Let a Hundred Issues Bloom
In the final analysis, one has to interpret freedom [of expression] not only as the absence of censorship, but as the creation of opportunities. -Director-General of Radio All-India No one would...
...1981 29 AlyluJ ug1982In the United States, if a business enterprise intending to make a profit or a political party intending to advocate a partisan cause selects the information to be presented to the public, we call the process editing...
...contradicted in practice the accusation that a monolithic and officialist press was being created...
...So much of the old myth that it is the buying debate, switch around their meaning, regain con trol over them and reformulate decision-making frontiers...
...x) respect for the right of all peoples to participate in international exchanges of information on the basis of equality, justice and mutual benefit...
...In the regional meeting on communications oped various public models allowing for wider participation in broadcasting under the govern- ments of Velasco Alvarado and Peron (during his second presidency...
...But the phrasing of the counterat- tack reveals its own rhetoric, as evidenced from the following paragraphs in the Talloires declara- tion: We think that the debate on news and infor- mation which has taken place in UNESCO and other international organizations should now be channeled toward a constructive end...
...Professor John Spicer Nichols, 1982 mon interests of society or in defense of the state...
...The United States would recognize that the third world had legitimate claims in the sphere of information and would accept the validity of some proposals aimed at addressing them, such as the recently created pool for news distribution produced by the state agencies of the nonaligned nations...
...Yet those who control public debate about the New International Information Order have about as much interest in opening up that important issue as a carnivore has for the welfare of a flock of hens...
...RCA, GE and various Japanese firms in the electronics field...
...There is now pressure to privatize this sector...
...Leaving the distinct impression of one-sided propaganda purchasing, the Times article simply stated that, "The UN has admitted giving subsidies of $432,000 to 15 foreign publications for supplements promoting the organization's views about aid to the third world...
...2 (Fall/Winter 1981/2), p. 1 8 9 . 6. Argumedo, "New World Information Order," p.183...
...As Sean MacBride noted, "In France the Hersant group owns 14 dailies, the English-Rhodesian Lonrho group has [in 1980] many papers in Africa, the Australian Murdoch not only monopolizes the press in his country, but is also the owner of the New York Post and three papers in England [and last year brought the Times of London...
...Perhaps the most succinct definition of it was made by British Minister for United Nations affairs Peter Blaker who, at the conclusion of the Talloires meeting, stated, "It's not about information...
...One day, in the middle of the program, the broadcast was suddenly interrupted by a supposedly clandestine transmission called "Radio Macho," with messages of this type: "Dominicanitas, don't listen to this craziness which will put ideas in your head...
...While energetically cutting back the domestic budget for many social programs, he increased funding for the Voice of America and the Defense Department's telecommunications, electronic and information expenses...
...In exchange for these concessions, however, UNESCO must ratify the principle of the free international flow of information and shelve proposals from the socialist camp and the Nonaligned Movement regarding the "content" of international communications...
...U.S...
...But it was no isolated phenomenon...
...In sum, it means creating from nothing and without resources, a structure of modern communications that was developed in the hegemonic countries over the course of decades or even centuries, in extremely propitious conditions...
...Achieving a balance in the north/south informational flow would not be easy...
...But it is also for that reason that help was denied in a meeting of the IPDC held in Acapulco, Mexico, in January of this year...
...Apparently under the guidance of Charles Wick of the International Communications Agency (ICA), a coordinated and strong campaign was launched involving different govern-JulylAug 1982 Communications (IPDC)-proposed by the United States in the 1978 UNESCO General Conference - would be administered in order to carry such proposals into practice...
...E 0 NACLA Report 34JulylAua 1982 tional Stadium in Santiago, and was finally quieted only with bullets...
...This seems increasingly dangerous to me...
...Instead of coming with a battle-axe to the UNESCO General Assembly meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1976, Nixon's then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger offered a peace pipe to the third world...
...Negotiations took on a decidedly ideological character when, for example, U.S., Peruvian and Argentine delegates opposed a Mexican project to develop its trade union press and technical 3334 NCARpr training in campesino communication...
...Concretely, clarified Kissinger, the motion suggesting that states take any responsibility for messages that leave their borders--with the exception of communications that incite war or racism-should be forgotten...
...1981, No...
...The countries of Asia and Latin America emphasized the need to establish networks to connect the already existing national systems...
...centers and in similar institutions in the developing countries...
...The Swedish state subsidizes newspapers that almost anywhere else would be doomed to disappear...
...A Technological Trojan Horse When the alms flow generously, the poor get worried, says a popular maxim...
...Of the 707 commer- cial radio stations in Mexico, 565 (80%) are ad- ministered by only 13 chains...
...In general, the African countries requested funds to develop their communication infrastructures to incorporate the vast marginal rural population...
