very much conversations where i'm very pleased to welcome to the program i know mr arnold is the consular minister of the united states delegation of nations and have been involved with the work of the committee on information at united nations and mr walker very very much to say you very much i was there yesterday were here in early may and there was passed this resolution by the committee on information and it was a consensus agreement among the members of the of the of the committee that i guess were reported to the general assembly and in the autumn time the fact that they were able to come to consensus and you've been interested in these issues of information policy and so forth that they were able to reach a consensus was  s very encouraging i guess to put it encouraging a notable notable we've been we've been working at this or other colleagues here been working towards this for the last ten years really because during the earlier part of the eighty's there was and what were the sticking points in the past on these issues well without i without suggesting that these consensus agreements only can be achieved by the lowest common denominator although that is all that's always true to a certain degree the essential issue for the united states was that we could not ever vote with any group for proposal which in our view or allowed for any kind of control registration or limitation on the rights of journalists the rights of a free press and the rights of the free flow of information and it was our feeling that the terminology in previous resolutions during their during  decade of the eighty's allowed for that even though the declaration may not have said specifically journalists should be a license you know for instance the resolutions did indicate and include the idea that the press had some kind of responsibility to a higher authority yeah right it was never clear what that higher authority was but presumably it was the state right and this is something we just never could have any part of so you really holding out in a certain sense for the free flow of information we understand perhaps precisely and the freedom of the journalist to be able to pursue whatever avenue they want to go precisely precisely that would be a principle in principle people probably in the name of precisely correct programs such as your such as the conversation we're participating in now are not normal in most countries of the world where television is controlled or owned by the states and i'm rattus where there's no sense of an a problem the sticking point in terms of the argumentation going on in the united nations and it probably is a metaphor for a larger argument about how societies in the government oh i think that's quite true and i think one of the reasons that we were able to join consensus  this week is because there has been this flowering of people power or demand for individual rights whatever you may term it most dramatically in eastern europe in the soviet union in the last year but in other parts of the world as well and i think that what what you call statists societies in other parts of the world see that the flow of history is moving in this direction of increased individual freedom increased right of the individual to express himself or herself and you've seen this of course all of the latin america where there has been in the last decade a complete movement to democratic societies i guess cuba is perhaps the only country in latin america in south america that doesn't have a democratically established government so i'm probably wrong there may be another one but well you know democracy is a big word and you know what patrick boxer just put together a documentary last year on the struggle for democracy the definitions of it it's a word that's used a great deal and it's one that it's very important that collectively society can understand what we mean by that because there are many different your pretensions of what we mean by democracy but it is a big word the ability for people or the people to be able to communicate is an overriding issue difference is that historically the countries that don't realize i don't think i've ever seen a figure or sort of a column of what belongs to the state and what belongs to private sectors but i think most  television radio services in the world probably are state or government controlled which is not to say that they're all censored the british system is after all a part governmental or system supported  used new information that was a phrase you used that well in the late seventy's this idea emerged of the requirement for a new what was called a new world information and communication order predicated on the theory that the industrialized countries not just the west i presume the east as well i mean i guess the soviets and tasm and well i meant that so much but also in terms of japan control the vast international telecommunications network say had the biggest news wire services they had the biggest supplier of television program all through all true and one heard from  of what was called the developing world kind of the story of you only report about floods in famines and you never report about you know good economic development and good things that happen in our society that perhaps is a this frustration came a feeling that there should be some kind of what was called a new balance sorts an improved balance of the relationship it was technologically underdeveloped countries technical assistance and training assistance that i think and we think the united states thinks is a splendid idea and indeed we've been carrying out for many many years as as the u n through even governmental or private sector programs there's long been an exchange of journalists and young radio journalists and young radio technicians and television engineers and such both the private american organizations and through the u s government exchange programs and the french do the same thing in the british and such in order to bring  most technologically advanced training to make it available to to professionals around the world and similarly there's been some transfer of technology as well tamar equipment and things of that sort but as part of this concept of a new world order there seemed to be included a concept of journalistic responsibility which i mentioned before and this just c never be defined set of structurally because who are they responsible to if they're responsible to anyone but themselves as independent journalists if they have to be licensed if they have to have passed a course of study which means and which means actually that they can  actually it's not in the american tradition so it was these kinds of concepts of over of overcoming a previous inequity and of the responsibility of the media and  journalists to a higher body a high order that we objected to profoundly because these matters can be so easily such regulations are statements can be so easily interpreted as a legitimization of some kind of control be that perhaps reflects the fact that the media is becoming i'm not sure if this is true but