No, Walter, That's Not the Way It Is...

This article originally appeared in Issue# 9

When Walter Cronkite signs off each night with "that's the way it is,'' one might realistically request another half-hour of the very same news stories, but presented from another point of view.

Such a request would be appropriate because although the reporting of news is often thought to be ''objective," it is increasingly obvious that the reported "facts" may differ depending on the class, race or sex of the reporter, the time pressures of the newscast or the multinational investments of the parent corporation.

In recent months, interest has heightened in the communications world about a "New World Information Order" which would attempt to establish balance and equality in the reporting of news from every nation in the world. The need for a new order in information, like a new order in economics, is obvious when one considers the following:

• 10% of the world controls 90% of the world's electromagnetic radio spectrum.
• 80% of world news comes from First World News agencies...AP, UPI, Reuters, Agency France Press
• Only 25% of that coverage is about developing countries, although those countries comprise
• 75% of the world's population.
• Nations that receive the most news coverage are the ones with the highest amount of- trade with the U.S.
• The amount of news coverage of each nation of the world is directly related to the availability of telephones and the presence or absence of satellite earth stations.

This fall an important international meeting is being held in Switzerland to address some of the technological questions involved in creating a more balanced flow of information throughout the world.

Known by now to media people as "WARC," the World Administrative Radio Conference meets every 20 years to make decisions about how the nations of the world will divide up the electromagnetic radio spectrum. The air waves" of the world allow every form of electronic communication from ham radios to TV signals to computerized data to be transmitted across towns and across oceans. Its meeting this fall will establish guidelines and allocate frequencies that will be in effect until the year 1999.

 Decisions made at WARC this fall will profoundly affect how the word communicates through the end of the century

While the conference has billed itself for years as a technical forum, limited to engineers and technicians, the 1979 WARC is a new reality.

The economic and political implications of technology today cannot be ignored. Access to the means of communications is access to power. The developing nations of the world know that unless they have a say in the use of the technology they will not have a say in what goes out over the air ways.

WARC will meet for 10 weeks beginning September 29. The following is a brief, if simplified summary of some of the very complex issues facing the delegates.

1. Satellite "Slots"

   The most publicized of the technical questions is the problem of geosynchronous satellite 'parking spaces" in orbit above the earth. With present technology there are only so many spaces available without satellite signals interfering with one another. The major question at WARC will be whether the developed nations, with their readily available capital and engineering for dozens of satellites, should be allowed to take "squatter's rights" on those limited slots. Or should some spaces be set aside for future use by developing nations, even though they do not now have the capital, the know-how or the earth technology to be able to fully utilize a communications satellite?

   The unknown factor in this discussion is whether in the next 20 or 50 years, technical advances will make it possible to "squeeze" the slots closer together, creating enough spaces for all the satellites the world might need. The scientifically-oriented First World thinks the risk is justified; the Third World, suspecting it has heard that story before, is not so Sure.

    

2. Technical Assistance

   With technological sophistication developing so rapidly, there is some conceit that the technical standards set up by WARC will be able to be met only by those countries that have the expertise and money to keep up with the latest innovations.

   For example, if the world's standard would go to touch-tone telephones for faster transfer of computerized business data, what would happen to those countries that are just now getting mass distribution of rotary phones?

   The imbalance in communications flow around the world results not only from limited economic resources but also from lack of trained communications personnel to plan, implement, operate and maintain communications systems -- from telephones to computers. Fearful that the gap will widen even faster with the introduction of new technologies, developing countries are asking WARC to provide them increased technical assistance and procedures as a way to ensure them a more equitable role in worldwide communications.

   The basic need is not for the most advanced systems, but for affordable and reliable technology-low cost antennas for educational television in rural areas or telephone equipment rugged enough to withstand desert sandstorms or tropical dampness.

   In justice, the Third World is asking not for donated equipment that is out of date, but for assistance in developing appropriate communications systems, systems that will assist every country in achieving its internal development goals of health and education as well as allowing each country to take its rightful place in the information flow of the world community.

3. The Hidden Agenda

   The umbrella issue is really the Third World's call for a New World Information Order which implies a whole new concept of information as a world resource. It would mean for the Third World an end to "cultural imperialism" and "information dependency" that comes from First World news agencies dominating the flow of information around the world.

 "It is regrettable that the Western reader gets a fractured view of the World but it is a damning indictment of the press when readers in developing countries get the same fractured view of their own world"
- A third world journalist

The new key word is balanced flow of information rather than free flow, which the US has always defended. This is not only because the U.S. Constitution prohibits any control over "free speech," but also because free flow is the basis of the market economy for U.S. networks and newspapers.

But in most other parts of the world, information is treated as a 'public good" to be dispensed, controlled and used by the government "for the people ." To them, "free flow" is threatening because as the first report of the UNESCO commission for the Study of Communications Problems points out:

"The concept of free flow of information as it has been invoked for the past 30 years or so and as it is applied today, can serve to justify a doctrine serving the interests of powerful countries or groups which all too frequently enables them to ensure or to perpetuate cultural domination under the cloak of generous ideas."

It is hard to describe what a "balanced information flow" would look like in practice. But according to M. Mustapha Masmoudi in another report to UNESCO, all countries should have "the right to be informed and also its corollary, the right to inform, to complete truncated information and to rectify information that is erroneous. . . Information must be understood as a social good and a cultural product, not a material commodity or merchandise."

WARC considers itself a technical conference, dealing with questions of engineering and electronics. It makes laws for the world that have the same weight as political treaties. But what we are seeing clearly at WARC this year is that technology is forcing social change -- something it has always done -- but on a scale and at a speed never before experienced by human beings or their institutions -- law, government, industry, education.

Every country of the world will be profoundly affected by the decisions made this fall in Geneva. The U.S. has a lot to share, and also a lot to learn. Developing countries have much to gain but they must also recognize that technology is only a tool, with pros and cons for human progress.

Machines do not bring peace or justice or equality or freedom; only people who listen to one another can do that.