying to be able to convince them to do this on moral
grounds alone; but since we are still waiting for an era of moral politics,
we must argue on the grounds of pure self interest, and the arguments here
are compelling”, he told an audience that included Japanese Crown Prince
Naruhito and hundreds of newspaper executives and
editors attending the annual meetings of the world newspaper industry.
Mr. Sirotsky said he hoped the recent Asian financial crisis would silence
“those who defended restraints on the press as a necessity for economic
development and its benefits.”
“It is not our intention to place the right to free information above other
rights, when hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings live in
poverty, do not eat enough, face death by disease and war, or cannot acquire
an education”, he said.
“It is, however, our firm conviction that these and other ills … cannot be
tackled successfully in the absence of honest, transparent, competent,
democratic government, free of corruption and mismanagement. And such
government exists, can only exist, where there are strong, independent and
free media performing their fundamental mission of enquiry and information.”
The three-day World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum are being
organised by WAN, which represents 15,000 newspapers world-wide, and the
Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association.
