The Media

"We have a battlefield, not an information space"
- Dosym Satpayev, director of the Political Risk Assessment Group, Kazakhstan

Conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere, a spate of presidential and general elections in 69 countries from Russia and South Africa to the United States in 2004, the issue of trust and a continuing debate about the influence of ownership have thrown a spotlight firmly on the media.
Three of the four opening sessions set the tone for the conference, with some forceful talking on media conditions in former Soviet states and robust exchanges, especially on Iraq and terrorism, between Richard Perle, a former US Assistant Secretary of Defence, and a representative of the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television.

The three sessions were "Elections and the Role of the Media: A Political Moderator or a Source of Destabilisation", "The Role of International Organisations in Rebuilding the Media in Post-conflict Societies" and "Paying the Piper" - a debate on different models of public and private broadcasting.
Since the Cold War ended and after a decade of general lack of trust triggered by corruption and oligarchs, much of the media in Russia, Kazakhstan and the region is seeking to connect with the public as honest and informed brokers. One speaker, however, called the regional media "a source of destabilisation".
But it was clear that quick fixes were unlikely. "Broadcasting in Russia is still part of a political system, working for the political interests of the ruling class. This is inevitable," said Vitaliy Tretyakov of Russia's "Culture" television channel.

Dariga Nazarbayeva said it was easy to criticise the regional media from a standpoint of European standards. "When we have to do something really fast we feel like students at school, being given certain grades."

"We are a country in transition. I believe television and the mass media can survive on the basis of help. We have state and oligarchic mass media. You can say whatever you want but that is the reality," she said.
Speakers from Britain and the United States highlighted a media concentration in their countries on personalities and not trying to find out what voters wanted.

"I cannot remember a campaign where books were such a great issue. There are (political) books by Bob Woodward, Richard Clark and Paul O'Neill. These are becoming a series of media events by themselves," said Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation, USA.

"I think Bush is coming over as a regular guy with a beat up pick-up truck, while Kerry comes across as an East Coast elitist trying to be presidential, but at times sounds pompous," he added.

In exchanges on the media situation in Iraq, Richard Perle said: "Access to a variety of media outlets is essential to a free society… but it is a sad fact that politically driven media can have an undue influence."
He characterised al-Jazeera as a "constant drumbeat pointing in a very unpopular direction" and said the station would "be history" when the people had full access to a variety of media outlets.

On allegations from the conference floor that the United States went to war to secure oil supplies from Iraq, Mr Perle said: "The idea that we are in Iraq for the oil is a lie. When the United States needs oil, it buys it on world markets."

Akram Khouzam, al-Jazeera's Moscow bureau chief, said: "The Bush administration accuses al-Jazeera of not being an objective broadcasting channel for one simple reason: We report the deaths of civilians and children in Iraq."

"When (Secretary of State) Colin Powell admits that his information was faulty and does not apologise, we have every right to doubt any statements by the Bush administration," Mr Khouzam said. In a reference to US efforts to set up an elected government in Iraq, he said: "Democracy in the Arab world is an illusion."
Dara Hassan Reshid, public relations head of the Committee for New Iraqi Media Infrastructure Reconstruction, said: "Iraq is an emerging democracy but this does not mean that al-Jazeera has a right to give only negative reports on the situation in our country."

"We say to negative Arab media - please leave us alone. We want to rebuild our country. We want to rebuild our media," Mr. Reshid said.
Other speakers from the floor believed alternative media voices, such as al-Jazeera, created big impacts and they criticised the United States, as the world's sole superpower, for not acting against oppressive dictatorships in places such as Africa.

Mr Perle said: "You put us often in the position of either we do too much or we do too little…We are responding in a world that has too many dictatorships and too many brutal regimes. But we can't take them all on. I find it unacceptable that we are accused of not standing up to every such regime."
In the session "Paying the Piper", speakers raised the issue of Andrew Gilligan, the now former BBC reporter whose story about Iraqi weapons led to a feud with the British government, a judicial inquiry and the resignations of the BBC's chairman and director general.

"I am a journalist by nature and think about the case of Mr Gilligan," said Toshiyuki Sato, director-general of international planning and broadcasting department of Japan's NHK. "Was it right? I think there was something to be corrected."

"The BBC is our teacher. NHK is a Japanese version of the BBC. The major difference is in how we are funded, though both are through licence fees. If you don't pay your BBC licence you are jailed. There is no penalty in Japan and about 90 percent of households pay about $10 (per annum) voluntarily," he said.