SG/SM/6041
PI/961

SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR SERIOUS MEDIA COVERAGE OF CHALLENGES/NEEDS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, IN STATEMENT TO INFORMATION MINISTERS

I am very pleased to send my greetings to the Ministers of Information of Non-aligned Countries. I would have liked to have been with you in person today, but circumstances prevent that. I have asked my colleague Samir Sanbar, Assistant Secretary-General for Public Information, to covey this message.

Your conference is an important one. As you all know, I have been deeply concerned about the issue of marginalization in the world's press of the image of Africa and other developing regions. I know that this is something that concerns all of you deeply.

In the past, some news organizations were interested only in cold war confrontations. The real needs of the countries in development were neglected. More recently, it is most often violence and bloodshed that attract the television cameras of the world. Serious, substantive coverage of the challenges and achievements of developing countries is too seldom seen. This needs to change. You Ministers of Information can help bring about that change. There are steps that can be taken, measures that can be implemented to encourage serious attention from the world's communications professionals.

Fast-changing communications technology makes it virtually impossible these days to seal off any country from the outside world. In this age of instant information access and global communication, the media have become a major factor in domestic and international affairs. Through the issues, peoples and places they choose to highlight -- or to ignore -- the media today have enormous influence over public opinion and, indeed, over the international agenda -- including those efforts pursued through the United Nations.

The United Nations itself has an obligation to protect the independence and freedom of news organizations and to defend the right of all peoples to

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freedom of opinion and expression, as set out in article 19 of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights. This includes the right "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".

At the same time, the United Nations offers its Member States support for the development of free, responsible and independent media. The United Nations Department of Public Information, working with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Development Programme, has organized several regional seminars on media development and on promoting independent and pluralistic media. The first such seminar was held in Namibia in 1991 and was followed by others in Chile, Kazakstan and Yemen. UNESCO's Director-General, along with various international news organizations, has endorsed a charter for a free press, committed to an unfettered flow of news and information both within and across national borders.

In the process of fostering the free exchange of ideas and of encouraging thoughtful coverage by the international media, there will be newspaper articles and television programmes that some of us will not like. Our task is to engage with journalists, to encourage them to dig deeper, to tackle substantive subjects that will make our countries better understood both within and without our regions. We do this not by government edict, or restriction, but by openness and intelligent discourse.

I do not believe that serious news has to be dull in the telling. There are news organizations -- both print and electronic -- that prove this regularly. Journalists have to work hard to make such news relevant and compelling to their audiences. We have to help them by drawing attention to such news.

I believe that the United Nations, particularly its Secretary-General, has an important responsibility in this regard. The United Nations must be the voice of those whose voices are not heard. I take it as my personal duty to draw the attention of the world's media to the true stories of the developing world and to do all possible to help build journalism's strengths so that the voices can make themselves heard, so that they can tell their own stories to the world.

We must work together towards these objectives.

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United Nations