AUDIO: Support for media institutions will boost press freedom, says academic

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AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): Many people in New Zealand and Australia have hardly heard about the World Press Freedom Day, coordinated by UNESCO all over the globe today - May 3.

The day serves to remind the world to uphold the right to freedom of expression under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom.

In Auckland, the day is being marked with a lecture by journalism Professor Mark Pearson from Griffith University in Brisbane at AUT University starting at 5:30 pm with live streaming.

No easy fix
Pearson argues that supporting institutions which promote press freedom, may lead to an increased interest in the day and have positive effects on press freedom:

I’m not sure there is an easy fix for media freedom, but one thing is certainly that groups, or institutions, like the Pacific Media Centre, Reporters Without Borders, Transparency International, these sorts of organisations, can forge a higher profile in the discourse about important free expression and media freedom.

I think partly because of a resource question, and partly because of the demands of so much else. Often these institutions have small staffing, or they’re often staffed by volunteers, as NGOs.

According to UNESCO’s website, World Press Freedom Day is a date to encourage and develop initiatives in favour of press freedom, and to assess the state of press freedom worldwide. In order to highlight this issue strong media institutions are needed, Pearson contends, but they do often not receive enough support:

It’s been hard for them to get that message across, but I think they need to stand up, step forward, now, that we’re seeing large media organisations less able to finance that lobbying power for free expression, and really step up and fill that gap. So, I think really there’s a lot more that can be done for the community literacy about both the media itself and about the various rights and freedoms that both the ordinary citizens and the journalist should have.

Other interests
One of the reasons why people in New Zealand and Australia do not seem to care very much about World Press Freedom Day might be because other issues interest them more:

“[M]edia freedom […] is something you don’t necessarily appreciate until you start to lose it. And it’s not something that is at the forefront of most citizens’ minds. They are much more concerned with things affecting their daily lives, their income, government decisions to do with health and education and these sorts of things”, Professor Pearson says.

After one year outside the top 10 countries on the Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) press freedom index, New Zealand re-entered at this year’s list on an 8th place. New Zealand is one of only 21 countries in the world where Reporters Sans Frontières categorises the press freedom as ‘good’.

Differences between NZ, Australia
In Australia, the conditions for press freedom are not as good with instances of journalists being asked to reveal confidential sources by courts.

Australia is ranked 26th on the 2013 world press freedom index, up four places from 2012. Reporters Sans Frontières characterises the press situation in Australia as "satisfactory".

Professor Pearson, who is the Australian correspondent for the Paris-based global media freedom advocacy organisation Reporters Sans Frontières, makes a point of distinguishing Australia and New Zealand when it comes to press freedom:

I’m not sure we put them in the same basket. While they are both Western democracies, my own impression from a distance is that New Zealand has a much better track record with media freedom than Australia does. If you look to the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index in recent years, certainly New Zealand has had a much stronger performance. I would put that partly down to the fact that you have your Bill of Rights Act there with freedom of expression protected. Australia does not have that, so it is a constant struggle in Australia to have free expression considerations taken into account by governments and courts, because we do not have that constitutional backing.

Listen to the full interview with Professor Pearson, and here is the transcript.

DD: In Australia and New Zealand press freedom is perhaps taken for granted. Why should we care about world press freedom day in Australia and New Zealand?

MP: Well, you say it’s taken for granted in both Australia and New Zealand, and my first comment would be that I would distinguish those two countries. I’m not sure we put them in the same basket. While they are both Western democracies, my own impression from a distance is that New Zealand has a much better track record with media freedom than Australia does. If you look to the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index in recent years, certainly New Zealand has had a much stronger performance. I would put that partly down to the fact that you have your Bill of Rights Act there with freedom of expression protected. Australia does not have that, so it is a constant struggle in Australia to have free expression considerations taken into account by governments and courts, because we do not have that constitutional backing.

DD: Why is it the broader public in Australia and New Zealand seem to ignore world press freedom day?

MP: I’m not sure it has brought much to the attention of the broader citizen. I think you have to understand that most citizens are predominantly concerned with what affects them in their lives on a day to day basis. And media freedom, as you said at the outset, is something you don’t necessarily appreciate until you start to lose it. And it’s not something that is at the forefront of most citizens’ minds. They are much more concerned with things affecting their daily lives, their income, government decisions to do with health and education and these sorts of things. And the extent to which this can be discussed in the community is really something that needs to be sold to them, so I think it’s a wonderful development that in New Zealand the Pacific Media Centre has taken the initiative to work with UNESCO to have the world press freedom day inaugural celebration there this year.

DD: How big a threat is concentration of media ownership in the media industry to press freedom?

MP: Concentration of media ownership is a concern where audiences reading and viewing and online habits are restricted in some way to particular products. And this is still a concern certainly for regional areas, where there may only be one or two voices coming into these communities, but it’s becoming less a concern as citizens in any country – well, in any Western country – are getting more access to international material and other voices from within their own community through social media and through various websites. So, I’m not saying the problem of concentration of media ownership has evaporated. It is still an issue, but I think it’s becoming less an issue as people get more connected through the Web 2.0 environment.

DD: And tying into that,; you are an expert in social media of course. How do you see social media, and new media in general, influencing press freedom?

MP: It’s a double-edged sword for social media and media freedom, and part of my address in Auckland on World Press Freedom Day is looking at free expression in terms of bloggers and citizen journalists and, you know, the ordinary citizen. Their rights to free expression in this new environment versus what we’ve traditionally called press freedom or media freedom, which has really been a subset of free expression. Now that all citizens have the potential to publish, and sometimes quite broadly depending on their topic and their level of following on social media, it starts to make us question who really is a journalist and what special privileges in media freedom a journalist deserves or should demand, as opposed to other citizens who may well be sometimes reaching a larger audiences.

DD: And a final question, what can realistically be done to facilitate better conditions for press freedom in Australia and New Zealand, and also in the Pacific?

MP: I’m not sure there is an easy fix for media freedom, but one thing is certainly that groups, or institutions, like the Pacific Media Centre, Reporters Without Borders, Transparency International, these sorts of organisations, can take a, forge a higher profile in the discourse about important free expression and media freedom. I think partly because of a resource question, and partly because of the demands of so much else. Often these institutions have small staffing, or they’re often staffed by volunteers, as NGOs. It’s been hard for them to get that message across, but I think they need to stand up, step forward, now, that we’re seeing large media organisations less able to finance that lobbying power for free expression, and really step up and fill that gap. So, I think really there’s a lot more that can be done for the community literacy about both the media itself and about the various rights and freedoms that both the ordinary citizens and the journalist should have.