A global media forum has called on the United Nations Secretary-General to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the Protection of Journalists in peace and war.
The third World Electronic Media Forum (WEMF3), meeting in Kuala Lumpur, made the call after hearing that 2007 was already the bloodiest year on record for journalists deaths, with at least 172 news media staff killed so far as a result of their
work. The forum, which brought together broadcasters, journalists, policy makers,
academics and others, noted the importance of freedom of expression to human rights.
It urged states to implement in letter and spirit UN Resolution 1738, adopted by the
Security Council in December 2006. The resolution calls on states to end impunity for
those who kill journalists and other news professionals, to investigate incidents of
violence against news media, and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The forum also called for greater efforts to preserve the worlds endangered
audiovisual archives.
It urged broadcasters throughout the world to cooperate with the Archives at Risk
group, which brings together several leading organisations, and called on industry
partners and institutions to sponsor and support archive preservation projects, via the
Archives at Risk initiative.
The group on Archives at Risk was created in February 2006 after the second meeting
of the World Electronic Forum (WEMF2) in Tunis in November 2005. Its members
include the United Nations, UNESCO, the World Broadcasting Unions, the European
Broadcasting Union and the International Federation of Television Archives,
FIAT/IFTA.
WEMF3 also said broadcasters must maintain their core values and principles in the
face of rapid technological change. It was possible to hold on to core values of good
journalism such as accuracy, objectivity and ethical reporting in spite of embracing
new media technology, the forum said.
Broadcasters should strive to embrace and harness the new media and new
technological platforms to benefit fully from all the new opportunities they provided through increasing flexibility of media consumption, interactivity, participatory
communication and access.
In this changing media landscape driven by market forces, it was critical to support
and strengthen public service broadcasting and community media which played a
crucial role in informing, educating and empowering citizens, the forum said.
Calling for action to bridge the accessibility divide, the forum urged Information &
Communications Technology (ICT) regulators around the world to consider having
wireless Internet access free, initially in main cities, as a public service.
It called on broadcasters to use innovations in technology to serve the consumers of
their services with special needs, such as the sight and hearing impaired and the
elderly.
Among the speakers were leading representatives of Aljazeera English, the BBC,
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Japans public broadcaster NHK, the Korean
Broadcasting System, Radio Netherlands, Young Asia Television and regional
broadcasting unions from Africa, the Arab world, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, North
America and South America.
WEMF3 was an event of the World Broadcasting Unions and was organised by the
Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting
Development (AIBD) and the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre
(AMIC). It was supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
(SDC) and the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) as cooperation partners.
The first and second World Electronic Media Forums were held in conjunction with
the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) which was held in two phases
in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005).