(WAN/IFEX) – The following is an 18 October 2004 WAN press release: Paris, 18 October 2004 Newspaper Organisations Protest UN Examination of Editorial Quality The World Association of Newspapers and the European Newspaper Publishers Association have jointly objected to an International Labour Organisation examination of editorial quality in a meeting that began Monday in Geneva. […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is an 18 October 2004 WAN press release:
Paris, 18 October 2004
Newspaper Organisations Protest UN Examination of Editorial Quality
The World Association of Newspapers and the European Newspaper Publishers Association have jointly objected to an International Labour Organisation examination of editorial quality in a meeting that began Monday in Geneva.
The week-long ILO meeting on “The Future of Work and Quality in the Information Society” seeks to determine how modern information and communication technologies affect employment and impact working conditions and quality in the media, culture and graphical industries.
The consideration of editorial quality by the intergovernmental ILO — a United Nations organisation — interferes with freedom of the press, said WAN and ENPA in a statement submitted to the meeting.
“Any interference in the editorial content of newspapers constitutes a dangerous and unacceptable breach of freedom of the press and the independence of publishers and journalists,” the statement said. “We therefore call on the ILO to avoid including editorial content in its analysis on the quality of media.”
An ILO report prepared for the meeting said editorial quality may be eroding because of the increasing demand for more and faster information. “Greater speed in producing content and a greater reliance on freelancers may involve a sacrifice of editorial thoroughness,” the report said. “The idea that employers have allocated fewer resources to news gathering, and have promoted multiskilling, sometimes also raises concerns that the quality of the product is being eroded.”
The report contends that media should be “free of monopolies of any kind, reflecting the widest possible range of opinion, under diverse forms of ownership, and supporting linguistic and cultural diversity — and that there should be equitable access to communication.”
ENPA and WAN said that freedom of the press, as guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, should be the “basic principle of the discussion on work and quality in the Information Society.”
The two press organisations also called on the meeting to consider that the increase of copyright infringements and piracy on newspapers, in particular on the internet, is harmful for the quality of newspapers.
Read the full statement at http://www.wan-press.org/article5576.html
The Brussels-based ENPA is a non-profit organisation representing some 3,200 weekly and Sunday titles from 22 European countries. More than 91 million copies are sold each day and read by over 240 million people.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 72 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 13 news agencies and ten regional and world-wide press groups.