...vii) the capacity of developing countries to achieve improvement of their own situations, notably by providing their own equipment, by training their personnel, by improving their infrastructures and making their information and communication media suitable to their needs and aspirations...
...There is na- tional ownership, but transnational content...
...They have widely criticized the search for news for commercial reasons, the emphasis on the spectacular, and lack of context in news stories...
...2. Introduction to Talloires Declaration by Freedom House, in Freedom at issue, Sept.-Oct...
...they can hand out obsolete equipment as well, because they control the fabrication of the technical means and the circulation channels of printed and audiovisual messages...
...Titled "Gloves Come Off in Struggle with UNESCO," Lewis pointed out that, "Adding business and scientific data and satellites to the UNESCO debate has broadened the western interests at stake...
...Modern technologies are useful in certain situations, such as Afghanistan, where, with support from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, cassette recorders were used to carry educational programs to the most isolated campesino villages, those surrounded by mountains that block radio waves...
...See box for a summary of the concepts approved...
...In 1967, however, they had also agreed to this, as well as to contemplate the development of complementary information systems through the creation of national communications councils...
...it is a decen- tralized monopoly which operates coherently in its individual decisions because the overall "logic" of operations is shared by its compo- nents...
...Constitution (as if that text had universal application) and the beginnings of an "international censorship movement...
...Anyone who has tried to publish an alternative paper knows that advertising is conceded or denied by patently ideological criteria, independent of the public or the circulation that the publication can offer as an advertising vehicle...
...Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, McCann Ericson and others...
...shortly afterwards, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for reporting confessed that she had invented the winning work...
...IBM, for example, has 62% of the total world sales of main frame computers.' Few, however, have pointed out, as has Philippine researcher Gerald Sussman, that the very existence of these transnational companies depends on their capacity for instant communication between central headquarters and their affiliates, often located in the third world, bypassing national governments...
...ix) respect for each people's cultural identity and for the right of each nation to inform the world abouts its interests, its aspirations and its social and cultural values...
...while in the southern region of the Dominican Republic, a Church-funded progressive radio station used a piece of deceptive theater to entice more listeners to their program on women's issues...
...Discrediting the United Nations Two days after George Bush's speech asking the United Nations to cease its "rhetoric" and regain its "credibility," the New York Times published an article criticizing and condemning the United Nations, The front page headline states, "UN Gave $432,000 to the Foreign Press to Publish Its Views...
...The Netherlands, Canada, Austria and Italy promised contributions, as did the poverty-stricken nations of Bangladesh and Benin, each of which pledged a symbolic $5,000...
...One of Latin America's most ambitious efforts to democratize information (a postulate of the new information order) occurred in Peru in 1974, when the government of General Velasco Alvarado expropriated the national daily papers and put them in the hands of organized social forces...
...The sophisticated computerized room of the "pool" of the third world, and the humble wall newspaper in a Mozambican village are tightly bound by the common goal of kicking the fox out of the chicken coop...
...The important thing, in the judgment of UNESCO, is that each country define its own policy, in accord with its own development programs, cultural traditions and aspirations...
...Measures had to be taken to regulate the new centers of industrial power and to define their relations with the rest of society...
...On the one hand, there is the Soviet concept that the press is a tool of the government, it works for the government, its employees are the government's servants...
...Although there is a plurality of sources, they produce uniform messages, particularly in politi- cal matters...
...In Search of a Democratic Model Freedom of the Press is thus converted into a restrictive right for a few individuals or businesses...
...In sum, they committed themselves to improving and defending the "free flow of information worldwide...
...In other words, specialized and elitist publications unavailable to the very people most interested in this information...
...In an interview with the New York Times on February 15, 1981, he explained: "When a plane lands in Malawi, this is not news, but when it has an accident, it is...
...He sees them leading toward a "reduction of the horizon...
...Translated and adapted from Fernando Reyes, La Contraofensiva transnacional y los desafios para la comunicacion alternativa, a presentation on Communication in the North-South Dialogue to a seminar sponsored by CIESPAL...
...II, No...
...Women protest against their conversion into sexual objects for commercial ends...
...relating to what is immediate and local, while the vision of large problems and processes remains in few hands," coinciding with the "transnationals' dream of a world without borders...
...in Costa Rica in 1976, the Latin American and Caribbean countries committed themselves to plan and implement policies on this theme, with the help of UNESCO...
...Journal of InternationalAffairs, Vol...
...These comments were a prelude to the thesis on the difference between news and information expounded by Leonard Marks, executive secretary of the World Press Freedom Committee...
...In the judgment of communications scholar Herbert Schiller, "The accomodation initiated in Nairobi only represents a tactical change, which avoids an immediate and prejudicial campaign against the essence of U.S...
...3 (June 1978), p. 3 8 . 3. Alcera Argumedo, "The New World Information Order," Journal of International Affairs, Vol...
...3 The U.S...
