[Media Caucus] Media paragraph in CS benchmarks

[Ronald Koven]

Dear Victor --

I submitted the language in my own name because the deadline was very tight
and there ways to be no Media Caucus meeting before a noon deadline. Later,
several of those still attending the meetings in Geneva in the Media Caucus
looked at the language and said it was okay with them. Originally, there
was mention of community media only. That language supplied by Steve
Buckley was not run past the whole group, either. To have left it at that,
without broader references to media in general would have been extremely
unbalanced.

It is absolutely classical and standard in Western Europe now that there
should be a mixed media scene balanced between public service and private
TV. This is the pattern in Britain, France, Spain, etc. What was originally
a state monopoly gets transformed into a mix of public and private. This
provides competition and diversity and keeps both the public and private
sectors on their toes.

Your aversion for anything independent of the state is something you should
look deep into your heart about. States are not naturally friends of
freedom. Their hands must be forced. The classic way this happens is when
an independently owned press exists to call governments to account. To be
independent, private and opinion and news media must make enough money to
survive and possibly expand. Money has no odor. Like much else, it can
serve good or bad purposes.

When state-owned media are transformed into public service, all too often
they become public in name only. The existence of competing privately owned
media makes it possible for competition to force public media to produce a
balanced and diverse menu. Of course, media have often in transition
countries been privatized into the hands of friends of the government, but
governments are not eternal, nor is particular ownership of channels. The
existence of alternative possibilities opens the way for improvement.

These principles apply to ownership of community media as well. Municipal
ownership of community media opens the way to local dictatorship of the
majority over the minorities. To avert this, there should be diversity of
ownership patterns on the local level as well.

Best, Rony