X-VMS-To: IN%"SLOVAK-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu"
X-VMS-Cc: LODEESENJ
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.slovak-l
Date:         Tue, 26 Jan 1993 21:27:34 -0500
From:         Username was LODEESEN <LODEESENJ@ADMINB.RFERL.ORG>
Subject:      Re: apology & free press

The point on the information order proposed from the third world some years ago
is most timely.  When it was a real political issue, the positions taken by
the contending super powers accurately and perhaps necessarily reflected their
own interests more than they were a reflection of concern for the problems of
the third world.  Perhaps the removal of that impediment makes reconsideration
timely, particularly if instead of a tropics-based, low-income "third world"
we were to look at the politically less powerful parts of the world.  The
position of the loudest voices from the third world was energetnically supported
by the Soviet Union.  It included two primary elements--that a state should be
able to determine what was said to its citizens (contradicting the "free
flow of ideas and information" of the human rights documents) and it should
also be the source of information about itself made available to others (in
other words, institutionalizing national propaganda).  The implications for
international broadcasting were clear enough and Western responses were not
concerned primarily with the expressed interests from the third world, but
instead with two other matters--first, our ability to overcome censorship
inside the Communist bloc, and, second, the attraction being generated by the
SU with its attractive clothing of a principle which would in fact strengthen
authoritarian regimes in the third world, endorsing their suppression of
other-mindedness.
  With that out of the way, perhaps a walk back through the issues,as suggested
Norma Rudinsky would show shifts in positions.  I think the basic US opposition
to information monopoly will persist.  But the recognition that possession of
money and technology can confer something which could eliminate the competition
of some legitimate news sources is also something which today should find more
support than when it was clad in Red.
  I work in an environment of almost overwhelming information flow, but that is
only because of the place I work.  I keep looking at this new medium we are now
using and see it as a place for much more diversity than actually appears on it.
So, how does one increase the diversity in the flow without producing so much
that no one can find anything?  My personal preference runs toward the notion
that if we all exchange information about where information can be found, there
will be an improving organization of the material.  And that is what I would
need at the moment.  I am tired of sound bites but I am also not interested in
having anyone insist that I must pay more attention to the problems of his
country than to the problems of my own community.  Still, I want to be able to
find more, much much more than I can now without having to wait for annuals or
for someone to commission and eventually publish a book.
  Norma Rudinsky has posed the problem at a good time.  Does she have any
suggestions on improving fairness in allocation of resources?  Is there anything
which can be done beyond education?  The most intensely felt animosities in any
region of the world are among the intellectually least interesting to
non-participants until blood begins to flow.  Let's ignore the recommendation
which that produces.  Norma?
Jon Lodeesen
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU