Historic Free Speech Declaration p. 9

By: M.L. Stein

Assemblage of editors, publishers, politicians, lawyers,
scholars and others meet at a Hemisphere Conference in
Mexico City to approve a worldwide free speech proclamation sp.

AGAINST A BACKDROP of growing violence and legal actions against the press in the Americas, a disparate assemblage of editors, publishers, reporters, politicians, lawyers, scholars and others recently forged a historic free speech declaration in Mexico City.
It proclaimed, "A society of free individuals cannot remain free without free speech and freedom of the press."
And, in a clear message to repressive governments, the declaration called for an end to punishing news media and journalists for telling the truth or "criticizing authority."
Ten principles are included in the declaration approved by the first Hemi-
sphere Conference on Free Speech held in the famed Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City. The meeting was sponsored by the Inter American Press Association, and its general chairman was Javier Perez de Cuellar, a former secretary general of the United Nations.
Agreement on the declaration did not come easily. It took several hours during three days of sometimes heated discussion and four drafts before the final document was signed by nearly all of the approximately 70 delegates to the conference.
The arguments ranged from merely semantic differences to substantive issues that reflected the sometimes conflicting views of men and women from different cultural, political and historical backgrounds.
Generally, U.S. and Canadian representatives pushed for a harder, uncompromising definition of free speech while some Latin American delegates sought to stress the "responsibility" of journalists in the wording.
However, other South Americans ? primarily editors and publishers ? said they favored the more direct wording of early English-language drafts of the declaration rather than the somewhat softer Spanish-language rendition. Spanish was the official language of the convention.
At the start of the conference, former president of Ecuador Rodrigo Borja, one of several nonjournalist participants, pleaded for press "responsibility," telling the assembly, "You are say-
ing there are no limits on the media. I do not share that view." Borja was one of the few delegates who did not sign the declaration.
An initial draft of the declaration containing the sentence "The press must, however, assume responsibility for what it publishes" was dropped from the final paper. Opponents of the sentence contended that it could provide an opening for authoritarian governments to impose responsibility requirements on the media.
There also was quibbling about a
reference in the document's prologue to the term "pluralistic" in describing the makeup of the conferees. Some thought it weakened the declaration, and in the end, it was eliminated.
Chicago Tribune editor Howard Tyner was successful in urging rewording of a sentence that said, "No government, group or organization" can restrict or deny free speech. It was changed to "No one has the right to restrict or deny these rights."
Tyner contended that the inclusion of the word "government" might make officials believe that they have special rights to censor the press.