News Network
-Till Briegleb, Freelance Journalist,
Germany
The sun never sets in the world of the
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, German Press Agency or dpa. Just as the computers are being
switched off after a long working day at the agency’s Central Office for Asia in the
humid smog and 35 degrees of Bangkok, the Spanish language service is starting the morning
shift in Buenos Aires, where it is foggy and a cool 16 degree C. About half-way between
these two outposts, the usual civilized morning hustle and bustle reigns at dpa’s
headquarters in Hamburg-Poseldorf. Only in the city that never sleeps is the dpa New York
correspondent still in bed.
The rule that the working day might be over,
but the shop never closes, does not apply to multinational corporations. The international
news business, too, has to be on-the-spot in virtually all time zones and the most
important cities of the world. Even dpa, the smallest and youngest of the four global
news-gathering organizations, has a hundred offices worldwide. It has almost 700 editors
based in places like Minsk and Windhoek, Tegucigalpa and Accra, Fort Worth and Phnom Penh.
By way of comparison, the British agency Reuters, the biggest global news provider,
employs more than three times as many people in twice as many as offices as dpa. During
the "news war" from Iraq, Reuters had 200 reporters on the ground, dpa 30. Dpa
was the last of the Big Four to be launched—the others, apart from Reuters, are the
French, AFP and the US-based Associated Press-AP. Not until the late 1950s did dpa start
to carve out a slice of the international news market for itself with a network of
correspondents of foreign-language services. In the meantime dpa sells about 1000 news
items a day all over the world via its English, Spanish and Arabic language sub-agencies,
as well as its German-language European service. It is thus an important member of the
western news quartet that determines what international news people get to read in Riyadh,
Lagos, Buenos Aires and Delhi.
Expertise but no competition: For all that,
there is little of the allure of the big, wide world in dpa’s Hamburg headquarters.
In an open plan office with gloomy, turquoise carpets, potted plants and beige office
furniture, people known as desk editors sit in front of their PCs and
‘translate’ the incoming reports into the linguistic pumpernickel of the agency
format. Here, in the cerebrum of this global player, the atmosphere is not essentially
different from that of any local newspaper, except for the fact that there is a large
television screen above the employees’ heads with a dedicated line to the Berlin
Capital Office showing that nothing exciting is happening there either. The rather plain
appearance of the new building on the screen fits perfectly to a company which, like a
kind of busy Lizzie, does the journalistic spadework for its more colorful
clients—and is forbidden by contract to compete in public with its customers or
owners. For, unlike most of the 200 national press agencies of this world, which are state
enterprises, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur belongs to the German publishers and
broadcasters. They launched the German press agency in 1949 to supply them with all
news—and the last thing they want from their fact supplier is for dpa’s
concentrated expertise to compare with them for the end customers.
However, the faceless life as an information
service provider, supplying newsrooms and institutions who can do what they like with the
agency’s material, lends the company an aura of independence and integrity. When a
news item begins with the phrase "According to dpa…" this still has a ring
of authority about it today; it is the journalistic equivalent of "And the Lord God
spoke." dpa was also once described in an industry portrait as the "incarnation
of truth." Now you don’t have to be a philosopher to be extremely wary about the
word "truth," especially in the media. You only need marginal knowledge of the
work of media companies not to like using this term without its twin, called
"interest." Particularly when gathering information, every journalist is very
dependent on the motivation of his informant, the local working conditions and his
publisher’s economic considerations. Furthermore, personal involvement and marketing
interests, the race for exclusivity, journalistic vanity and the flood of uncertain
sources that have sprung up with the explosion of the media market – all these
factors mean that "truth" has become an even bigger illusion than it was when
dpa was born. Only recently, the German Press Council again criticized the growing
influence of Public relations agencies on dpa reports, which pass on society gossip in
particular without checking it.