perhaps the media is becoming more important through time in terms of shape in public opinion and having a certain sense of quasar a little hoping to set the social is becoming more important yes i assume around the world i think that's that's quite true and very valid but concurrently it's also true that the one or two or three or four big media are less important than they were that is you know just in the united states cable by virtue of cable and public access small magazines and desktop publishing all those kinds of things produce a confusion of ideas in the media well perhaps some people see it that way i don't know  development is a matter of the people who have the economic clout as it were which is another form of democracy in order to get the investment in the technologies that would make it possible for them to constitute what isn't the media so in a certain there are many disadvantaged groups within our own society one or world who feel they don't have the economic advantage that makes it possible for them to have their voices adequately heard you hear this in the discussion i might say that i did that that kind of out of the right and that kind of an issue didn't emerge in these particular conversations although i must interrupt your flow of conversation for a moment to recall i don't friend of mine went to university of chicago with who ended up owning an inherited from his father and then developed a greater line of papers he ended up owning sixty or seventy small town papers in the midwest around chicago and i asked him one day if they gave him a kind of ownership of the media itself over television electronic and he had said the media was largely controlled by fifty companies is now down to twenty eight in his reckoning that through the glamour and through buying and through leveraged piles of what has becom ownership that is the private ownership of the private economy and the media which we would have a large you know commitment to this aside it is owned by rule and to really fewer and fewer people at least in but do you pretty do you find that reflected in news coverage or editorial out of well everyone would say no wonder back again to the question of how independent could a journalist be or how independent could anyone be if you're not if you're not answering to the well the critics would say again of the american or the western media the critics and say if you're not answering to the government your hands are into the advertising agencies and the people who set the agenda through economic control over that political control but through the economic control and the economic control is what some people there's discussion tonight with journalists judy woodworth of these people they said the advertising based economics of the of the american industry is one that makes it difficult often for alternative thoughts to be able to find their way into the into the media mixes of work because it's not safe and it's not profitable i mean that's a critique of the american system of health and well these kinds of ideas i would hope will be more and more discussed in other parts of the world perhaps as a reflection of the consensus we've agreed on at the united nations about what information should be and how it should be handled but you held fast and that we want to do what we can to allow the greatest free flow of information among the peoples of the world and that's a principle that we can hold to that yes i ought to have and to have access to information and it's an important almost human right you cite this in your statement that you read to the u n the universe declaration of human rights that's right article nineteen maybe of that but you cite that as a principle as one that we would do well to report to the general idea that people should be open to and have available to a wide as possible is the heart of our society and our system yeah a free press and the ability for the citizens to participate and have their their their opinions no i think that's an important principle one of the things you're dealing with i into another country and the exchange of information internationally between countries or maybe the government or of ways i governmental level and how do we address well some governments earlier on as part of this com information exercise raise this concept of sovereignty it's one which we don't accept because it prevents the free flow of information it means that you can jam radio stations which as you know was tried it was was done in eastern europe in the soviet union for the over the last forty years on and off and do like radio free radio free europe or of the voice of america which was jam for many many years in eastern europe in the soviet  union and radio free europe was another was another one and some of the german vatican stations were at one time or another jammed in eastern europe the jamming ended the world in the world didn't end and the new president to check slovakia of us off whe here made his remarkable statement about the critical importance of the voice of america play he was talking about the voice at the time in their check service in keeping them informed and keeping their spirits up and having the check people know that their world was an outside world that knew what was going on and supported their quest for freedom now there's an interesting example for instance throughout the forty's and fifty's cold war and then we had an ideological difference difference with the soviet anti communist feeling that was so strong in the united states there seemed not to be some people getting an alternate effect of alternate flow of information into the united states presenting views th  we americans have a great advantage because the world and world populations tend to admire our society politically economically and socially and they tend to believe sympathize and believe what we say on  radio stations i don't know when soviet protesting begin to began to be united states but my instinct is that it was going on already and joe mccarthy simon the early fifty's i certainly know that in the last twenty five years to and today radio moscow precisely precisely to if there were other people who wanted to reach the american citizenry with some message that we may think the land is but they think is important we've never tried to jam or prevent them never from reaching the american people and as a reference to what we stand precisely i information going and perhaps the cable offers an opportunity for some degree it does it does and if i without meaning to make a commercial sponsorship for or a recommendation for a thing i'll mention in the impact of c n n around the world c n n is and which has been quite extraordinary i know him our own diplomatic life normally and still today we wait for a cable from moscow or from taking to report to us on the embassy's views about what's happened in economic and political development but they're wildly out of date because all of us i mean my counterpart in moscow says c n n turned on in the daytime i came into my office broadcasting of radio to cuba we've had short