IPS-English Q&A: ”The Government Is Not Our Enemy”
 
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:09:23 -0700

 
Interview with Juan Javier Zeballos, head of the National Press Association

LA PAZ, Oct 10   (IPS)  - As relations between Bolivia's leftist
President Evo Morales and the local media are becoming increasingly
tense, the National Press Association (ANP) adopted a code of ethics
which, for the first time, urges the media to stick to principles
aimed at guaranteeing responsible, unbiased coverage.



”The veracity of information must be the first essential condition
for its publication,” states the new code of ethics approved by the
ANP, which groups the owners of 27 print media outlets in Bolivia.

The 17-point code also says ”the editorial, opinion, news and advertising
sections in the media must be clearly differentiated,” and ”a lack
of bias and balance must form an important part of journalist news
practice.”

A news alert by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ) said that ”Despite a relatively open press climate, President
Evo Morales's intolerance of media criticism is making working conditions
for reporters increasingly difficult.”

”Morales, while pledging to respect press freedom, accused the media
of bias against his administration,” said the statement, released
after a week-long visit to Bolivia by a CPJ delegation in June.

”Journalists sympathise with me but the media owners are aligned
in a campaign against my government,” Morales, a former coca grower
and the country's first indigenous president, told CPJ at the time.

Retired journalist Juan Javier Zeballos, who drafted the ANP code
of ethics, said in an interview with IPS correspondent Franz Chávez
that newspaper owners have understood that their main activity must
consist of selling credible, reliable news that is only published
after a rigorous editing and fact-checking process.

Zeballos, the executive director of the ANP, has worked as a reporter
since 1963, including a 25-year stint as a Reuters correspondent.

IPS: A CPJ statement refers to an antagonistic relationship between
reporters, the media and the government. How do you interpret the
situation?

JUAN JAVIER ZEBALLOS: In no country is the relationship between the
government and the media a romance; there is always some degree of
conflict.

We believe that the government is being overly susceptible to criticism
when it accuses the media of being its main enemy. From the point
of view of the print media, there is no desire to be anyone's enemy;
what we want is to be the friends of truth.

For that reason, the ANP has approved this code of ethics, which
is binding on media owners, directors, journalists, administrative
staff and technical workers. 

The aim of the code is to demonstrate that we are not against anyone.
It is also designed as an instrument to grant greater credibility
and status to the media.

The government is not our enemy, nor are we its enemy.

IPS: Is there a self-critical attitude on the part of reporters and the press?

JJZ: I really believe that some local radio and TV stations are engaged
in irresponsible, unethical journalismàWe consider that good journalism
must be achieved by means of education and training of reporters so
that they do not commit violations of these ethical principles.

Biased, misguided journalism provides a pretext for criticising the
work of the press. We honestly want to eliminate the Achilles' heel
of the press and someday reach the point that journalism in Bolivia
will be cited as an example.

IPS: How do you plan to recover that lost credibility?

JJZ: This code of ethics is aimed at recuperating the credibility
that Bolivian journalism has gradually lost. I hope radio and TV stations
will also sign on in the near future, because that would help boost
the media's credibility, which is the greatest wealth of any independent
media outletà

The code of ethics will be another element to help achieve impartial,
honest, dependable and responsible journalism.

IPS: Were Bolivia's previous codes and standards insufficient for
developing credible journalism?

JJZ: I believe that the objectives outlined by these standards were
never achieved. The ”print law”, due to its characteristics, actually
provided cover for irresponsible, manipulative and sensationalist
journalism.

Up to now, institutional codes of ethics have been merely a salute
to the flag, because they have never been effectively applied. And
several institutions have a code of ethics. But we in the ANP do not
want ours to be just one more; we want it to be enforced.

We have designed a system by which each media outlet affiliated with
the ANP will have its own ethics panel, to reach decisions on violations
of the principles adopted in the code.

Media workers who feel they have been unfairly dealt with by their
company's internal panel will be able to appeal their cases to the
ANP ethics panel, whose composition is currently being studied. 

The ANP panel will also deal with cases that a publication's internal
panel failed to handle.

IPS: Who will sit on the ethics panels?

JJZ: They are to be made up of a representative of the management,
a representative of the journalists and a representative of the rest
of the company's staff, in order to guarantee a balance.

For its part, the national ANP panel will have five members, including
three respected journalists with an excellent reputation and two representatives
of civil society, preferably former district judges or Supreme Court
justices.

IPS: What penalties will the ethics panels be able to impose?

JJZ: The national panel will issue moral or ethical recommendations
and suggestions. It will not be able to impose material sanctions.


But the internal ethics panels of media outlets will be able to take
more drastic measures to protect the credibility of the publications.
In my personal opinion, newspapers could lay off staff members who
committed serious violations of the ethical principles, like manipulating
information, plagiarising or knowingly misleading the public.

(When reporter Jayson Blair was forced to resign from the New York
Times in May 2003 for plagiarising and fabricating elements of his
stories), the paper took strong measures against a managing editor,
an executive editor and several other staff members considered to
have shared the responsibility for permitting the journalist's misconduct.

And last year, Reuters fired a photographer who had manipulated the
photograph of an explosion in Lebanon, adding more smoke to make the
image more dramatic.

Such sanctions are justified when the credibility of a media outlet
is reliably monitored and overseen.


*****
+ CPJ News Alert on Bolivia  (http://www.cpj.org/news/2007/americas/bolivia08jun07na.html)
+ Bolivian National Press Association Code of Ethics - in Spanish
(http://www.ipsnoticias.net/etica_bol.asp)


(END/IPS/LA IP IC CV QA PF/TRASP-SW/FC/JSP-DCL/07)


 
= 10102118 ORP015
NNNN