The final version of the MacBride report on international communications, presented to Unesco last week, is less alarmingly worded than leaks of earlier drafts. At least there is no mention of the “licensing” of journalists. But the document offers no assurance that the need for a full flow of information across frontiers will be met. The liveliest advocates of a fuller information flow have been the countries of the third world, who complain that the western media either ignore them or present a distorted picture of their countries.
It is proposed to help them set up national news agencies, whose output would be fed into existing international networks.
If these national agencies were to become mere vehicles for government hand-outs, they would be a waste of resources. And if they were used as an argument to justify the exclusion of independent overseas reporters they would be perniciously counterproductive. Any decision by the developed countries to give aid in this direction must be linked to firm guarantees of access to news sources.
Talking point
There is a station that sums up one of British Rail’s problems. It is at Roydon in Essex. BR would like to discard it,and use the shelter on the up platform, but it cannot. Like 511 BR buildings Roydon is “listed”. This one is grade II. Roydon’s old station buildings therefore cannot be destroyed without an inquiry. And BR cannot, in law, let it collapse like some tipsy aunt in a back room. It will have to be restored and maintained. This will cost a packet. “Treasure on the down line”, by Patrick O’Donovan
Key quote
“What we are to that lot [bureaucrats] is a bloody nuisance. They’d like to get rid of us, no doubt about that, whatever they say. Sweep us under the carpet.”
Ray Winters, a London rag and bone man.
