MEDIA: PACIFIC ETHICS: ARE PUBLISHERS' POODLES THE WAY?

The Fiji Media Council's revised Code of Ethics is now posted on its new website. Comparisons with codes of ethics in other countries, including Papua New Guinea are at the International Journalists Net. The USP Regional Journalism Programme's independent resources on media law and ethics are on Pacific Journalism Online.

DAVID ROBIE: Fourth Estate Column

NEVILLE DE SILVA, a Sri Lankan journalist with 40 years in the print and electronic media, was fairly scathing about BritainÕs Press Complaints Commission in a recent edition of CPU News.

He noted that Sri LankaÕs new government was hoping to abolish its existing Press Council and set up a "more independent" body called - yes, you guessed it, the Press Complaints Commission.

But he handed out a warning.

"If Colombo intends to protect the people from the excesses of the press, then the Press Complaints Commission as it exists [in the UK] is hardly an exemplar," he wrote.

"Given the power of the press and the extent to which it will go for a story in this market-driven world, the public requires an independent, impartial institution that would provide redress against the media rather than a pet poodle."

De Silva had a point and it ought to be noted in Fiji and in other countries considering "media councils".

Many of us journalists or educators with long experience in the media share this scepticism over such bodies.

Often the councils have far less to do with the public's right to redress or genuine media freedom than in protecting the vested interests of particular media organisations, or the industry itself.

What particularly offended De Silva were the misguided lengths that the PCC apparently went to to defend a prominent journalist over alleged "inaccuracies and tendentious remarks" over the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Gross errors were pointed out in a substantive submission and a revised adjudication notice issued.

"When the rewritten adjudication notice was received again, it made no mention of name, dates or headlines, as though the PCC was deliberately trying to avoid embarrassment to Marie Colvin and the [London] Sunday Times," De Silva wrote.

It echoes an experience that I had at the hands of the Fiji Media Council last year with an adjudication - the only one of the year - that didnÕt even address the substance of my complaint.

In fact, a media lawyer described the adjudication as unlikely to "withstand the most basic scrutiny in terms of fairness or due process".

With this sort of mockery, those of us with long experience in the news media and professional qualifications in ethics would hardly have confidence in such media councils.

Nor would we counsel people to take this path for redress. They would mostly be wasting their time.

Nor are governments likely to be convinced that genuine self-regulation is at work.

Most credible contemporary press councils include a tripartite structure - representatives of owners, journalists and the public.

And they rely on public censure.

The rationale, as Professor Claude-Jean Bertrand, a Paris University based authority on world media regulations systems, says, is simple.

It is a question of "ownership".

PROPRIETORS own the industrial means to obtain, process and distribute the news.

PROFESSIONAL journalists own the competence to find, filter and process the news.

AS FOR the public, it owns the freedom of speech and press.

Almost half the world's press councils are in Europe - 15 out of 34 "genuine" councils on a continent with barely five percent of the world's population.

However, if Cyprus and Turkey are also added, this totals 15 councils out of 18 nations in Western Europe.

In the Eastern European countries emerging from totalitarian rule after a half century, only Estonia has one.

Most media councils follow the tripartite system, or at least "mixed", system.

Few are "media only" councils, like Britain's old General Council of the Press in the 1950s.

Such bodies can do little to address the flaws of modern journalism.

There is also the odd "dead council", such as one Portugal had for 15 years after the 1975 coup and the transition to democracy until it was "terminated" in 1990.

It was supposed to make way for a "private" press council.

Among the democracies that don't have press councils at all are Ireland, France, Italy, Greece (and Portugal).

The Belgian and Swiss press councils are "journalists only", Austria and Germany have no public members, while Britain's council no longer has rank-and-file journalists - a path unfortunately followed by Fiji.

Incidentally, freedom of expression demands the recognition of journalists' unions, according to a 1999 document, Freedom of Expression: A statement of Principles to Inform Legal Systems in the Commonwealth: "Journalists' unions have an essential role to play in protecting journalists and advancing professional values."

Why are there no effective journalists' unions in the Pacific today, like elsewhere in the world? Teachers, academics, nurses and many other people have professional unions in the Pacific.

So should journalists to enhance professionalism, their status, pay and working conditions.

No Pacific media council follows the tripartite model. And the Fiji Media Council contrasts in its composition with the Australian and New Zealand models.

Australia has 10 members representing print news media organisations and 11 public members, including an independent chair, Professor Ken McKinnon.

Three of the "public" members are two journalists (recently including a journalism lecturer) and one editor, independent of the member media organisations.

The Australian Journalists' Association section of the Media Alliance (union) used to be a member but withdrew in 1987 in protest over the failure of the Press Council to censure the takeover of Melbourne's Herald and Weekly Times group (and its Pacific holdings) by Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd.

In New Zealand, the Press Council increased its membership in 1999 to 11 - six public members, including the independent chair, former justice Sir John Jeffries; and three news media representatives (Newspaper Publishers Association, 2; Magazine Publishers Association, 1), and two representing the journalists's union - EPMU.

The Fiji Media Council's membership is eight public, including the independent chair, Daryl Tarte, and seven representing constituent news media organisations.

But there are no independent journalists.

David Robie is journalism coordinator of the University of the South Pacific and co-cordinator of Pacific Media Watch. This Wansolwara column is his personal view.