wave radio broadcasts all around the world for well since the nd world war and we've had spanish language programs since that time we've had special spanish language programs  book and a program called radio marti named after a famous cuban liberation hero for the last five or six years and a television program is a natural extension of that free flow of information  it's very easy for someone not to watch television marti all they have to do is turn off the turn off the television set yeah if they're offered something that's interesting they will  watch it if they have if it's noncompetitive which is to say if local television news and local radio news tells the whole story and the population of the viewership feels they're getting on a few of the world they won't bother listening to anything else and that was certainly observed in the case of eastern europe where a radio broadcast from radio free europe or the voice of america forced local radio broadcasters to be more honest and complete in their own program to interfere with their for intense interfere with their frequency and we will continue to do so at the moment this is of course a test it was originally announced as a test of two or three months to see how the technology worked and so on and so forth after the about eight or nine thousand employees around the world with offices in one hundred and thirty countries and in some countries in multiple locations in germany there are ten or twelve different cities with their offices and these are a cultural centers or information centers where there are libraries collections of videotapes cultural centers for music or lecture presentations of one sort or another it's an organization that arranges the exchange of visitors between the two countries both college students and professionals like yourself we might invite a check or indian or korean journalist or television maker to the united states for a thirty or forty day visit to see his counterparts to learn about technological and scientific advances in his field and we think that that kind of exposure to the united states can play a very important could have a very important impact and play a very important role in the future political life one of our one of one of the most famous exchanges was margaret thatcher really nine hundred and sixty seven when she was brought to united states under what we call the international visitor program the present president of south africa most of the clerk was a visitor of fifteen or twenty years ago there are many others the president egypt and many others have been brought to come to the united states seen our society one of the mostly one of the leading members of the soviet government mr alexander called lip who was considered  broadcast and we have you know political take a broader lesson will there be anyone there would be an objection to one wonders where one draws the line between information and let's say in special situations what will probably get i presume let's just just just for an absurd an exchange of information might be something that could be not only heard by emergency department ourselves but by a good deal of the world and do you think that there's increased recognition of that by the members of make up the committee of information that made it possible to w positive value of this kind of cultural communication there was a step in the right direction of this week at the company information i think which you've talked about is still somewhat in the future when countries see the increase value of it i'm sorry your nd now there was a point which just the nd point was be is that the did to have a free flow of information among the peoples of the world so that as we in the voice of america and so forth communicate to other countries and in a certain sense give them a sense of our values that we hold dear and so that other countries who may have different values and that's the essence of the u n would be free to broadcast the same into our own precisely without political intervention are saying we disagree with our trucks you say well we we don't put we don't put a structure on the satellites or the distribution systems in the united states and say no one else can broadcast your these min world they will be a place where a lot of tension a lot of frustration and a lot of ideas could be investigated that's the right term in a media simulation as it were and you know you know that some of this work or marshall mcluhan said that we're going to be moving into a global village with these communications capabilities and i you know i just need to be a mark of the time and the promise of the technology and i don't know why as an outsider as a independent smaller scale producer of television programming i was duly impressed by the fact that the committee had been able to reach it before it felt good that these people could find a consensus among them and that it's a step forward in the very air interesting an important area of trying to work out the way in which we're going to be able to communicate with one another and it seemed to me to be of great interest i thought your words were i may say so were very well taken and that's a meeting yesterday i'm glad that we've gotten over the difficulties and made that so difficult in the past reflects a consensus view that begins to emerge among people who give you room for optimism oh yes by all means well means there's a kind of we would say pragmatism and pragmatic approach  it's a word americans like particularly in the group but there's a mood in a sense i think in the united nations that with the with the end of an idea great ideological conflict and that really has and in great part the u n can play a much more important and central role in a positive developments certainly in information and cultural and social matters just as it does in peacekeeping and perhaps ultimately in economic  economic and environmental matters as the u n is becoming a very important and central point for the foreign policies of many countries and i think what you saw yesterday was one of the reflection of that well ok fire is really interesting and i'm i'm glad to have made note of it and i want to thank you for all your work in terms of represent a u s interest there here and maintaining that and for your thoughts here in terms of the information orders begin to move ahead one million questions in a race of men who can check back with you a little bit down the line maybe as this comes up to the security to the general assembly is going before i guess in the fall it will be presented precisely and then they're trying to work out this these issues a lot of the issues a metaphor for many the perceptions in a philip arnold he again is consular and minister of the united states delegation of to the united nations and has been a long working communications issues and working directly with the committee on the information here at the united nations have been able to bring you his perceptions we hear invite you stay tune to be more coming up in the same general topic here momentarily that's it for this particular