...51, March-April 1982, pp...
...To classify as rhetorical the proposals for change presented by the third world countries in their efforts to counter the multiple manifesta- tions of neocolonialism has a classic posi- tion of the former colonial powers and of the United States...
...Pulling the Rug Out From Under Even such alternatives as these are unthinkable in the majority of third world countries, which have an average of one newspaper copy for every 30 inhabitants (10 times less than the industrialized world) and often lack even radio stations, not to mention the sophisticated luxury of television...
...The monopoly covers not only traditional ac- tivities such as the press, broadcasting, enter- tainment, advertising, public relations, but also more recent ones such as informatics, data banks and information processing...
...This is not to say they do not have organizations where consultations and ex- changes of views take place, leading tojoint ac- tions in particular instances...
...Brazil already bars foreign countries from sending in formation abroad without permission and is encouraging other relatively advanced third world countries to do the same...
...The badly named "alternative press" in the third world is thus almost always a power alternative, that is to say, part of a political project that seeks to transform society and not only complement dominant information...
...What was hidden behind a conciliatory policy initiated by those who until then had been the most tenacious opposition to the new information order...
...The'deans' and oldest newspapers of the region belong to traditional oligarchic families...
...They are to hear, not say...
...Press Credibility and Alternative Media Although the debate about the communications media only recently descended from the ivory tower of the experts down to the masses, its eruption is impressive...
...This amounts to private censorship carried out under the guise of normal business opera- tions and in implementation of the principles of freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of enterprise...
...In most of this coverage, truth was twisted by the repetition of well-known stereotypes: UNESCO wants to promote government control over news: the campaign for a new information order is riddled with the influence of the Soviets and their third world allies, anxious to control all facets of information, etc...
...This does not mean that they operate in opposition to government interests...
...in Mexico, the "right to information" has been incorporated into the Constitution as a counterpart to the right of expression, but two years ago parliament studied the rules without coming to any accord on practical application...
...consumer associations denounce deceptive or false advertising...
...In the United States, press credibility slipped further into crisis in 1981, based on three separate incidents...
...The United States saw in such criteria "an attack on the First Amendment" of the U.S...
...Although there was no mention in the article either of the aim or the agreement itself, its reference was a plan, approved by the 1l6 member countries of the U.N.'s Information Committee (including the United States) two years earlier, to publish supplements in 16 newspapers of inter- national reputeto stimulate a global exchangeof views regarding the continuation of the North- South dialogue on world economy and develop- ment...
...They can allege it is a profit-making investment, given the growing weight of this sector in post-industrial economies...
...In Reagan's eyes, it is as absurd for the African country of Benin to ask the western countries for $15 million to develop a radio and TV system as it would be for the FMLN to ask for arms from the Pentagon...
...The messages are both hidden and overt, but they are clear...
...Rather, the transnational ad agencies decide it by the direction in which they throw their contracts...
...The predominantly private structure of owner- ship and the prevailing commercial pattern of communication, highly dependent on advertis- ing, ensures the survival of the monopoly while limiting the possibilities for the consolidation of alternative media...
...What better example of alternative journalism do we have currently than the reports by clandestine radio of guerrillas in El Salvador who transmit from the field of combat with a rifle in one hand and a tape recorder in the other...
...In Mozambique, at the same time that efforts were being made to professionalize the services of traditional press outlets, there was a return to valuing wall news as a mobilizing instrument in meeting and work places...
...The motto of the Latin American Journalists Federation, grouping the press unions of the continent, is "For a free press in a free country...
...E. Lloyd Sommerlad, 1976 The New World Information and Communication Order Resolution 4/19 adopted by the twenty-first session of the UNESCO General Conference, Belgrade 1980...
...51, March/April 1982...
...Through direct ownership and a variety of other methods, they can orient the content and general direction of mass media, and have the power to significantly influence the total information flow of the societies in the region...
...BRAZIL: Rede Globo integrates television, radio and newspapers in much the same way as Mex- ico's Televisa...
...they are to accept, not propose...
...Its first editorial declared its intention to respond to the need for systematic treatment of third world problems, economic development, coverage of people and movements which were expressions of nationalism and social change, the struggle against imperialism, defense of natural resources and third world integration...
...For some, that signifies that it is impossible to have a liberated press until after a revolutionary transformation has been produced...
...The interruption awoke the indignation - and consequently mobilization-of thousands of women, very few of whom ever learned it was a gimmick, and-the audience for the program increased greatly...
...For this reason they are called a social monopoly...
...Mass movements analyze and criticize the hidden content of the press, film and television...
...4. New York Times, May 24, 1981...
...Reaffirming the Classical Concepts The matter of "news value" has been a central element in the third world's line of argument...
...The demand of the third world to participate in the dissemination of news by, for and about itself is modest...
