NORWAY: Journalists taken to task in reporting diversity

Conspicuously absent at the Global Inter-Media Dialog are journalists from Britain, France and the United States

The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, June 5, 2007

By Endy M. Bayuni

Oslo --- Nations may have become more multicultural thanks to advances in transportation and communication technology but the world is not necessarily a safer place to live in. Some parts of the world are still engulfed in wars and conflicts, others in tensions that divide societies, or pit nations against nations, along racial, ethnic or religious lines.

But what are journalists to do about this?

More than 80 media practitioners are meeting here Monday and Tuesday for the second Global Inter-Media Dialog to discuss this particular issue.

With the theme, "Primetime Diversity -- Journalism in a Troubled World", the gathering is facilitated jointly by the Norwegian and Indonesian governments, and it follows the successful inaugural dialog held in Bali last year.

"The media must transform diversity, which is a fact of life, into pluralism, which is a set of values," Doudou Diene, a top United Nations official, said during the meeting's opening day.

Societies must recognize, accept and then defend and promote diversity, said the UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia and related intolerance.

Getting diversity accepted is the role of the education system, and acceptance is the role of the law, Diene said. "Promoting and defending diversity is the task of the media."

He noted with concern how xenophobia and racism had found their way into the election platforms of political parties in some European countries, and that once elected they would push to turn their anti-immigration agendas into policy.

He also attacked scholars who give intellectual legitimacy to racism and xenophobia, singling out Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington, who wrote about the so-called "Latin threat" to the U.S. in a recent book.

Conspicuously absent at the dialog are journalists from Britain, France and the U.S., three countries that are facing the challenges of multiculturalism. Particularly challenging to them is the presence of growing Muslim communities in their midst. The organizers said invitations had been sent but no one took up the offer.

The concentration of media ownership also came under criticism from Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stored, who raised questions about the credibility of the media.

Citing the example of Russia's Gazprom, which owns a large share of the Russian press, he said this situation allowed one stakeholder to claim to present the truth. "Can democracy cope with that?"

Gahr said freedom of the media is essential for journalists to do their job effectively in multicultural societies. "Freedom of the media is concerned with defending and protecting diversity."

The idea for the dialog came in the wake of the controversy over the publication of cartoons deemed offensive by Muslims in European publications last year. The controversy became one pitting freedom of expression against those calling on the media to show greater cultural sensitivity.

Indonesian Information and Communications Minister Mohammad Nuh, in his keynote address Monday, recalled that a consensus was reached in the first dialog in Bali that freedom of expression and sensitivity to the cultural and religious sentiments of others could go hand in hand.

"That is only possible, however, when everyone concerned is aware of the cultural and religious sensitivities of other societies, hence the need for constant dialog."

Date Posted: 6/5/2007