These results suggest that countries with a healthy freedom of expression and press should be used as models in the economic, political and social spheres of today’s world. For the past few days I have been in Cape Town, South Africa, attending the 60th World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Congress and the 14th World Editors Forum. These events have drawn a crowd of more than 1,600 publishers, editors and other senior newspaper executives from 109 countries. When talking about problems pertaining to published media, the issue highlighted most frequently was freedom of the press. It was stressed that fulfillment of this concept inherently involves freedom from both direct external pressure by the political establishment and indirect influence by large firms and media giants able to manipulate through advertising and other fields.
As part of WAN activities a Chinese journalist was awarded the 2007 Golden Pen of Freedom (the annual press freedom prize given by WAN). Shi Tao is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for revealing government orders for newspapers to censor reporting of the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary. Imprisoned after Yahoo, an American search engine company, provided information to Chinese authorities, the award was presented to Shi Tao on June 4 -- the 18th anniversary of the massacre. In her son’s absence, the award was accepted by his mother Gao Qinsheng, who said her son “a direct victim of the shackles of press freedom.”
Tao is only one example of the more than 130 journalists around the world jailed because of their views. However, his drama becomes significant because he is serving time in China, the country with the highest number of jailed journalists. As expected, the award to Shi Tao has already provoked the ire of Chinese authorities. The China Newspaper Association has demanded the award be withdrawn because China’s constitution does protect press freedom and a court “handled the case according to law and made the appropriate sentence.”
In China, 98.7 million out of the total world newspaper circulation of 515 million copies are sold. However, Tao’s predicament sheds light on the state of press freedom in China and illustrates why freedom of the press is more important than achieving a high circulation number. Despite impressive circulation figures, the China case constitutes an excellent example of a country lacking in various freedoms as a result of an inhibited press.
Today, seven out of the top 10 of the world’s best-selling dailies are published in Asia and China, Japan and India account for 60 of the top 100. Among the five largest newspaper markets, three are Asian countries: China, with 98.7 million copies daily; India, with 88.9 million; Japan, with 69.1 million; the United States, with 52.3 million; and German, with 21.1 million copies daily.
Unfortunately, the countries showing greater leniency toward the media and encourage broader freedom of press tend to experience lower circulation rates. For instance, in the European Union daily newspapers saw a -0.87 percent drop in 2006 and a -5.63 percent drop since 2002. Moreover, the circulation of US dailies fell by -1.9 percent in 2006 and -5.18 percent over the past five years. In Japan, newspaper sales declined by -0.83 percent in 2006 with sales down --2.42 percent over five years. Contrary to this, Chinese newspaper sales continue to do well and went up 2.27 and 15.53 percent over one and five years, respectively. In 2006, Indian newspaper sales increased 12.93 percent and 53.63 percent in a five-year period.
It is interesting to note that the most developed countries have experienced the sharpest decline in paper circulation due to the Internet, free papers and televisions. The total number of paper copies sold in Turkey in 2006 increased by 2.8 percent, with a very impressive 55.57 percent increase over the last five years. Meanwhile, newspaper advertising revenue in Turkey increased 3.01 percent in 2006 and 152 percent over the past five years.
With any luck, the increase in the sales of papers in countries with significant democratic and press freedom deficiencies will present an opportunity for progress in the areas of these freedoms, the sine qua non for overall betterment.