Truth, ethics, self-censorship
The word "truth" should also be
used with caution in foreign reporting. At the present time there is perhaps nothing that
illustrates the hypocrisy of so-called "objective information" more drastically
than the admission by Eason Jordan, CNN’s Chief News Executive, in the New York Times
that his network had suppressed information about Saddam Hussein’s regime for many
years, in order not to lose its accreditation. Especially in the many countries of the
worked where democratic standards do not apply to information, journalism can get caught
in a limbo between professional ethics and self-censorship. This is confirmed by Thomas
von Mouillard, dpa’s head of foreign news and deputy editor-in-chief: "It often
demands a lot of sensitivity on the part of our correspondents to know what they can write
without getting thrown out of the country." Von Mouillard certainly believes that his
staff can "play this keyboard so well that a central European of average intelligence
always known what is meant." However, in view of the rampant success of evident lies
in the tabloid press, this optimistic view of the news consumer’s political
attentiveness seems somewhat overoptimistic.
Dpa itself has had drastic first-hand
experience of the decline in the culture of political information, and reacted with major
restructuring. The "miscellaneous" department is the biggest at dpa in the
meantime, and in international news, too, a rule of thumb applies that a foreign-service
staff member formulates as follows: "The further away you are, the more interest
there is in amusing topics." A report from Japan about new products- such as
ladies’ tights from the spray can – may be a huge success, whereas, if a bank
collapses, the story will hardly make it into the business section. And as far as news
items from Germany are concerned, the rule is that a man who went to jail for his brother
without being noticed will make it onto the front page in many parts of the world, while
important domestic political discussions are often ignored, even in Europe. The selective
perception of foreign news becomes dramatic when entire continents, for all their crises,
wars and disasters, have little chance of even being mentioned. Although dpa evaluates on
a daily basis which news items have been used by its customers (so that the rising
interest in insignificant titbits has been proven statistically), dpa refuses to provide
such a one-sided customer service.
Global early-warning system
"There are certain, typical countries
where our customers’ waning interest in international politics has its full effect:
these are in Africa, also Latin America and certain parts of Asia," says von
Mouillard. "Even so, we deliberately continue with our reporting on these regions
because, as a news agency, we also have a duty to chronicle events." The head of
foreign news hopes that, despite the small percentage of news items that actually get into
print, some of these stories will at least be of "some value at the back of an
editor’s mind or for documentation purposes." Furthermore, the complaint often
made by correspondents that editors tend not to react to foreign topics unless a report
comes in from a news agency, gives dpa reports a special importance.
NEWS AGENCIES also exert considerable
influence these days as a sensitive and quick early-warning system on the side effects of
globalization. Whether the issue is the spread of epidemic diseases via the business class
of airlines, or the environmental impact of drilling for oil in the Niger Delta, alert
agency journalism has an international control function – not least as a result of
global integration – that no government or international organization can do as
efficiently. Nevertheless, as a global news company the agency must of course face up to
the allegation of being part of the western media offensive which is using its economic
power to homogenize consumption and culture all over the world. dpa, too, is subject to
market mechanisms, and they exert a strong influence on what the agency offers: the
customer file determines what is news internationally, too. dpa’s strong presence in
East Asia impacts on the selection of the English-language service, just as Latin
America’s huge interest in sport is reflected in the Spanish-language service.
HOWEVER, THE AGENCIES’ self-definition
as "sluice-gates for news" becomes all the more problematic, the less
competition they have to face. In the whole of Africa south of he Sahara, for example,
which has fewer telephone lines than Manhattan and only 37 television sets per 1000
inhabitants, the global agencies have a virtual monopoly, as they supply the media there
with their perception of the rest of the world. in Bulgaria and Greece3, too, the national
agencies take almost all their international reporting from two or three of the global
services. "Of course," says von Mouillard, "being a medium from a western
industrialized nation we must be aware of our responsibility if we dominate international
reporting in such countries." His recipe against eurocentric bias is a strong local
work force. "This way you can do a lot to counteract the danger of presenting an
excessively German viewpoint." The one-man agency AIP became famous during the
Afghanistan war; it was developed by dpa and is a shining example of such self-control.
dpa notices – especially in its home market how much the critical treatment of
information power still depends on economic interest. In Germany, the only country in the
world where all the four major agencies offer a national service – a result of the
post-war political order – and where the advertising crisis is currently threatening
the existence of critical journalism, competitive pressure and the trivialization boom are
taking their toll. More and more frequently, speed triumphs over individual research, and
the crisis promotes interest in entertainment as opposed to the need for information.