...Whether to gain time or to open markets, what is clear is that between 1976 and 1980 a period of conciliation emerged in discussions about the new information order...
...Many of these are sincere efforts in which such immediate concerns are converted into permanent political interests of a broader nature...
...They have the same world view and act accordingly...
...And the situation is even more alarming if one considers that national advertisers are either small and dispersed (classified ads), lacking any means of pressure, or they channel their advertising through contracts with transnational ad agencies such asJ...
...Among them are press and advertising councils, owners'and pro- fessional associations...
...Undeniably, this has restricted "freedom of expression" for those who preferred the hateful apartheid...
...It stressed hardline opposition to UNESCO, rejection of the New World Information and Communication Order, aggressiveness in the conquest of new markets for the technologies of western cooperation and recognition of the role played by advertising...
...meanwhile, a professor of communications amused himself by sending the press "scientific" information about the curative properties of cockroaches when ingested...
...xi) respect for right of the public, of ethnic and social groups and of individuals to have access to information sources and to participate actively in the communication process...
...5 The most difficult discussion of the conference did not revolve around principles, but rather the form by which the International Program for the Development of The Talloires Counteroffensive A Matter of 'High Politics' Encouraged by Reagan's support, a clear, energetic counteroffensive is underway to force the entire communications debate back to the wall of privilege that existed before the third world began its mobilization...
...In the corridors of the United Nations there began to be talk of a "Marshall Plan of Communications" by which the United States would allocate large sums to back up its proposal...
...delegate, Elkin Taylor, who refused to approve the following proposal unless the final clause (here in italics) was eliminated: "The JIPDC] projects should increase the capacity of individuals and groups in urban and rural communities, their access to the media and the possibility of active social participation...
...public mistrust of the major media has translated into a surprising accumulation of so-called alternative media...
...remember the wisdom of the grandmothers: Women only speak when the chickens piss...
...The culmination of this was the 1980 UNESCO General Conference which approved by consensus the MacBride Report, a book of some 500 pages, which provided the basis for the New International Information Order...
...For example, the goal of a "free and balanced flow" of information was modified in the MacBride Report to read "a new and more just and more efficient world information and communication order...
...In theory, the original objective of the IPDC was to establish a fund which would allow the third world to finance its most urgent needs in the field of communication and information through contributions of wealthier nations...
...More overt is the tactic of drawing from the debate only the points concerning technical needs and assistance, and pressuring for the relegitimization of the principle of "free flow," not just of news, but advertising and advanced tech- nology developed by the large transnationals as well...
...In fact, the initial demand has given rise to many new issues that run the gamut from technical to economic, from political to ideological...
...Including bilateral contributions for specific projects, $50 million was collected in Acalpulco, an insignificant sum compared, for example, to the more than $56 million allocated by the U.S...
...See box...
...Unfortunately, as the Venezuelan ex-minister of information, Guido Groscoors, recalled last year, more than a decade had passed since then, and "save Cuba, no other country has carried such accords into practice...
...He also advised UNESCO to put an end to its "efforts to set guidelines for the press," adding that efforts to establish "international censorship" was a matter that had strong opposi- tion from President Reagan...
...I don't need to read the newspaper or watch television to know what is happening," confessed a top Citibank executive to a researcher looking for data about the decision-making process on Wall Street...
...Headlines of major newspapers around the world uniformly and eloquently reflected the new combative mood...
...It was not a radical program, but rather the result of an arduous negotiation process in which all countries ceded something...
...Something similar seems needed now regarding the communications media...
...government contributes about 25% of UNESCO's operating budget...
...The experience began with unusual vigor, freeing enormous creative capacity among Peruvian journalists and, through ferocious polemics between the newspapers, Communications Monopoly Latin American Style The communications debate in Latin America has a different face than in many areas of the third world...
...The most important ones in Latin America are the Inter-American Press Association and the Inter-American Or- ganization of Radio Broadcasting...
...There are certain key similarities to the nature and functioning of this minority social monopoly...
...parties demand access to the electronic media...
...The only major differences are the organization that makes the selection, the motive and the effect on the public good...
...In both cases there are obviously important rights to protect, but there are also other, broader governmental and societal interests at stake...
...Given the shared ideology of this minority, the concerns of large social sectors such as trade unions, peasant organizations, women's and youth movements, progressive and revolu- tionary political movements, etc., are marginalized...
...A study by the Trilateral Commission in the middle of the last decade predicted the inevitability of some state intervention in communications...
...CBS in records, etc...
...government- is that the debate initiated about the in ternational news flow, linked to that regarding inequities in the world economic order, could blossom out of control, and end by questioning the whole system...
...Rather, the property and control of the princi- pal media are basically in the hands of one social sector-the powerful private economic interests which exert major influence in national affairs...
