Media Law
The process of regulating media activities is a challenge for all modern states. It is a delicate balance – heavy-handedness will result in governments, including some former members of the Soviet Union, being accused of censorship and denying press freedom.
On the other hand, disorganisation could throw the media at the mercy of a narrow range of commercial interests with poor editorial standards, as one Russian member of the panel said was happening with media outlet under the control of oligarchs.
The conference session was held in the same week that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed concern in Moscow at the progress of democracy and also of media curbs in Russia.
“Globalisation affects media law in a very strong way in the areas of economy and ideas,” said session chairman Andrei Richter, director of the Moscow Media Law and Policy Institute.
“The Fist Amendment of the US constitution was basically and literally translated into Mongolian and adopted by the authorities in Mongolia. It says the national parliament cannot have laws that infringe freedom of speech and the media,” he added.
A major question is how such global trends can take into account religious and other differences. The European Union constitution, for example, is mainly Christian-based as far as religion goes.
Asked how media affects journalists in the US and the West in general, Michael Golden, publisher of the International Herald Tribune and Vice-Chairman of the New York Times Company, said the issue was the impact of laws on journalists who were not in the country in question.
“At the IHT we have printed the same publication for 25 years. A story written in the US or Singapore goes all over world…the Wall Street Journal last year was convicted under Australian libel laws although it was about a Canadian and published in the United States.
“We tell journalists to write the story as best they know it, regardless of different laws. We spend a lot of time talking to in-house (legal) counsel, particularly in the UK where libel laws are much more biting than in the US,” Golden said. “We try to minimize impact as best we can but it is of great concern to us.”
“The ombudsman at the NYT (New York Times) has been successful in making the paper more responsive to readers and to how we present articles. There has not been any impact under libel laws, “said Golden, who added that following the dismissal in 2003 of NYT rogue journalist Jason Blair for fabricating stories, a major concern was that the people about whom Blair wrote did not tell the newspaper.
“If a newspaper does not give credibility it serves no purpose,” Golden added.
Boris Reznik, deputy chairman of the Information Policy Committee at the Duma, Russia’s parliament, said there was a current evaluation of what laws should be adopted to facilitate journalists and were they in agreement with what the public wanted. He said there had been 46 attempts to amend the law.
Reznik said arguments differed in a country where for 300 years there have been rules governing society and the mass media. “I am a strong opponent of amending the law… In essence there is no law on the mass media. In the UK, for example, they do not have VAT (Value added Tax) for the mass media. In Russia VAT is 20 percent, which will be applicable for all media. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin says such measures have to be there to ensure the freedom of the mass media,” he added.
“Oligarchs own most of the media, which is not all that good. Now the state has started to control electronic mass media outlets. With very little in the way of exemption, they have subordinated the mass media. All laws that have been drafted by the Duma are very liberal and quite in line… with the rest of the world. One thing that is missing is political will. We need the Kremlin’s OK. I hope we get it,” Reznik said.
A Russian in the audience said: “After the collapse of the Soviet Union we thought everything would be good but we are being attacked by the financial police.”
In a diverse Central Asian view, Anatoliy Matukhin, president of Kazakhstan’s 'Adilet' Law Academy, said: “I have a question on fairness from the standpoint of a lawyer. One fact is obvious – that journalists and the mass media are not just for informing society. They are an instrument of self-realisation… such values are stipulated in the constitution and law that defends the mass media.”
Sergei Gretsky, professor of Political Science, Central Asia and the Caucasus at the US Centre for Social and Political Sciences, said the president of Turkmenistan was the founder of all newspapers in that country but that elsewhere in the CIS states matters were not so clear.
“Institutional basics and fundamentals are being laid out… Experience of post-Soviet states shows that journalists are not so much mediators between government and society but rather organs of direct opinions, not only their own but also those of their owners,” he added.
Michael Golden said one of the most difficult questions the IHT wrestled with was how to maintain balance. “We do not pretend or think that we have total fairness because total fairness is in the eye of each reader. To some, (the late Yasser) Arafat was a democratically-elected leader. Others say he used terrorist methods to pursue his own goals.
“But the impact of globalisation is helping to solve that problem. Also, I disagree that the US press lined up against the (Bush) administration after 9/11. The US was attacked. There was an immediate visceral reaction that binds society together. But, later, there were exhaustive analyses of failures of intelligence. So, the press is playing an important role.
“We are not perfect but we are trying,” Golden said.
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