A NEWS AGENCY, however, is dependent on
competent editorial teams and consumers. If their standards decline, then the dpa’s
star will inevitably decline with them. Although the agency is still among the few
enterprises that basically satisfy the description of our present age as an information
age, yet only a critical society that remains committed to education and dialogue can
ensure that it stays this way.
Till Briegleb, formerly an editor at the
"Woche" and "taz." Today he works as a freelance journalist
The Nation State, one player
among many?
The nation state, the basis of international
relations and main framework for the existence and exercise of sovereignty and democracy
of modern-day human communities, is being challenged, at the end of the 20th century, by
the phenomena both of regionalization and globalization.
An assessment by Bertrand Badie, Professor at
the Political Studies Institute in Paris, of a post-sovereign world. Interview.
How has the political and administrative model of the nation
state spread throughout the world?
Bertrand Badie: The nation
state, as it stands today under international law, is a peculiar political system invented
by Western Europe, which took six centuries, from the 13th to the 19th century, to
establish itself across Europe as a whole. When the State came into being in France, Spain
and England, it still co-existed with other forms of political systems, that is, the
cities, the Empire and the papacy, from which it had to gain its independence. It then
penetrated areas of Western culture in the Americas, with the independence of the United
States and of the Latin American societies, where the nation state triumphed as a method
of political organization as they gradually gained independence.
"We are seeing new forms of
transnational solidarity taking shape"
The third wave was the partial, but strong
diffusion of the nation state model to empires on the near or distant periphery of Europe
and victims of the rising power of the European model. These empires had a deliberate
policy of selectively introducing the conqueror's formula for re-establishing, or
attempting to re-establish, themselves. This is how the Ottoman Empire was very slowly
brought under state control at the turn of the 19th century, which led to the Turkish
Republic under Kemal in the 1920s. It also happened in Persia, Afghanistan and to systems
further away, such as the Kingdom of Burma, the Kingdom of Siam and, more particularly,
the Japan of the Meiji in the 19th century, which, however, was never defeated until 1945.
Finally, there is a last wave - the most
important in terms of volume - which is the de-colonization wave in Asia and Africa
throughout the 1950s and particularly the 1960s. It sanctioned the emergence of nation
states reflecting the Western nation state model and mainly the model of France as a
nation state.
What are the effects of the present phenomenon of
globalization on the foundations and functions of the nation state? Is it doomed to
disappear in the face of competition from these new infra- or supra-national players?
Globalization is not, as is too often said
today, a mainly economic phenomenon. At the root of globalization is a highly significant
technical revolution, which is the removal of distance through the progress of
communication. This has had an extremely significant effect politically, since distance
has ceased to become this government resource which it has been for centuries. The nation
state's authority rested partly on distance, because it gave meaning to national territory
- the fair assessment of communication possible within a human community - and a mediating
function for the State whenever individuals tried to communicate with each other. Given
the extraordinary proliferation of transnational relations operating between individuals
beyond borders, bypassing the State's control, this no longer has any meaning today. Hence
the restructuring of the functions of the nation state insofar as the latter has the new
political perspective of governing in a system where communication defies it and where it
has to control this explosion in transnational relations.
"The major challenge will be to
organize different levels of citizenship"
Globalization has, of course, been used to
their advantage by all the potential players, starting with the economic players, whence
this growth in neoliberalism as a result of the ability of individuals to invest and to
trade directly, bypassing the State and beyond its control. Alongside the market, however,
we are also seeing other forms of transnational solidarity take shape. Due to the
immediacy of image, information and communication, every individual is now directly
involved in the domestic affairs of neighbouring or distant States. Globalization enables
a very large number of players to emerge on the international scene, who will have their
own international agenda, their own political will (this is the case with the NGOs) or who
will put pressure on the State for it to intervene on the international stage, as is the
case with international public opinion. We are therefore witnessing a vast international
public arena being set up, taking responsibility for international issues alongside the
inter-state system and beyond the control of States.
Does the State constitute a framework, which cannot
be exceeded in exercising sovereignty?
It is not easy to answer the question of the
future of the State, because the State, with technological progress, is also building up
its means of action, coercion and communication. Rather than speak of the end of the
State, I shall therefore speak of a profound change in the State, which endures alongside
other non-state international players, while losing one of its essential characteristics,
that is, the principle of sovereignty.
