International Report

As the chairman makes clear in his introduction to this Annual Review, the PCC model of press regulation has been widely copied throughout the world. It is striking that a number of countries in Eastern Europe – many of whose journalists have experienced state regulation of the press during their own careers – have turned to the PCC example. The Commission is committed to providing whatever support and advice is necessary to the media in such countries to encourage the development of self-regulatory systems. It believes that the more self-regulation there is, the better. Last year it offered support to developing press councils in such diverse countries as Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Ethiopia and Bulgaria.

But the key part of the Commission’s international strategy is to maintain close links with counterpart organisations in Europe, with which it has a number of issues in common. Chief among these is the desire to prevent European institutions from encroaching on its territory by promoting legislation that will regulate the content of newspapers and magazines.

The foundation of the Commission’s relationship with similar European bodies is the Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe (AIPCE). Its annual meeting was generously hosted in 2004 by the Cyprus Media Complaints Commission, and saw a record number of countries represented, from Ireland in the West to Russia in the East (see map on page 16). The Cypriot Minister for the Interior opened the conference by expressing his support for self-regulation, noting that “the promotion of freedom of expression and the provision of truthful information…in the final analysis promote democracy and peace.”

AIPCE was pleased to welcome representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia and Armenia for the first time – an encouraging sign of the spread of media freedoms there. However, self-regulatory institutions in those countries face considerable hurdles – largely concerning the viability of long-term funding – before they can become entrenched. The attendance of many of the representatives from Eastern Europe was funded by the Council of Europe and the Open Society Foundation.

Professor Robert Pinker, who retired from the PCC in the summer of 2004, continued as the International Chairman of the Bosnian Press Council, with which the PCC has had close links for the past five years. The BiH PC hopes that by the middle of 2005 a national Chairman will be ready to take charge, by which time Professor Pinker will have spent three years chairing the body.

The Commission remained concerned at proposals in the Republic of Ireland to establish a press council with a statutory basis. Although the matter had not been resolved at the time of the writing of this report, there were strong indications that the Irish government would introduce legislation paving the way for the creation of a press council. This move would be contrary to the trend in most of Europe, which is away from governmental interference in the regulation of press content and towards the establishment of truly self-regulatory institutions.

During the course of the year the Commission welcomed visitors from many countries to its offices – many of those visits being organised by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Students from Syracuse University in the USA, representatives from the Ukrainian Press Ethics Commission, and the President of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists’ Association were just a few of the many individuals who requested briefings on the Commission’s work.