Ladies and Gentlemen,
In my job, I meet a lot of journalists. I’m not always sure whether I should consider it a privilege or a burden. With most journalists, I get along well. With some, I can claim to have a good relationship. With some others, I may even have too good a relationship. But, this is the setting I have to admit to prefer when dealing with the press: I am talking and you are listening!
Journalists, I’ve come to notice, are a rather individualistic species. They cultivate among themselves and among their publications a sometimes quite fierce competition.
Your presence today in Luxembourg offers, therefore, a welcome but unusual view of the media. You have indeed come to Luxembourg to debate issues of concern to the whole of the profession.
The founder of both Time Magazine and Life once said: "Publishing is a business, but journalism never was and is not essentially a business. Nor is it a profession,"
If it is difficult to describe the essence of journalism, it is even more complicated to define so-called "good journalism".
As Benjamin Franklin remarked as early as 1731: "If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."
The Luxembourg Parliament took its time before addressing the question. Until a year ago, the press was regulated by a law dating back to 1869. But I hope that is only one of the reasons why the new law on the freedom of expression in the media has been acclaimed as a modern framework, for both the press and for those the press covers.
Laws can prevent or at least correct excesses of the media as well as those of government. As Milan Kundera put it: "The power of a journalist does not come from the right to ask a question, but from the right to demand an answer."
But laws are unable to produce good journalism. Sometimes, they are not even able to guarantee decent journalism. Beyond the law, there is, therefore, a need for rules that do not ask what is legal or illegal, but what, quite basically, is right or wrong.
In Luxembourg, the legislator has entrusted these questions to self-regulation by our Press Council. I take advantage of this meeting to remind the members of the Luxembourg Press Council that the new law did not only invite them to come up with a code of deontology, but did actually put an obligation on them to do so.
If already a country like Luxembourg, with a long democratic tradition considers it a challenge to define a rulebook for its journalists, how much of a challenge must it be for those countries where the press has only recently become free?
The main temptation is to adopt one of two extremes.
The first is absolute freedom: allowed is what sells. The usual argument is that nothing can be wrong if the public is prepared to buy or watch the information. As the novelist Graham Greene once remarked: "A petty reason why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction."
It is however unacceptable for the freedom of the press to be an excuse to infringe on the right to privacy of all citizens. The law can obviously impose sanctions. But only self-regulation allows for the damage not being done in the first place. Because in the end, no material compensation in a libel case can make up for the loss of the basic decency to which every human being is entitled.
The press, and the media in general, is of course a business enterprise. But if it were only that, we would have no specific rule on it. Its work would not be guaranteed in a Bill of Rights or a Constitution.
There is of course another extreme. Self-regulation cannot be the equivalent of self-censorship. Not everything we disagree with is necessarily bad journalism.
One American TV anchorman once said: "Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine." But as we all have to admit, both have a rather impressive readership and my guess is they do even share some of their readers.
It is therefore important to keep in mind the conclusion reached by the European Court of Human Rights on the importance of the freedom of the press: "it is applicable not only to ‘information’ or ‘ideas’ that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb. Such are the demands of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness, without which there is no ‘democratic society’."
In between these two extremes, there is a common ground. When one reads and watches the media from several countries, one understands that traditions differ and that not all news that make it to the front page in the UK would even make it into a French paper. And yet, there are common standards to which we can and should hold the media.
The freedom of expression is an essential and necessary element of a democratic society. But it comes, for those who exercise it, with a responsibility towards its audience and the public as a whole.
The readers of newspapers are more than only customers. They are first and foremost citizens. They need the keys to understand what is happening around them, of what is happening to them.
So good journalism needs to take into account more than what readers, listeners and spectators want to know. Journalism is more than just another job, because of the responsibility to complement the news that people want to know, with news that they ought to know, that they need to know as citizens. And if it is presented in an intelligent and entertaining way, we’re getting pretty close to so-called "good" journalism.
And still, it is at times difficult not to have the feeling that paparazzi have replaced the investigative journalist, that feelings dominate facts, that corporate agendas have replaced public interest and opinion polls have taken the place of in-depth political analysis. Sometimes, there is very little information left in the so-called information age.
One point in case is the news coverage as far as the European Union is concerned. Even though there is these days an impressive press corps in Brussels, they’d better have some personal conflicts or a financial scandal to offer if they want some space in their news media. Topics that fill the papers when debated at the national level are not even mentioned when real decisions are taken in the EU. And maybe most annoying is the fact that the press tends to defend the particular national viewpoint, without looking for the broader picture of the European interest.
I do of course know that before I blame the media, I should bring the topic up with my colleagues in the European institutions. We are hardly setting a good example for our national journalists. I would still appreciate if the resources given to EU-related news would come closer to the real impact of decisions taken in Brussels, Strasbourg or here in Luxembourg.
I will admit that it is no easy job. In Luxembourg, the European Union gets quite a lot of publicity in the news – this is true for the newspapers, this is true for the audiovisual media. And I have to compliment the Luxembourg press for dedicating such a huge coverage to European Affairs. But still, it was disappointing to discover during the referendum campaign on the European Constitution how little knowledge there is about the workings of the EU, despite the efforts of our national media.
And yet, even for the media, major decisions are taken at the European level. It is true for the European Council and it is true for the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, as well as for the European Union. After all, all three major topics of this meeting – the Television without Borders Directive, but also the question of ethics of financial journalists and the delicate balance between the freedom of the press and individual freedoms – are impacted by the European institutions an by European regulations.
I would therefore, call on you to learn from each other in order to preserve the right balance between the private business and the public service that the press is or should be. Because, as the French weekly Le Canard enchaîné puts it: "The freedom of the press only deteriorates when it is not used."
Thank you.