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Syrian Minister Quoted on Media Development Plan

Posted on: Saturday, 20 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report by Ziyad Haydar entitled "Syrian steps towards developing the media; integration between public, private sectors", published on Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir website on 16 August

There has been renewed discussion regarding the development of the media in Syria. Much of the discussion of the Ba'th Party's 10th Regional Conference, which called for the establishment of a higher media council, focused on the subject. However, this notion has yet to be implemented due to the "non-existence of a real and practical vision of this council".

Nevertheless, during a general workshop held by Syria's Information Ministry on developing the media in Syria, Talib Qadi Amin, assistant information minister, told Al-Safir that a strategy for media development has been presented in the form of an integrated project to the State Planning Commission, in order to be approved within the government's 10th five-year plan. He added that the strategy was based on creating a state of integration between public and private media outlets in Syria by modernizing media regulations and laws in all sectors based on suitable implementation techniques.

According to Amin, the structuring of the Syrian media is intended to turn government media organizations into financially and administratively independent organizations to be run by a board of directors. He added that the role of the Information Ministry would be to provide supervision and guidance. He explained that in the meantime, a new media law would be drafted. He also said that the law would "regulate" electronic media, an issue that has caused worry over the possibility that this could mean putting obstacles in the way of electronic publishing, as expressed by some journalists. However, Amin explained that "the goal is to set some regulations based on the propositions of website owners, in addition to locating the persons responsible for published material on these sites, taking into consideration the fact that the existing state of chaos serves no-one and needs to be controlled and regulated".

The assistant information minister also spoke of the mechanism according to which media organizations will achieve independence within the five-year plan. He said that "this plan includes five organizations. Foremost among them is the General Syrian Authority for Radio and Television with its five subsidiaries: the Syrian Satellite Channel, the Youth and Sports Channel, Channel One, the radio sector and the television production sector. Secondly, there are organizations in among the printed media, including Al-Wihdah and Tishrin establishments and the Establishment for the Distribution of Publications, which has been merged under the name of Al-Wihdah Corporation for Press, Printing, Publishing and Distribution. As for the third organization, it is the Syrian Arab News Agency SANA. Work is currently under way to turn it into a news agency with video capability, along the lines of the world news agencies."

Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhlallah called for the use of less exaggerated words and expressions such as ambitions, challenges, confrontation, defiance, and down to the ground. At the same time, the minister indicated that the state's present inclination was to put an end to monopolization, which was half the problem, while the other half was the private individuals' ability to participate in the process and in the preparation of the legal instrument that governs this participation. He wanted the government not to be always seen as being under constant accusation until proven innocent.

Head of the Syrian Media Centre in London Yahya Al-Uraydi said that the messages that the centre addresses to Western media fall on deaf ears. He indicated that it was difficult to penetrate Western media outlets, which are mostly owned by the United States and Europe.

In answer to a question about whether or not he receives from official Syrian quarters a periodic review of the declared Syrian position on the ongoing developments in order to promote this position, Al-Uraydi said that he did not. He added that he relied on the telephone calls to the information minister and the director of SANA. Al-Uraydi chose not to go into detail of the budget allocated for this centre, yet he indicated that the Israelis have opened a similar centre not too long ago and allocated to it an annual budget of 20m dollars.

Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East

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