World Editors Conference

national | miscellaneous | news report

Saturday June 07, 2003 19:29

by paul cummins - indymedia

chewy at redbrick dot dcu dot ie

Can you write indpendent news if your boss is not independent

World Editors Conference June 8 -11th

The World editors Conference and Expo is taking place in Dublin from the 8th of June to the 11th. It is a large and busy conference with a lot of worthy journalists and proposals, eg.

"The Role of the Newspaper
Society is evolving and questions are being asked about the role of the newspaper. Are there dangers in chasing consumerist trends too aggressively to appeal to increasingly materialistic audiences? Has the time come for publishers and editors to reassess their mission and how they are performing it and to focus anew on upholding traditional values of community and citizenship? Views, case studies and debate"

With the news of controversy over accuracy in the New York Times, which was supposed to be a newspaper who cherished it's reputation for accuracy over everything else. The Independent put Robert Fisk on front of the newspaper several times during the recent war in Iraq but in the same paper widley misreported many other things and never printing retractions or corrections when they or even Fisk got things wrong. I read that the New York times print corrections daily but it took them months to oust their prize winning journalist they had suspicions about. On the Real Face of War the other night, a C4 documentary on media handling of the war, journalist working for corporate media who embedded themselves with the US Army then complained about not being able to get all of there stories out? They and our national newspapers all constantly claim to be striving for the truth and justice but seem not fully committed to it.

From World Association of Newspapers page, a .org site?
Policy/Aim

Defending and promoting press freedom and the economic independence of newspapers as an essential condition for that freedom.

But can you truely do that while still working for a corporation ? It impossible really to have independent media as even imc'ers have personal beefs or opinions but when the decision is taking out of your hands....

(ps hmm i never got around to getting any good ideas on how to cover this but i guess ill try over the next few days, last minute as it is. Although your not suppose to ask for anybodies else help (cos you be cursed for doing so )but im sure theres other indymedias interestd in covering this ,maybe its worth a feature, for the next few days, seems like major deal conference)