Precisely, what part will these new actors play in
the future, and how will their role be connected with the role played by the nation state?
The connection between these two types of
players becomes the major challenge to our modern-day international relations. The State
has several assets in its hand. It enjoys the virtues of a favoured partnership: it is
much easier to negotiate with a State than to negotiate with a transnational flow. One can
eventually negotiate with a multinational firm, because this is the type of transnational
player closest to state rationality, but not with a migratory flow, or with individual
investors, nor even less, with mafia organizations.
This is one of the tragedies of the new
international conflicts: the militias or the war lords will not have anything to do either
with negotiation or attempts at peacemaking, whereas the nation state is recognized by law
and by international organizations, both of which are inter-state systems. These players,
although not institutionalized, are often the decisive partners on the international
stage.
At another level, however, transnational
communication networks are forming and distributing information, often to the great
displeasure of States, whose leaders would very much like to hush up this or that
violation of human rights, which is nevertheless divulged by the NGOs and thus shames the
economic diplomacy of certain States. Friction is therefore at play between these
different types of player through the dynamism of the international public arena. But the
latter is not merely the public prosecutor of an often ethically questionable
international order. It also takes up humanitarian causes and is one of the major
initiators of this considerable change in nation state diplomacy. It is thanks to this
that human rights diplomacy is starting to assume meaning, and state diplomacy now accepts
that it has to seize on civil wars, internal conflicts and ethnic cleansing processes
under pressure from this international public opinion. All these interactions are
nevertheless still quite unpredictable.
Does the nation state, this political framework for
exercising democracy in Europe, seem outdated to you, or can it be perfected?
The advent of citizenship has conferred on the national
political community the status of a community with voting rights. In the context of the
19th century, and in the major part of the 20th, this was necessary for forging and
perfecting democracy. There is no choice today but to admit that national political
communities have fewer and fewer voting rights because the major decisions are no longer
taken by the national political communities. Some of them are already being taken by the
European Union, or even at world level. While it is obvious that regional integration and
some forms of world integration are appearing, the latter are struggling to produce new
conscious political communities with voting rights. A new citizenship therefore has to be
built at the level of vast regional units. Hence the fundamental nature of European
citizenship.
Furthermore, this citizenship, out of touch
with the national territory, is accompanied by the renewal of a citizenship of proximity.
There are thus several strata of citizenship: local, national of course, regional but also
transnational. The major challenge will therefore be to organize these different levels of
citizenship. Because to our French and Jacobinical mind, citizenship can only mean an
allegiance hierarchically above every other: the citizen is firstly a citizen of a State.
But from now on this multiple citizenship will have to be credible and democratic.
Otherwise the regional and world-wide level of integration will be left to technocracy.
The national level will remain the citizen's level, but his freedom of debate will become
totally illusory.
Is there a specifically French way of
understanding and analyzing these different phenomena?
In France, we are very much aware of the
problem of the State and its future, because while France did not invent the State, the
nation state model has its origins in her, and this has had a very significant
distributive effect through the influence of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
Now that this model of the nation state is being challenged, we are in the front line.
My foreign colleagues often tend to think
that my analyses are more the result of a French obsession than a major, determining
challenge to global change. It is true that we perhaps find it harder to think about a
post-sovereign world, in which the State would have to hand new responsibilities over to
civil society and transnational networks. But basically the issue of the connection
between the international public arena and the States' domain concerns everybody. Tensions
over sovereignty are not the exclusive preserve of France. After all, the United States,
which likes to think of itself as highly emancipated compared with this culture of the
State, is the main protester, along with China, against the establishment of this
International Criminal Court, which is perhaps one of the first post-sovereign3
institutional outcomes. Likewise, the Third World countries, which are only a very
superficial part of this nation state culture, are themselves attached to some of the
attributes which globalization is directly challenging today. These are fundamentally
conservative trends. But beyond this reactionary response, there are innovative responses.
The role of France in Europe and throughout the world is, perhaps, to show the way to
these innovations, on an aspect which I hold dear and on which I believe we have very
important things to say in the name of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, namely
that is, the gradual substitution of the idea of the responsible State for that of the
sovereign State.
Interview by Pauline Sain and Stéphane Louhaur
(Courtesy: Label France Magazine, Embassy of France,
Kathmandu, Nepal) |
