A Modest Proposal

IT'S RLLATIVELY EASY to forget how lucky the U.S. is to have aggressive reporters and intense media competition, what with the glut of sappy stories that appear daily. For the people of India and the other developing nations, however, a free press remains merely an ideal, dwarfed by more pressing needs--like securing food, shelter, and adequate health. As a result, Western countries control close to 90 percent of the world's communication power, by one estimate, and the world media has come to look at poorer nations through Western-tinted eyes.

Last week, efforts to redress the resulting "imbalance" of world news moved ahead, thanks to an arm of the United Nations. The U. N. body approved a preliminary plan for helping Third World and Soviet bloc countries improve their communications and information flow. But while the problem it is aimed is a real one, the path it prescribes for a "new world information order" is so threatening to the notion of press-freedom that the journey hardly seems worthwhile.

Essentially, the proposed guidelines would regulate the activities of journalists. While developing countries feel such codes are necessary to monitor the flow of news about them. Western countries rightly perceive the plan as a means of legitimizing propaganda campaigns and censoring the content of news report.

The "new order" is actually nothing new at all, the 157 member nations of the United Nations Educational. Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have been debating the issue of world communications for more than 10 years, concentrating their discussion on issues of freedom of the press, the world balance of information and the distribution of communications technology. Representative of developing countries have pushed for the new order as a means of granting them greater control over the international reporting of their affairs.

According to the developing nations. Western capitalist countries dominate the news and information business, and have an unfair advantage because they produce the most widely circulated publications and have the most advanced, powerful communications equipment. As a result, the argument goes, Western coverage has distorted and highlighted failures and calamities more than good news, contributing to the decline of morale, culture, and national values in communist and developing countries. Backers of the order therefore want greater access to the airwaves and communications satellites, and help, both financial and technical, in strengthening their news organizations.

OPPONENTS OF THE PROPOSAL concede that there is an imbalance in "world information" as seems evident, but they doubt the intentions of new order proponents. Why? The media-control plan would legitimize government censorship and control over the news, as well as permit the expulsion or restrict the entry of Western journalists who report "embarrassing" or otherwise "inconvenient" facts.

Opponents also fear that if UNESCO were to become an arbiter of international media practices, the agency could justify other restrictive policies, eventually choking-off information and facilitating the spread of oppression. Third World and Soviet bloc citizens should have the free choice to decide what information they wish to receive. Western nation say. The establishment of licensing standards for journalists and news operations would violate the basic Western tenets of free speech and press.

At the conclusion of a UNESCO conference last week, delegates gave consensus approval to a watered-down version of the developing nations' new order. The minority of Western delegates did secure several passages that caution against government interference, urging instead that the press act as a "watchdog" in keeping a close eye on authorities worldwide.

But they couldn't stop the inclusion of a clause that says, "The international community cannot ignore the problem of the content of messages which are potentially of the gravest significance for the future development of peoples and indeed of all mankind." Western delegates fear Soviet and developing countries will use the clause to censor or otherwise constrain Western reporters. Foreign correspondents potentially could be forced to choose between abiding by the rules or abandoning coverage altogether.

None of this is to say that correcting the communications imbalance is not the right thing to do. In fact, a practical plan to help is currently being developed by several Western news organizations that are conducting exchange and recruiting programs for foreign journalists. But the new order would threaten even these initiatives.

Congress, happily, senses the danger in UNESCO's restrictive press guidelines. Last year it threatened to withdraw its heavy financial backing of the agency--about a quarter of UNESCO's $180 million annual budget. What UNESCO must realize is that such an action would effectively nix much more than a communications program.

A loss of all Western financial support, which totals over half of the UNESCO budget, could threaten the body's valuable work--helping disadvantaged people in poor nations through education and self-help programs. Granted, there is a need to redress the communications imbalance, but to do so with a document that threatens freedom of the press, splits universal support and spells potential disaster for a worthy international organization seems absolutely foolish. UNESCO would be wise to see the proposed "new information order" for the facade for government control of the media that it really is. Otherwise, it could wind up having the plugs pulled on any new presses it wishes to buy.