segment to try to once again thank you very much indeed please stay tuned we're coming right back to the interview to this particular introductory to this one about community and information in the relationship of the united states to the broader world community through the united nations this is something you've been interested in do we stand in a unique position as far as our understanding of communication as far as a much of the rest of the world does or how do we stack up and for in terms of the united states its official representation it's really a representation maybe even some of its critical media representation as far as understanding international telecommunications and particularly television that's a large question and i think it has to begin with the of the united states is own tradition which is the st amendment tradition of free speech and free press very strongly held and rightly so but the there is also a tradition that the united states has which of those forgotten that it was once itself a  world country and for a still many of the same issues that rd world countries of today face that is of under development of the need to be to protect itself from the onslaught of foreign cultures  considered it an outrage that the european cartel of wire services the english the french and the germans had long dominated the distribution of world news and the u s view was that because those were national wire services they in fact represented a political cultural and nationalistic bias in terms of the nature of the news they delivered in the united states resented being in a in a receiving states in a sense a spouse the doctrine of the free market and free flow which was really a nother way of saying that they wanted to have a dominant position in the information age that was appearing it was a that's a convenient attitude to have particularly if you can see yourself emerging as a dominant force it's interesting thing position will just let everything go in a free form because they were the dominant force rather reflected in a sense perhaps the fact that they were the dominant force and able to comfortably be able to soon that position right and what they had lived through in their own history and what they had be cried as as powerful and self interest remove reduce the lemonade all barriers to the movement of information which to the american media matt a world devoid of resistance to d the dominant and you might say imperial power of the us media that's an interesting way to see it americans might argue that they want to be sure that there is no censorship there's no licensing there's no in a bit no not nothing to in here but the free flow of information and on the surface of it that's a laudable idea it's all it's a little bit difficult to see that when you have a world that is not on an equal playing field in terms of economic power and clout it's rather like saying c or a b c saying what you have the complete right to do anything you want with the media when they are so dominant of course there were some other things that have come along in history but it reflected the economic in the informational dominance of the united states enjoyed not only enjoyed but sori itself as increasing for example at the end of the war it was all very well to say let's have free flow in the free marketplace of ideas no one can disagree with that on the other hand us control sixty percent of the world's newsprint and too much of the of europe and even other parts of the world the resources the act access to resources if you could print a four page paper and the as states could print dozens of forty page papers isn't any an equity there in the ability to convey your own views of national and world states is relationship to international organizations and the way that the united states has used them and i would also say abuse them i don't think there's a really strong feeling for international in the united states but when the u n and unesco work created a very quickly the united states saw both those organizations as excellent agencies for the removal of barriers to the flow of information mostly information from here to there right that's right that the rest of the world in a sense would be passive recipients to american movies american well later television but radio broadcasting in american magazines books and newspapers and that certainly has been the case yeah we we was untied in the in the treaties we signed that the nation should have a free press and the free pay for media so there was a great expansion of the u s presence not only in europe but in the rest of the world following world war two now in terms of the relationship to  communication and initially as the cold war developed in the hostility between the united states and the soviet union came to dominate all international  could counter quote communist propaganda around the world kind of a marshall plan of ideas under american at a price where they have it with the voice of america they had other kinds e very very active very influential in terms of exerting their influence in other parts of the world there they've even taken to funding lenny brenner told us on a recent program even helping to fund election campaigns in countries like el salvador where there was actually funds given to mrs tomorrow in order to support her election campaigning which is in a sense information and and propagandizing of that's the right word but that's true i mean a lot of the us was a member of you know asco for forty years and espoused the free press free marketplace of ideas throughout that and resisted any attack upon it on the other hand it's hard for me  see this as an honest rather than hypocritical expression because we have interfered in the free marketplace of ideas we've been are feared in it at home in the suppression of alternative views in our paranoia about alien ideas in the loyalty security tests we insisted on for international civil servants and in the covert media propaganda activities of covertly through secret financing of media assets publications and books cia had a bigger budget let's say than unesco did which was supposed to be the avenue in which all voices that had a hearing ye television and communication increasingly important terms of shaping our consciousness that's increasingly important those who were saying in the international community had who had spoke to the economic inefficient  inequalities that exist in the world there had been discussions in the international community of a new economic order many people who are in positions of favored status as far as the world took umbrage or took exception to that idea that we needed anything other than a status quo understanding of economic realities there was a term new information or right which was linked to that in a certain sense and a sense was trying to voice the sense that people had that we needed to have a more equitable distribution of cultural and information exchange between the peoples of the world united states has taken exception to the two to that as well historically and does that have anything