Freedom of press... reality, challenges

The world’s celebration of freedom of the press, which falls on May 3 this year and the corona pandemic that is sweeping the countries of the world casts its shadows.

Repercussions on various aspects of health, social and economic life, and the world’s governments prevent the most important requirement of “freedom” that countries need to return to their normal life and practice on developmental, economic and social. This is what takes us to a universal truth, which is that the concept and space of “freedom” guaranteed by the general conditions that people live in the places of the world.

Returning to the slogan of World Press Freedom Day 2021, we find that “information as a public good” is its top priority. As I read on the Unesco’s website, it “is a call to affirm the importance of cherishing information as a public good, and to explore what we can do when producing, distributing and receiving content for the sake of enhancing journalism and improving transparency and enabling capabilities,

while working to ensure that no one is left behind. These are the matters that the authorities are looking to achieve through steps to ensure the economic continuity of the media and the mechanisms to ensure the transparency of the telecommunications companies providing Internet service. In addition to enhancing the capabilities of knowhow. Information and information technology that enables people to acknowledge, value, defend and claim journalism as a vital part of information as a public good.”

In Oman, as an illustrative example, the Omani government has dealt with the pandemic which began to appear in March 2020 with a high degree of transparency by providing up-todate information, permanently and accurately through various local and international channels and platforms.

To manage this situation, it organised a permanent weekly press conference through which it provides the necessary data on the developments of the pandemic and clarifies all inquiries in health, social and economic fields and other implications which have

affected the various aspects of public life, in order to achieve the principle of the right to information as a general prohibition.

The pandemic revealed one aspect of the economic weakness of some press institutions. Not only in Oman but also at the level of companies and international press institutions through the decline in their revenues for commercial and marketing reasons related to decline in their paper sales. Also the decline in advertising market, which is one of the main pillars of commercial and economic income.

This is in addition to the entry of the “flexible” competitor, which is the news accounts through social media, on the news and information line, which constituted a high percentage of follow-up among the general public —especially last year with the cessation of printing of newspapers — due to its characteristics represented in the speed of information transmission in multiple forms and methods.

Its ease of access, follow-up, retrieval and low cost, and this is what prompted some media institutions in general to reconsider the ways of its spread by introducing new tools such as digital, television and electronic radio stations, and re-presenting news in interesting,

innovative and attractive ways.

These quick steps and improvements in the media have not been forgiven to increase the number of followers and interested parties, as there is a generation of smart mobile phone campaigners who obtain news and information through accounts, electronic newspapers and websites that they access through their own phone.

Yet the Ministry of Information has made a positive steps regarding the need to register newspapers — electronic and news accounts and granting them a licence to practice media activity to ensure their professional performance in accordance with the laws of

publications and publishing until the issuance of a law on electronic media, which we hope will be released soon.

The issue of “enhancing the capabilities of media and information literacy that enables people to acknowledge, value, defend and demand the press as a vital part of information as a public good” may require global efforts and practice led by the Unesco with the International Federation of Journalists.