...In the judgment of Fernando Reyes Matta of ILET, on the other hand, such small newspapers or weak local TV stations in the dominant countries are the result of market expansion for the new technology of large corporations...
...The growth of power of the communications media in [the United States] is similar to the ascent to national power of the industrial corporations at the end of the nineteenth century," acknowledged the report...
...or in Vietnam, where extremely modern mobile radio antennas were mounted during the war on two elephants - one of which is still alive and was formally decorated...
...In practical terms, these media are the real hosts of transnational penetration...
...The pivot point was a meeting held in a serene spot in the French Alps called Talloires, on May 15, 1981...
...Whose Rhetoric...
...it's about politics, high politics...
...and excessive concentrations...
...Contrary to the scant coverage of the third world perspective in the western press, coverage of the Talloires meeting had all the signs of a veritable campaign, making the front pages of Time, Newsweek, and the New York Times, among other publications...
...It lis a perpetuation of the co-optative notion that media leaders know best what the world needs to know, and it is for them only that the term "freedom" of informa- tion is reserved...
...By 1980 the United States was defining it as a "mechanism" instead of a fund, a hint of greater distancing yet to come...
...References 1. New York Times, May 28, 1981...
...The information was published in more than 100 newspapers without anyone bothering to verify the origin or veracity of this silliness...
...With an annual budget of $90 million, they crank out a daily 17 million words for 5,720 subscribers...
...This same law, so attacked by the InterAmerican Press Association, recognizing that "freedom of information is one of the fundamental principles of authentic democracy," provides mechanisms so that "there exists no objective possibility of submitting them directly or indirectly to the economic power of any social group...
...Not least among those conditions was the extension and exploitation of the colonized world...
...As Mexican researcher Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, of the Center of Economic and Social Studies of the Third World, summarized, "From the economic viewpoint, the communication media are businesses that provide services...
...Enter the Trilateralist Strategy Nonetheless, by the middle of the Carter Administration, unrestricted liberalism, defended to the death by such institutions as the World Press Freedom Committee, was no longer being viewed as a serious alternative by the more lucid ideologues of the capitalist world...
...Now they will be allied with powerful businesses whose interests in maintaining the status quo are unabashedly materialistic...
...In the industrialized or semi-developed countries in which this conception of information-merchandise reigns, economic laws have imposed an increasing tendency toward monopolization...
...COLOMBIA: Television is considered a public service but its programming is left to private companies through leasing arrangements...
...3. New York Times, September 18, 1981...
...2. Armand Mattelart, "The Crisis and Modes of Communication," LARU Studies (Toronto), Vol...
...4 "Western news organizations," Lewis summed up, "will no longer be perceived as fighting alone in the name of press freedom and democracy...
...In general, there is no central, 'conspiratorial' management of the various media...
...We have our own system of information, both about here and the rest of the world...
...The service that they sell is space or transmission time for advertising messages...
...Alvin Toffler, author of The Third Wave, sees this leading toward a "demassification" of information, which he greets enthusiastically...
...The largest one and the only one of national dimension is Canal Nacional, which is state owned...
...But there are many places where they can be re- corded - information magazines, documentary films, weekly publications, conferences and text- books...
...In 1979, of the 208 radio stations, five private chains plus the state and university radio system (under government control) represented 83% of installed capacity...
...The Cuban special representative to UNESCO, Enrique GonzAlez Manet, on the other hand, maintained that the technological transfer proposal would be a "trojan horse, generating new forms of alienation...
...The phrase was removed.9 In the end, a third of the $6 million came from France, and another third from countries of the Arab gulf...
...The third world countries came to the IPDC meeting armed with some 50 project proposals which would require $90 million.8 When the dust settled, the IPDC had received scarcely $6 million, with which it was able to approve only 14 of the initiatives, hardly the "Marshall Plan" that had once been hoped for...
...There are no perfect models to be imitated with regard to communications policy...
...PERU and ARGENTINA: These countries devel30 NACLA Report31 AlyluJ ug1982 Chile-Although there is a plurality of sources, the communication media produce uniform messages...
...Upon retirement, Walter Cronkite, celebrated anchorman of CBS News, said he was "perplexed" by polls showing that he was the principal source of news for the majority of North Americans, since his programs were "fundamentally entertainment...
...On the other, there is the western concept, in which the press tries to find the things that aren't work- ing well...
...Altogether, these means of communication have the power to significantly influence the total information agenda and practices of a na- tion...
...Enrique Gonzalez Manet, 1976 systematize and provide instant information on economic and political aspects, government characteristics, opposition movements, population increase, investments, production imports and exports, currency and commodity prices, stock quotes, etc...
...But if a government selects the information, we call it censorship...
...For example, a French industrialist can obtain economic data more easily by subscribing to privately held specialized networks in the United States (which control 60-70% of the market for exporting information by computer and have a near monopoly of scientific-technological information) than through national institutions...
