INTER PRESS SERVICE

1994 INTERNATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD CEREMONY

NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 17, 1994

MR MARTTI AHTISAARI

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF FINLAND

Mr Secretary-General,

Dr Savio,

Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen

First of all, my heartfelt and sincere thanks to Inter Press Service for giving me this International Achievement Award. This occasion brings back to memory a process long gone from the front pages - a process, which I had a chance to facilitate. Namibia has not been much in the news since, because, unfortunately, news in general, and African news in particular, seem to need an element of conflict, crisis and death to make the papers and TV newscasts.

This International Achievement Award is not so much a recognition of an individual's performance, but a tribute to the United Nations, to all those, who made this success story possible, both in the field and the Headquarters. We should not forget the contributions and continued support of the member-States. They made the resources available.

Some people might find it strange that a news organization would honor somebody for keeping news from happening, but then, IPS is not an ordinary news organization, as we all know.

IPS may not be a household word like AP or Reuters, but for those who are interested in a broader and deeper view of what is going on in the world, and especially in the developing world, it has been required reading for the three decades of its existence. With its emphasis on culture, development, environment, human rights and social issues, it has provided an extremely useful counter-current to the hot news rapids of the mainstream news organizations.

As a "Third World" news agency, IPS covered many countries and issues in the developing world which simply did not exist for the mainstream agencies - which, however often picked up its original stories, such as the cellist playing on the streets of Sarajevo. But I have understood that with the big changes taking place in the world today, IPS, too, finds itself in a process of transition from the old to the new. I am convinced that IPS will continue to play an increasingly important role in helping us all to understand what is going on in the world. And its new type of activities, such as training of journalists, will contribute to the kind of media development that will support democracy, good governance, transparency and respect for human rights.

I do not think I need to waste your time in arguing that freedom of information and freedom of the media are an integral element not only of democracy, but of sustainable national development as a whole. In some countries, free media are seen as an anathema to nation-building and development, but I think that we now have enough convincing evidence to the contrary.

Looking over the ruins of totalitarian regimes, we see frightening examples of what happens to a body politic that deliberately allows its information arteries to become blocked. With its veins clogged,such a society succumbs to an incurable illness, while its servile and submissive media keeps up false perceptions of health, popular support and enthusiasm until the end.

Some national leaders have the means to make sure that they do not need to tolerate any media criticism. Thus, there are no warning signals, and the leaders can keep on committing mistakes that finally will bring them down. In a democracy, free media can save leaders from this kind of dangerous blindness.

In developing countries and in the countries in transition from communism to democracy, strengthening the media should be one of the development priorities - but in ways that will promote democracy, and not weaken it. In a democracy, everyone should have a voice. Those, whose voice is weak, should be encouraged and assisted to speak louder so that they will be heard, and listened to.

This should also happen at the town meetings of the global village. Imbalances of news flows and North-to-South one-way streets of information have been well researched and documented over the years. New technologies are cutting both ways here. On the one hand, they have cemented the dominance of big Western news organizations. On the other, they have opened avenues for intra-regional news exchanges and for at least a trickle of a counter-current of news, from the South to the North.

Broadcasters of such regions as Asia, Arab states, Africa and the Caribbean, through their regional unions, have reached encouraging results in this regard. They know that to be competitive in the international marketplace, they need tools and training, which are available from many development cooperation partners, both international and national. But they have also realized that they themselves have to supply a third element: credibility. For media, it is the most precious, and an easily perishable, commodity. Paraphrasing what the Bible says about charity: Though I speak with the tongues of men and all the angels, and I have not credibility, I am become just sounding brass and tinkling cymbal...

At the same time, nobody should be dazzled by the wizardry and gadgets being used. Free from many earlier physical and technical limitations, those using them now encounter new problems of criteria, relevance and selection. To quote Ted Koppel of ABC Nightline in a congressional hearing on the impact of new technologies: "Focusing a camera on a live event is a miraculous technological achievement, but it is not journalism. Journalism lies in the evaluation of the event,it lies in analysis and editing. (...) To a certain degree, we all, in this day and age, are prisoners of the electronic tail wagging the editorial dog."

There are different opinions on the ultimate question, whether the information superhighways will lead to solving the most pertinent problems of the mankind. Paul Kennedy, in his book on how to prepare for the 21st century, doubts that this time, "the power of population"and "the power of technology" might not match each other as well as they did 200 years ago, when industrial and agricultural revolutions proved that Malthus had been wrong in his pessimistic predictions. Others are more optimistic and think - like the writers of the latest"State of the World" report at the Worldwatch Institute - that the new information technologies will bring enormous resources into the fight against the two interconnected problems of the Third World development:poverty and environmental degradation. But, as the father of the geostationary satellite, Sir Arthur Clarke, pointed out, the engineering problem in realizing his dream was the easy part. He asked: Do we have the imagination and statesmanship to use this new tool for the benefit of mankind?

Inter Press Service and all other organizations and entities that contribute to seeking answers to these questions really have their workcut out for them, and they deserve all the support they can possibly get.