ASNE To World Cup: Back Off On Press Restrictions!

By: Mark Fitzgerald Press restrictions that organizers want to impose for the World Cup soccer tournament "strike at the very heart of press freedom," the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) warned in an open letter today.

"They threaten the public's right to receive information and ideas that is protected not only by the Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights," ASNE President Rick Rodriguez wrote in the letter to Joseph S. Blatter, president of the international soccer association known as FIFA.

The ASNE letter follows by one day an open letter from Blatter to World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Executive Director Timothy Balding that says WAN has "deliberately ... distorted and misrepresented FIFA's position in the dispute.

FIFA recently broke off talks it had been having with WAN and Agence France-Presse (AFP), and unilaterally imposed press restrictions for this summer's World Cup in Germany.

Among the restrictions is a maximum limit of five published photographs per half and two photographs from extra time of any one game. "The quixotic nature of your unexplained limit is apparent from the simple fact that fewer photographs would be published from that portion of the game that likely would be of most interest to the public," wrote Rodriguez, executive editor of The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee. "Clearly the public interest has been relegated to secondary status in the decision making process."

The restriction also forbids media publication of any photos until the game has been completed.

FIFA's Blatter said in his letter these restrictions apply only to Web sites.

ASNE's letter notes that Blatter's biography on the FIFA Web site "proudly states" that he has been a member of the Swiss Association of Sportswriters for 50 years. "Why, then, have you been so quick to turn your back on the media and, more importantly, the fans of the sport, to favor commercial interests?" Rodriguez wrote.

But in his earlier letter, Blatter argued that FIFA has been very accommodating to the press, imposing no restrictions on newspaper print coverage; credentialing nearly 6,000 journalists for the Cup, including 1,500 photographers; and allowing journalists to post stories and commentary on the Web during games.

The only dispute, he says, is over the possibility of posting photos online before the final whistle has blown, which he argues would interfere with the licensing arrangements FIFA has with television and radio broadcasters.