...How has this been manifested...
...Regrouping of Interests It is clear that the counteroffensive goes beyond conflicting definitions of news toa larger confrontation between a powerful economic system and the developing world on which it depends...
...1 0 - 1 4 . 9. IPS Cable, Acapulco, January 22, 1982...
...The Peruvian delegate raised the specter of "a phraseology used during the statization of the press in Peru" under Velasco...
...Meanwhile, AP has 559 correspondents and more than 2,000 stringers in 62 international offices...
...Agency for International Development (AID) for communications, $30 million of which went to the Middle East alone...
...8. Agustin Castafio, "Acapulco: Una Montafia pari6 un Rat6n," Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo (Mexico), No...
...Clearly the use of the worn-out liberal argument in its defense was no holdover of nineteenth-century romanticism...
...iv) plurality of sources and channels of information...
...Three enterprises (RTI, Punch and Caracol) con- trol around 60% of prime time transmission through the two existing channels...
...While the discussion goes on about the disproportion of the information flow or the manipulation of content," argued GonzAlez Manet, "gigantic transnationals monopolize, at a world level, the technology of microprocessors, satellite transmissions, fiber optics, data banks, computer fabrication and logistical instruments...
...Unlike in more desperately underde- veloped regions, the United States has very little the communications media...
...Political and trade union organizations all over the world are commenting on the theme in their programs...
...Many constructive development projects, such as the completion of a hous- ing development or the reduction of infant mor- tality rates, are more information than news...
...At the same time, transnational banks such as his are ever more interested in having stock control over the mass communication corporations...
...Social and popularorgani- zations have no place in this structure...
...In Mexico, of 270 popular radio ads in 1971, 84% were for transnational products...
...A New York Times article by Paul Lewis following the Talloires meeting approached the heart of the issue...
...MEXICO: In Mexico City, Televisa controls four of the six television channels and five cable-vision outlets...
...opposition to any democratization of the communications process was revealed by the U.S...
...With the almost total elimination of dissidence in broadcasting, private and government chan- nels transmit basically the same message with a few self-censored exceptions...
...Much more was at stake than a principle...
...Association ban- quet...
...Various attempts have been made to confront this situation...
...The Internat:onal Herald Tribune referred to "battle lines" and the "new polarization...
...Yu, "The International News Flow Problem-What Can Be Done About It...
...If they weren't just making a bad joke, what they justified is precisely the opposite of freedom for the press of the third world...
...Lord Thompson, British newspaper owner advertising as "a consumer service and in providing financial support for a strong and selfsustaining press," since "without financial independence, the press cannot be independent...
...Practice shows that even in the most terribly oppressive conditions people have never stopped mimeographing leaflets or painting walls at the risk of life itself...
...Stan Swinton, vice president of AP and director of its world services, puts his own twist on this issue...
...4 Gonzilez maintained that "the transnationals can allow themselves to conceptually approve a new international information order that does not yet exist in practice...
...It ended the same as other Velasco reforms, with its content twisted by imposition of the Morales Bermdidez government, and with its definitive liquidation by Beladinde Terry's...
...Consequently, the state has often taken responsibility for the communications systems (press, radio TV), allocating resources that are equally indispensable for health, education, housing or transportation...
...A few days after the Talloires meeting, which had been organized by the World Press Freedom Committee and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, Vice President George Bush attended a U.N...
...vi) the freedom of journalists and all professionals in the communication media, a freedom inseparable from responsibility...
...At a subliminal level is the attempt to discredit the efforts of UNESCO and the third world nations, and the dismissal of multilateral consensual agreements in favor of bilateral ac- tions...
...For him, there are two irreconcilable styles of journalism in the world...
...CHILE: All television channels are under the con- trol of the military government...
...In 1978, of the 386 commercial radio stations, 231 (60%) were owned by only four chains (Caracol, Todelar, RCN and Super...
...Among other positions, the ideologues of Talloires defended the importance of ment offices, including the State Department...
...of 647 TV ads, the figure was 77 %.6 In Brazil, of the 10 major advertisers, only one is a national company...
...But the social function of communication is not exercised without risks when the messages are not agreeable to the established power...
...Essentially, the United States, West Germany and Japan allied to push for bilateral aid to the private sector, with the aim of marginalizing both UNESCO and state efforts to develop communications...
...Testimony to this are a dozen journalists imprisoned and tortured in Uruguay, 89 "disappeared" in Argentina, 26 assassinated in Guatemala, more than 100 attempts against the communications media in El Salvador and, neither last nor least, the unforgettable example of composer and guitarist Victor Jara who, in September 1973, continued singing the hymn of Chile's Popular Unity after they cut off his hands in the NaTraveling Salvadorean mime performers depict their country's situation for a neighborhood audience in Nicaragua...
...system...
