Broadcasting Crucial to Development Says Asia Media Summit

Broadcasting is crucial to development said the participants of the Asia Media Summit (AMS) that the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) in collaboration with partners and with support from UNESCO organized in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 9-11 May 2005. The Recommendations of the conference are now on line available. More than 400 decision makers, media professionals, scholars, and stakeholders of news and programming from 65 countries of Asia, Pacific, Europe, North America, Middle East and Africa attended the conference. Issues confronting the broadcasting community, a key actor in knowledge societies were discussed. AMS 2005 was recognized as one of the regional consultative meeting for the second phase of WSIS, Tunis, in November 2005, and adopted recommendations calling to strengthen the role of broadcasting in promoting sustainable development. The recommendations span over 7 pages with 13 sections including recommendations concerning media and globalization, cultural diversity, digital opportunities, free flow of information, public service broadcasting, human resource development, children, gender, HIV/AIDS, disasters, preservation of radio and television archives, WIPO broadcasters’ treaty, copyright and digital technologies. Among the recommendations, there are calls to guarantee the independence and pluralism of the media, by providing equitable allocation of broadcasting frequencies to public, private and community broadcasters, by establishing the appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks for community media, promoting public service broadcasting through its independence from political and commercial pressures and safeguarding its editorial independence. The conference also called to set up mechanisms aimed at preventing violence against journalists and other media professionals to assure their safety in carrying out their responsibilities in the service of society. Concerning public service broadcasting, the participants recommended that: a. Governments be requested to: Promote public service broadcasting, and ensure its independence from political and commercial pressures and to provide all possible means to upgrade its performance; Provide public service broadcasting organizations with adequate funding to enable them to provide high quality services while remaining viable and maintaining their independence; b. The appropriate authorities be requested to: Promote non-profit community broadcasting and to ensure that suitable frequencies are allocated for such services; Encourage diversity in broadcasting, thereby offering opportunities for a diversity of views; Safeguard editorial independence and management transparency and support the upgrading of performance of the PSB where it has been established. c. Broadcasters be encouraged to: Define and adopt quality standards that include guidelines governing their programme standards and editorial practices; Establish systems for the internal and external monitoring of these standards and practices in relation to the guidelines and the legislation under which the broadcasting organizations are established. Source:UNESCO

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