[WSIS CS-Plenary] Summit CS Media guidelines for comment

[Tracey Naughton]

Dear all,

I have received the guidelines for press events, and proposed  
operations plan for civil society media liaison from Francine Lambert  
at the ITU. Here they are for comment.

Tracey Naughton

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15 October 2005 8:26:19 PM:

Dear Tracey,

Many thanks for your response. The function of the person is called  
"Media Relations Officer". This is important because the Media  
Relations Officer has special access rights and privileges on behalf  
of a group. Let me confirm how I see things:
the generally agreed code of conduct for journalists as well as the  
standard UN rules should be what guide civil society in what they can  
do, say and raise. Essentially this means that the purpose of the  
press event should be relevant to the Summit’s agenda and objectives,  
should be consistent with the principles found in the Declaration of  
Principles of the first phase of the Summit, not contain material  
which the authors know or could reasonably be expected to know is  
false, or for which they have failed to take reasonable steps to  
check the accuracy of their information. While it is understood that  
all accredited entities have the right to circulate viewpoints,  
critical comments cannot be defamatory.  They should present comment  
honestly and fairly and must make facts and opinions clearly  
distinguishable, should not misrepresent or suppress relevant facts  
and should not distort facts. What this means in practice will be a  
judgement call from the Media Relations Officer.
Civil society press conferences in the Media Centre can either be one  
slot of 45 minutes or two slots of 20 minutes daily. If two slots are  
chosen, they should be back-to-back but the entity, speakers and  
topics can be different. The Media Relations Officer books the press  
events directly through the Web after consultation with his/her  
constituencies to decide who/what.
The way that meetings with the press are organized in the Civil  
Society Pavilion (what Sanjay called open area but in fact it is  
closed) is up to you, provided the agreed guidelines are also adhered  
to. I think there is one maybe two meeting rooms in your Pavilion  
which could also be used for press meetings. Please check the layout  
of your Pavilion to find out how you may wish to organize.
For distribution of material in the Media Centre, we will provide the  
Media Relations Officer with 20 Media Centre Overpasses. These will  
be managed by the Media Relations Officer. As they are not  
nominative, they can be used by various people as the Media Relations  
Officer sees fit. These Overpasses give access to all areas of the  
Media Centre except the Working Press Room which is exclusively  
accessible by accredited media. These Overpasses can be used to  
access the press conference rooms, distribute documents to the media  
via the Documentation Service, meet journalists, etc.
The Media Relations Officer is also responsible for ensuring that CS  
documentation is compliant with the Document distribution policy.  
This policy, applicable to all WSIS paraticipants, will be on the web  
this week. We'll send you the link as soon as it is posted. The link  
will also be included in the E-Flash going out this week. So it will  
be known by all well ahead of the Summit. It should be stressed that  
the purpose of this policy is to ensure that all documents that meet  
the usual requirements for distribution at UN meetings and summits  
will remain available in the various areas foreseen for distribution.  
In Geneva, documents were vanishing from the distribution points for  
reasons unrelated to availability of stocks and we want to make sure,  
as far as we possibly can, that this does not happen in Tunis. While  
some civil society might perceive this policy as a way to curtail  
their freedom of expression, it should be made very clear to them  
that this is, in fact, in their best interest. It will also send a  
signal to delegations that as long as documents are consistent with  
the policy, political pressure will not prevail.
Based on the feedback from the person who was doing this work in  
2003, this is a full time job. I would therefore be cautious about  
your doing too many things at a time. If necessary, you act as the  
Media Relations Officer and delegate your authority to someone else  
who would act on your behalf. But this means you should have full  
confidence in that person as officially, it would be you.  
Alternatively, you could find a Media Relations Officer to whom you  
would provide support, guidance etc based on your time availability  
or whenever delicate situations arise.
On your second point, the matter at PrepCom-3 was different because  
the Press Conference was booked by ITU and was considered by the UN  
Information Service as an ITU-sponsored event and announced as such  
to media. In Tunisia however, the Media Relations Office book press  
events and take responsibility. That said, making WSIS a Summit on  
Tunisia instead of in Tunisia is in my view missing the point. Do you  
really believe that negative media coverage (no matter how much) will  
have any serious impact on the situation of human rights in Tunisia?  
On the other hand, the media would be focusing on this single issue  
and would disregard the rest of what WSIS is trying to achieve. To me  
it would be losing on a unique opportunity to get ICT for development  
at the top of the world's public agenda (the main purpose of the  
second phase) and therefore deprive millions of men and women of the  
hope that their living condition can improve. But again, this is up  
to the collective wisdom of Civil Society. I believe that the Media  
Caucus should defend the freedom of expression all over the world and  
not only in Tunisia.

Hope I have answered all of your questions. Let me know if you need  
anything else. Time is running as no press activities can be  
undertaken by civil society until the Media Relations Officer is in  
place to coordinate and interface with the Media Service.


Tracey Naughton
Communication for Development Consultant
(to November 9th)
Pact Mongolia Office
Peace Avenue 24
Ulaan Bataar
Mongolia
Tel:                   +976 11 46 09 01
Mobile:             +976 9989 6965
Fax:                  +976 11 46 10 48
Skype: tracey_naughton
Email: tracey at traceynaughton.com




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