During the course of the CSCE Human Dimension Seminar on Free Media, held in Warsaw 2-5 November 1993, IPI stressed that press freedom cannot be limited to the print media.
In monitoring the situation in Central and Eastern Europe, the Institute came to the conclusion that – despite officially expressed commitments to a free and democratic media legislation – many countries are still exerting governmental control over their national broadcasting media. Direct interventions from the government as well as from political parties and individual officials, psychological pressure on journalists, editors and management, and sometimes even physical threats, are occurring time and again.
On the occasion of an international conference on broadcasting, which took place in September 1993 in Vienna, IPI presented a Declaration on Public Broadcasting, intended to provide guidelines for the evaluation as to whether a country’s broadcasting system is a “public” i.e a free and editorially-independent one, as is the case in democratic societies.
IPI urges the CSCE to call upon its member states to speed up the transition from their government-controlled broadcasting systems to editorially-independent public service broadcasting organisations.