khosq.com

The challenges and future of public-service broadcasting and how the digital switchover can support media freedom and media pluralism were among the topics discussed at the Fifth OSCE South Caucasus Media Conference that ended in Tbilisi today.

The two-day event, organized by the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media with the help of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, brought together media professionals, NGOs, and government officials from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as international experts. Parliamentarians from all three countries also took part.

"Free media remains a basic human right in need of constant protection," said Ambassador Terhi Hakala, the Head of the OSCE Mission. "The recent crisis in Georgia has shown that it is essential in keeping the public informed on issues of crucial importance."

Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, added: "Even voices critical of their country's public-service broadcasters have acknowledged that these channels are indispensable guarantees in further improving their democracies, and therefore have to be robustly protected from governmental or parliamentary intrusion.

Haraszti urged the Governments of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to grant their young public-service broadcasters sustainable financial independence. "Where such laws have already been passed, what remains to be done is to ensure governmental or opposition restraint from tampering with programming decisions and editorial freedom," he added.

Participants at the conference learned about the recent decision of Georgia's public-service broadcaster to dedicate its second channel to equal presentation of all political and societal forces, and to debates among them, modeled after the C-Span channels in the United States. They also noted that depriving BBC, Radio Liberty, and Voice of America of frequencies in Azerbaijan would signal danger for pluralism. The representative of Azerbaijan's National Radio and TV Council expressed his hope that a solution would be found.

Participants also discussed the changes affecting broadcasting in the digital age, and the challenges of the transition period. One of these challenges is the recent moratorium on issuing licenses in Armenia, which was justified by the transition to digital transmission. The moratorium prevented TV station A1+ from getting its license, a loss deemed by the European Court of Human Rights as a human rights violation.

Participants demanded greater transparency of media ownership and expressed the need for quality and self-regulation in journalism.