ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE WORLD NEWSPAPER CONGRESS
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE WORLD NEWSPAPER CONGRESS AND WORLD EDITORS FORUM
President of the World Association of Newspapers [Dr. Seok Hyun Kong, Korea]
Mr. Chairman [Gavin O’Reilly, Chairman, National Newspapers of Ireland].
Distinguished guests.
Is mór an pléisiúr dom fáilte is fiche chur romhaibh go léir go hÉirinn. It gives me great pleasure to extend a very warm welcome to you all to Ireland on the occasion of the 56th World Newspaper Congress and 10th World Editors Forum.
We are honoured by the presence here in Dublin of representatives of the press from all parts of the world and delighted that you have chosen our capital city as the venue for this important gathering.
Dublin was of course the birthplace of the great statesman Edmund Burke who so famously flattered the British Press with the title the Fourth Estate, the other three estates then, being the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal and the House of Commons. It was another son of this city, Oscar Wilde who more bitterly complained that the Fourth Estate “has eaten up the other three…….. We are dominated by journalism.” So here in Dublin you can expect to find the spirited diversity of views which makes for a memorable conference and which will help your industry chart a course through the changing tides and challenges it is facing into.
Today there are manifestly many more estates than four but the central characteristic of the Press which Burke’s description was intended to convey is the huge power which the Press had then and still has, to speak directly and intimately to the individual citizen over the heads of all other estates. In all credible democracies including our own that power is seen as one of the crucial checks and balances necessary to protect the freedom of the individual and to call to public account the activities of the State and powerful vested interests. In all not so credible democracies and autocracies that power is seen both as a potential threat and as a compromisable tool.
Among the many chapters in the mixed histories of the world’s Press are chapters of extraordinary heroism where newspapers and journalists have been uncompromising, risk-taking advocates for the suffering, the oppressed, for the truth. But just as there are many estates today, there are also many different manifestations of the Press from the serious scholarly journalism in which accuracy and objectivity are honoured values to the other end of the spectrum where the story travels a long way on speculation or where cut and paste passes for research.
Today no Estate is entitled to a presumption of integrity or honesty. Those things are earned day in and day out and they are vulnerable day in and day out as much in the Fourth Estate as any other as recent events in the New York Times have pointed out. As self-appointed watchdogs of the operations of the other Estates you perform a hugely important social function of critiquing, challenging, informing and educating. You are also however largely responsible for the accountability of your own domain, with its pressure points between advertiser and newsrooms, between accuracy and speed, its considerable freedom to censor, its economic gravitational pull towards concentration of ownership, its struggle to make a coherent, unified profession out of a widely diverse set of standards, objectives and contexts.
Your association is meeting at a time of particular economic challenge for the global newspaper industry. In many countries, the advertising revenues of newspapers are under pressure, there are problems on the circulation front, competition from many other media including radio and television, calls for greater accountability and regulation as in all spheres of power and influence and the near-vertiginous pace of technological change is creating a dizzy range of smart new options including the paper free newspaper of the Internet. I hope that here in Dublin the air may start to clear on these and the many other issues you hope to discuss.
You came to the right place for affirmation and encouragement of the unique mission of the Press, for few countries have a public so formidably supportive of the Press as here in Ireland.
Some 92% of the adult population in Ireland read a newspaper, making us one of the most newspaper literate countries in the world and we have been reading them since 1737! In fact my native Belfast boasts one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in the world. The contribution made to civic society by our Press is incalculable but the best measure of it lies in those statistics of readership for they tell clearly of the widespread public support enjoyed here by what is a very healthy and vibrant newspaper industry. Despite significant competition from imported titles particularly from our nearest neighbour, Britain, we have a strong, high quality national Press and and our regional Press is quite simply outstanding.
Recent global events have reminded us once again of the discomfort and danger endured by members of the print and broadcast media in order to bring us the news. At least eleven media employees lost their lives in the Iraqi conflict and we know that there is systematic and routine persecution of journalists and editors in many parts of the world. Some 46 journalists worldwide were killed in connection with their work during last year alone and we too have our own heroic casualties - among them Veronica Guerin and Martin O’Hagan, who were both murdered in recent years as a direct consequence of their investigative journalism. They paid an awesome price for our freedom to know and I warmly commend the work of your Association in ceaselessly vindicating the truth despite the danger and the human cost. In particular I express solidarity with and respect for those publishers, editors and journalists, some of whom are with us this evening, who are working under repressive and menacing conditions which call for an exacting level of courage.
This Congress is a timely opportunity to restate the complex and necessary contribution that newspaper journalism makes to civic society at so many different levels, from the Arts to politics, from sport to education, from community to the globe, from passionate proselytism to dispassionate analysis, the Press is woven deeply into the social, political, cultural and intellectual life of societies. The page gives you space to explore, time to explain. The Press photograph, such a vital part of newspaper services, conveys in a powerfully compact way things that words do only inadequately. Together they bring hard earned rewards and relentless responsibility.
You are going to be busy here in Dublin and I wish your deliberations well for clearly the better you are, the better the public interest is served. Enjoy each other’s company and in particular enjoy the wonderful welcome your Irish colleagues have taken such trouble and pride in preparing for you. May this be the best conference ever!
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.