FREEDOM OF THE PRESS DISCUSSED AT U.N.O. GENEVA CONFERENCE

Grey River Argus, 29 March 1948, Page 5

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS DISCUSSED AT U.N.O. GENEVA CONFERENCE

GENEVA, March 27

Freedom of information was the basic essential of lasting peace, said Mr William Benton, tne former assistant Secretary of State and chief United States’ delegate to the United Nations conference on the freedom of the press. “The most vicious accomplice _ of warmongering and false reports is a monopoly on information, whether private or governmental,” he said. People who, at great ciJg had achieved democratic self-government, observed that freedom of information achieved reality only if rigid limits were set upon the power of their governments to regulate, control, or x.ippress the voice of the people or press. The United States submitted for consideration by the Basic Freedoms Committee a resolution stipulating: First, the right to seek, receive, or impart information and ideas by any means, regardless of frontiers; secondly, the widest possible access to sources of information; thirdly, international support for the provision of a diversity of news accounts; fourthly, the moral obligation of the press to seek truth and report facts; fifthly that journalists’ organisations and individuals can best safeguard this moral obligation, and the reading public can'best enforce it. The Polish Minister of Information (General Grosz) attacked “warmongering by the American press and and “Voice of America” broadcasts to Poland. It was the first full policy statement by a Soviet bloc nation since the conference opened. General Grosz said that although Poland had granted complete freedom to foreign correspondents, Polish journalists in the Western countries were obstructed. “Voice of America” broadcasts presumed to inform the people of Poland on life in Poland, instead of informing them on life in the United States. Freedom of the press should reflect vital interests of nations and should be denied to "warmongers and the reactionary supporters ot the remnants of Fascism.” The .Yugoslav delegation in a statement to the conference, alleged that rhe press in many countries had become a capitalist industry. The delegation demanded that those who controlled the organs of information should be legally responsible for any ,‘calumnies, lies and incitements to war they publish.” Reuter’s correspondent states that this statement may be the opening broadcast in the ideological war expected at the conference. The main clashes between the opposing conceptions of freedom are expected in the four committees appointed to work on different aspects of the problem of spreading news. The Steering Committee voted 9-2 against a Russian move to prevent the proposed International Charter for the World’s Press going on the conference agenda. The Russian delegate (M. Bogomolor) claimed that this, and two other agenda items, infringed the nations’ sovereign rights. The other two agenda items were: First, continuing machinery to aid the free flow of true information, including the possible establishment of a permanent international professional cards for correspondents: and secondly, the establishment of national governmental and semi-gov-ernmental information services to disseminate information beyound countries’ own borders. The items' now remain on the agenda.