Local media conference: An emotional debate
25.04.2002By her side was her father, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who proposed to the media that it set up an independent national press council that would protect journalists' rights and settle disputes.
Historic meeting It was a historic meeting between the media and the president - and a chance for both to air their views on the current status of the press in Kazakhstan.
Attending the conference were 200 representatives from the country's mass media, 90 percent of whom represented private publications and television and radio channels.
''The president wanted to be there, and he wanted to hear the views of the media,'' says Nazarbayeva, chairperson of Khabar Broadcasting Agency. ''For him, it was an emotional debate. We are trying to solve the information war that is going on at present - the allegations of some that freedom of the press in Kazakhstan is being curtailed.''
National press councils have been firmly established institutions in many Western countries for years. These councils often have to come into play when there is a dispute between journalists and the subject or subjects of their stories. The president also proposed a code of ethics for the media in Kazakhstan; such codes often put the brakes on overexuberant reporting in developed countries.
Stability and balance
Nazarbayev told the conference that he believed it was high time to establish a stable and balanced system of relations among the state, the mass media and society.
Kazakhstan's leader said the mass media should not be used as a means of political struggle, and he added that media oligarchs, not the state, were interfering with press freedom in Kazakhstan.
The president suggested that the independent press council could be made up of a mix of members from the private and public sectors, for example: well-known people in the arts and sciences; representatives of the president, government or parliament; lawyers; mass-media owners; journalists; and representatives of public organizations.
The council, he said, would engage in a range of activities; these would include the protection of interests and legal rights of the mass media in their relations with the state and other bodies; the protection of the legal interests and rights of journalists in their relation with media owners, publishers and editors; compliance with ethical standards; the protection of the rights of legal entities and lay people, from biased and nonobjective information in the mass media; and settlement in information disputes
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