...Director-General of Radio All-India No one would entrust chickens to a fox's care...
...2 Such computerized data banks Jul l-u 198 A/luJ u 198226 NACLA Report Information will displace energy as the essential raw material of the immediate future...
...It includes the full gamut of data transmission...
...Despite the fact that most of the developing countries prohibit foreigners from being owners or directors of the means of communication, advertising in effect acts as a mechanism of transnational control over the press...
...b)this new world information and communication order should be based on the fundamental principles of international law, as laid down in the Charter of the United Nations...
...We think the moment has come for UNESCO and other inter-governmental organizations to abandon their efforts to regulate the content of news and to draw up rules for the press...
...c) diverse solutions to information and communication problems are required because social, political, cultural and economic problems differ from one country to another and, within a given country, from one group to another...
...To Change the Structures Proponents of the New International Information Order view information as a social function, one of the fundamental human rights, not as merchandise...
...The other three belong to the universities, which are themselves under the control of government-appointed rec- tors...
...Nevertheless, recent studies show that decisionmaking in the transnational system is based less and less on the press...
...In the United States, ultra-right groups such as the Moral Majority censured TV programs, eliminated "indecent" books from public libraries and imposed the bible in some schools as a "scientific text...
...In Nairobi, Kissinger set the basis for a policy toward the New International Information Order that would later be continued by the Carter Administration: "We are prepared to cooperate with the developing countries in the establishment of centers for journalistic training and in the teaching of personnel and, as much as possible, we will adapt our government satellite programs to your needs...
...Reagan Green-Lights the Offensive This media counterattack was specifically timed to exert pressure on UNESCO, which in mid-June was to discuss further the International Program for the Development of Communications (IPDC...
...3 Furthermore, satellites can detect underground mineral resources (or aboveground military locations) unbeknownst to the country in question...
...2 (Fall/ Winter 1981/2), p. 1 8 1 . 4. Mattelart, "The Crisis," p.38...
...v) freedom of the press and of information...
...At the same time, actual mo- nopolization is on the increase, as it is in the United States itself...
...32July/Aug 1982 Liberal ideology sustains that full and pluralist information is what makes up the democratic foundations of society...
...Creativity and Real Alternatives It has become essential, then, to optimize the use of the few available resources, and creativity must be taken to the limit...
...IBM in computer technology...
...Efforts should be directed towards the search for practical solutions such as improv- ing the technical process, increasing profes- sional exchanges and the transfer of equip- ment, reduction of tariffs on communication and the production of cheaper newsprint...
...Swinton further justifies the western competitive press' tendency to look at the nega- tive side by saying that this is what third world reporters also do when they visit the United States...
...7. Ibid...
...The counteroffensive has its own logic...
...Given this, it would appear that the fear of the transnationals-and consequently of the U.S...
...yet until 1976 the United States reacted with complete and total opposition...
...In fact, as one of the newspapers invited toJu.hA.-1Q82 power of the reader which determines the ultimate success or failure of a newspaper...
...Despite the enthusiasm with which alternative sources have proliferated in the last years, it would be simplistic to suggest that the oligolopoly of the transnational agencies is really threatened, at least in the short run...
...Regionally, some 30 transnational corporations control two-thirds of the ad earnings of the Latin American press...
...in 22 Latin American dailies researched in 1980, transnational business took up 31% of all advertising space (and in some cases as high as 50...
...The modern concept of information encompasses much more than news flow...
...5. Frederick T.C...
...Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo, about to celebrate its eighth anniversary, is one of the earliest of the alternative media with comparable third world coverage...
...The attempt is to co-opt the key themes of the 2728 NACLA Report News is the foolishness with which one fills the space between advertisements...
...It is on the basis of this handicapping legacy that the non-industrialized countries legitimize their demands for help to develop their communications structures...
...ambassador (1971-73), stated that the United Nations should cease to be "a podium from which a radical nation or movement can make propaganda," reducing the "political rhetoric" that travels through the U.N...
...This means creating national news agencies, covering the cost of technical training and paying for the services and technology dispensed by the international agencies...
...ILDIS and Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Quito, Ecuador, November 10 13...
...iii) removal of the internal and external obstacles to a free flow and wider and better balanced dissemination of information and ideas...
...7 In most of the third world the price that the consumer pays for a newspaper does not even cover the cost of the paper it's printed on...
...In Talloires, France, nearly 70 delegations representing the "leaders of free journalism," to borrow their own phrase, gathered to give lessons on liberalism to the rest of the world...
...control the whole scope of the modern communications industry, from material infrastructure to production of the messages transmitted...
...There is no country in the world that does not have in its constitution some limitation on freedom of the press, with respect to the comparticipate, the New York Times had known about the project for two years...
...government evaporated with the change of occupants in the White House...
...West Returns to Struggle for Free Press," said London's Sunday Times, while the Economist was equally concrete, titling its article, "Fighting Words...