to do with our pulling out of unesco indeed i would i would i would look at it this way in the forty's and the fifty's the united states free flow arguments tended to be cast in a cold war framework in other words they wanted the in the international organizations to basically in the us soviet rivalry and there were dozens of new nations other words the us had ignored the whole national liberation explosion but into nasco they came and and by the late sixty's they were crying out for development and they were crying out for a development that changed the nature of the status quo and that's where you hear the talk a new economic order more district distributive justice more equality of opportunity more access to to raw materials more regulation if you will on behalf of those who had not yet become economically developed and it was apparent to the nonaligned movement in the early seventy's that they could not make their case for a new economic order unless they had the communications to carry their side of the argument to a world audience it becomes increasingly important even you know in a media terms as we enter an informational environment is a great deal of talk in the united states about are moving into a superconductors and to the computers and communication and information order and understanding a new information economy is important so the the overwhelming dominance of the american front of the united states and the western european but picture the united states in terms of television and other kinds of programming is something that really ought to be addressed even in economic terms and it's not enough for the gonna block just to say everyone should be free to compete because it is very very difficult when they have such tremendous resource and it's very different it's interesting that we receive very little cultural influence from other parts of the world it really is a one way flow of information that largely characterizes television and the shaping of all the attempts to influence consciousness by by by technology i would i would definitely agree and i think that's why the u s when it was a rd world nation itself and right up through world war two had a very i would say a strong view of its own cultural identity and they did not want that cultural subverted by an american or foreign idea right and we should be able to understand that that's right now when other nations claim that their cultural sea they've been in they've been many of them have been colonial or neocolonial in a neo colonial condition absolutely so now they have liberated themselves like the blacks after the civil war and they too want their forty acres and a meal and yeah  values that they believe are essential to their own national development so again it's back to the question of the united states stressing freedom as a principle that anyone is free to stand in the street and say whatever he wants but the economic realities in our own nation forty percent of all assets are owned by the upper one percent my present virtually on the mall we're very much of an economic plutocracy right very very narrowly held been back to king has written eloquently on the concentration of ownership of the means of production within our own society so it's not really enough to say that everyone should be able to compete when the deck is so stacked in favor of those who already have the means for doing that and the economic clout to pursue their own agenda it's a meter and we are in agreement and it's not only the rd world when the satellite technology took off it was canada and sweden who emphasized the issue of cultural independence and that becoming we colonized because of superior information resources and i frankly think it's legitimate for a nation to protect its sovereignty against you might say the information equivalent of in a continental ballistic missiles if they if they wish to prevent satellite intrusion into their airspace to cease to be there they either have to have to jam it or they have to have an international body that will say they have a right to protect you know well ideas yeah well ok it could be or we have this t v marti thing we're actually broadcasting trying to broadcast into cuba directly into the home broadcasts and so while the order there might be also the idea one night one other ideas if if we're going to have this voice of america and that sort of thing reaching out into the world in such tremendous force there ought to be an opening upon countervailing views to be able to reach into the people of the united states and my view another lawyer will have a very one dimensional pattern to the programming the macneil lehrer report even has been criticized by the fair people recently as being very one dimensional there should be some outside influence voices and cultural exchange has to be reciprocal you know and the means by which that cultural exchange can be realized through technology and if it because it requires technology for these things to happen so that the guarding of the sovereignty where these issues are being discussed instead of picking up our marbles and leaving that's essentially what we did which is to have a marbles and left because we were out of touch with and by the way we threatened as sanctions to cut off financial support if you  the work of the you know the u n and some of the understanding between the people of the united nations i would new or information or how we're going to arrange the relationship of technological extension to one another and this book i hope people in the audience know about and so those are two things we're happy to be able to let them to know about and once again it's a big subject i would want to thank you for for coming in discussing it with this i'll be glad to come back for twenty four hours and twenty four hours could talk about it maybe really get to the some of the issues and so forth when your pleasure to have the perceptions in on this segment dr william president again major author of hope and folly thank you very much for viewing we invite you on conversations to tune again next week we'll be coming back again next every man every woman every child regardless of race or creed has the right to a life of dignity with the assurance of certain inalienable rights these rights are contained in this thirty international treasure and as such should be carefully and tenaciously guarded guarded against those who would seek to destroy these rights to serve their own ends the universal declaration of human rights in essence means survival be honored and cherished and above all never be taken for granted december th human rights day universal declaration of human rights adopted by the united nations forty years ago may not be a legally binding document it is rather a promise made by all the members of the united nations to the people of the word we had  this may be the best kept secret in the world the universal declaration of human rights forty years ago the united nations wrote and adopted every single member country promise to support it every single one they also promised to teach