Notes and References:

"Something to Be Done: Transnational Media Monitoring" by Kaarle Nordenstreng
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Notes:

(1) See report of a seminar on media ethics and criticism held in Tampere in April 1993, including a proposal by Heikki Luostarinen for a European journalism review (available at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Tampere). For a survey of media criticism reviews in the United States see St. Louis Journalism Review, no. 14, July-August 1993. Another useful source if the Project Censored Yearbook, which, in addition to exposing "news and information not published nor broadcast by the mainstream media in America," is listing journalism/media analysis publications and organizations (Carl Jensen and Project Censored, 1994). An unconventional kind of media criticism is represented by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), which, in addition to its monthly Extra! and several special projects, makes annual awards such as the "beauties of bias prize," "lost in smoke award," and "media hypocrite of the year."

(2) See The Ethics of Journalism, 1993. The report contains the texts of Resolution 1003 (1993) and Recommendation 1215 (1993), an explanatory memorandum by Manuel Nunez Encabo, a summary of the debate of the assembly that unanimously adopted the two documents on July 1, 1993, as well as a verbatim record of a parliamentary hearing organized by the Committee on Culture and Education in June 1991 on the basis of the Gulf War experience. Particularly relevant to this chapter is the last paragraph (No. 38) of Resolution 1003: The self-regulatory bodies or mechanisms, the media users' associations and the relevant university departments could publish each year the research done a posteriori on the truthfulness of the information broadcast by the media, comparing the news with the actual facts. This would serve as a barometer of credibility which citizens could use as a guide to the ethical standard achieved by each medium or each section of the media, or even each individual journalist. The relevant corrective mechanisms might simultaneously help improve the manner in which the profession of media journalism is pursued.

(3) The Paris meeting, convened in a banquet hall of a Bois de Bolougne restaurant, was organized by the International Organization of Journalists (IOJ), whose president this author was at the time. MacBride's keynote address was improvised without a written text and hence there is no documentation of it.

(4) The memorandum was also moved into the IOJ machinery in Prague, where the proposed "monitoring project" became a pivotal part of the organization's new research and documentation branch called the International Journalism Institute (IJI). The idea was welcomed in general, but no immediate steps were taken to implement it. However, two planning meetings were later organized by the IOJ/IJI under the chairmanship of this author, attended by, among others, the founder of the Glasgow Media Group John Eldridge and the director of the New York-based Institute for Media Analysis Ellen Ray. Reports of these meetings were prepared by the IJI and are available from this author.

(5) The Hutchins Commission quotes are from its main report, "A Free and Responsible Press" (Chicago University Press, 1947), p. 102. Balk's text, including the Hutchins Commission proposal quoted by him, escaped my attention until recently, and thus it has in no way influenced the current monitoring idea. However, it is interesting to note how similar this concept is with that originally submitted by the Hutchins Commission. It is also worth noting that Balk's proposal has not been acted on by those whom he called on, at least not within a decade.

(6) The IFJ working group was the outcome of a meeting organized on my initiative together with the IAMCR in Antwerp (Belgium) in July 1994 to commemorate the centennial of the first international conference of journalists marking the beginning of an international movement of journalists. Present at this meeting were also Charles Husband and Teun van Dijk, leading to their involvement in the IFJ working group.

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