...The undermining of UNESCO and the United Nations itself has not just been in the form of a propaganda attack, however...
...In general, these are small newspapers, radio stations or sometimes shortrange TV stations dedicated to community themes or those of interest to a particular social sector, or ethnic or cultural minority...
...There, as cheers following Mitterand's victory still echoed in Bastille Square, conservative representatives of various western and third world news organizations drew up their program, a declaration titled "Voices of Liberty...
...Extracted and adapted from Juan Somavia, The Democratization of Communications: From Minority Social Monopoly to Majority Social Representation, Development Dialogue (Uppsala), 1981/2, pp.17-19 July1Aug1982NACLA Report While the central idea in 'free flow' is the dissemination of information, the essence of communication is exchange...
...To further drive home its insidious implication, the article added that thesixteenth paper, Jornal do Brasil, printed the supplements but "rejected the subsidy as improper...
...At times, the debate about the relation between the press and the process of change becomes caught in a vicious circle...
...they are objects, not subjects of thecommunica- tion process...
...As is frequently pointed out, a handful of transnational Translated and adapted from Roberto Remo, "El zorro y las gallinas," Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo (Mexico), No...
...Other, newer ones reflect the emergence of new dominant economic groups often linked to transnational influence...
...In Zimbabwe in 1981 the foreign-owned dailies (South African racists and businesses of the Lonrho group) were expropriated, creating the basis for a press that gives a voice to the black majority of the country for the first time...
...The development of a comprehensive strategy had been facilitated by signals from Reagan officials that they wanted a confrontation in this arena, consonant with their approach on all fronts of international relations, Information plays a crucial role in the creation of a cold war atmosphere, and in this Reagan had been precise...
...35, No...
...35, No...
...ethnic minorities rail against the stereotypes that reproduce prejudice against them...
...We promise to cooperate with all genuine ef- forts directed towards the expansion of a free flow of information throughout the world...
...Origins lie in an alliance of interests...
...But one needn't be paranoid to realize that the banks also acquire enormous power to mold public opinion consistent with their interests...
...Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune As suddenly as it had appeared, even this limited accommodation by the U.S...
...viii) the sincere will of developed countries to help them attain these objectives...
...Following the Talloires declaration, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) introduced a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, approved 99-0, threatening UNESCO with economic blackmail if it committed funds to programs deemed detrimental to the free flow of news and information.' By a vote of 372 to 19, a similar threat emanated from the House of Representatives to discourage UNESCO from putting into effect a "policy of journalistic suppression...
...control over international communication and allows them to gain some time for the formulation of effective policies to confront new attacks...
...On the con- trary, under current conditions of widespread au- thoritarian regimes there is a sort of "natural mar- riage" of interests between the repressive politi- cal power of military governments and the social power of prevailing information structures...
...Which came first, the chicken or the egg...
...Growing European and U.S...
...Alexander Haig received members of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (ANPA), while the most hardline representatives of the World Press Freedom Committee -George Beebe (president of the Inter-American Press Association in 1980) and Leonard Marks (former director of the United States Information Agency, predecessor to ICA)- began to carry out a tough plan of opposition to UNESCO and other like- minded institutions...
...ii) elimination of the negative effects of certain monopolies, public or private...
...There the ex-member of the Trilateral Com- mission and former U.N...
...it also has a Spanish-language televi- sion channel in the United States, as well as a chain of newspapers, various magazines, radios and a film production unit...
...The offer extended to the support of special courses for technological training both in U.S...
...Why, then, was there so much scandal when Nicaragua, a month after the revolutionary triumph, passed a law about the communications media expressly prohibiting "the transmission of any advertisement, leaflet, photo, etc., which stimulates vice, using women as a sexual object, advertises liquor or cigarettes, is an apologia for the evasion of law or stimulates the tendency toward hatred...
...The General Conference considers that a)this new world information and communication order could be based, among other considerations on: i) elimination of the imbalances and inequalities which characterize the present situation...
...The other extreme is the argument that such transformation itself is unthinkable while the local oligopolies and their transnational allies persist in monopolizing ideological control of the media...
...Paper, ink and other equipment must be imported, at a cost that is excessive for private national publications in countries that do not have even minimal industrial development or a market that would stimulate commercial advertising...
...LET 100 ISSUES BLOOM 1. Valerie Bradley, presentation on the New International Information Order to National Council of Churches, July 15, 1982...
...In one of the richest regions of the third world, the Federation of Arab Agencies, with its 18 members, has a total of 130 foreign correspondents (27 more counting the Algerian and Iraqui agencies) and transmits 200,000 words daily...
...corporations (ITT in telecommunications...
...There are strong pressures for the creation of private channels or the acquisition of existing ones by business interests...
Vol. 16 • July 1982 • No. 4
