Fellow journalists, Ladies and gentlemen,

First of all, I want to extend my warm congratulations to IPI for its courage for holding this congress in Africa and allowing voices from many parts of the world being heard. I believe that if we hear only once voice globally, that is global dictatorship. A global press freedom means that people from any parts of the world have their right to set their own agenda and have their independent voices being heard equally and globally. If people with identical ideas come together and speak at the same forum, it is not freedom forum. As Confucius said 2,500 years ago, “Men of honor live in harmony with differences.” And indeed IPT has offered us this forum for a genuine global free expression where we can all speak here without pressure and without fear of any sorts. And we don’t have to speak here to please anyone. This morning’s warm debate has indicated that we are all men of honor.

It was my second time to come to this part of the world. 15 years ago, as a humble student, I came to east Africa and the Arab world in search for its great civilization along the legendary Silk Roads. But today, when I came back here, I am hearing people talking about the “uncivilized” and “darkness” of this part of the world as if Africa and the Arab world are not a civilized world despite the fact that they have created the world’s oldest civilization: the Egyptian civilization and the Babylonian civilization.

But as a humble learner in search for knowledge and wisdom from Africa again this time, I have learnt a great deal from my African brothers and sisters. Your wisdom and intelligence in your speeches indicate that you have inheritated the fine heritage of your great civilization. From the dancing I watched last night, I am sure freedom is simply natural, spontaneous and genetically Africans. The black and white media stereotypes about Africa are not enduring. And we should not apologize for what we are.   

The topic I will address briefly here this afternoon is 911 journalism and the universal values of making news more newsworthy.

Free press means pluralism, diversified views, diversified cultures. Free press also means that peole are to be informed of important and relevant news.

The Economist（September 15, 2001） describes the terror attacks on the World Trade Center as “the day the world changed.” But the real world we are living with has not changed as a result of the tragedy. The biggest problems and challenges our mankind is facing, such as poverty, pollution and diseases are only getting worse.  The only change has been the mediated world presented by the media industry. The public interests, public safety and public health of the entire global community are no longer the entry point of interest and attention of the highly commercialized and globalized media. The day when the World Trade Center was attacked and about 2,500 innocent people were killed, 40,000 children were killed by diseases, hunger and poverty, 8,000 around the world were killed by HIV/AIDS. But the death toll of the latter has lost its newsworthiness comparing with the dramatic event of 911. 

Following the agenda  “fighting the first war of the 21st century”, the global media industry has since launched an intense coverage of 911, the following Afghan War, the media campaign against Iraqi’s Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Iraqi War, which have focused the attention of all over the world audience. With daily media bombing and millions of times of repetitions of the same topic, the same agenda, the same language, the same key words, the same pictures and the same footages, the terrorism and antiterrorism message and ideology contained in the information has been accepted by the audience as the mainstream, legal and the only politically correct journalistic discourse. The mediated world presented by the global media has been accepted by the international community as the truthful world. The global audience do not care or even forget the problems of their own world and only care for the world presented by the global media.

The negative impact of 911 on journalistic values and ethics can be summarized as following:

- The anti-terrorism agenda has overwhelmed all other global issues. It has become a criterion for political correctness, only one opinion being legal and the other opinion being illegal or marginalized;

- Sources being more centralized to one government Sources contributed to NGO and other governments and peoples are being marginalized or even regarded as illegitimate sources;

- An honest journalism is being destroyed by such false coverage as Weapons of Mass Destruction. As a result, a decline in public confidence in the press;

- “Our news” are being ignored while “their news”. News relevant to the local people being ignored. - News from Africa, news from the developing countries, news of development are being ignored. The local readers, viewers and listeners are being turned into spectators of other people’s wars and violence. They are being amused by other people’s sufferings while their own sufferings are being buried by the same media. In the media throughout the world, everyone is telling terrorism or anti-terrorism stories even though most of their families are being killed by HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, flu, tuberculosis, being killed by poverty, famine and local conflicts;

. - News about the root causes of terrorism, such as inequality, injustice, poverty, diseases, racial and cultural discrimination and universal abuses of human rights being ignored;

- A 911 journalistic glossary and language have been created by the powerful government sources , which have now been used like a Bible by many journalists throughout the world. As a result of this glossary, the news values are being redefined. A new universal values of making newsworthy stories have been created. For example, in order to get into lead stories and the front pages, the journalists have to use post-911 language. As a result, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, Jihad, Islamic fundamentalists, Moslem extremists, Taliban, Iraqi militants, coalition army, hostages and their beheadings, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, George Bush, the White House, the Pentagon, the embedded journalist have become the catch phrases in the lead news in every parts of the world. The impact of 911 journalism was so intense that certain phrases and terminology became global, while others were rendered almost extinct, and only used at the risk of the story being alienated from the mainstream media. The 911 glossary are replacing the journalistic glossary which includes poverty, water shortages, deaths of children and women, SARS, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Hepatitis B.

In view of this changing media landscape, what the readers, listeners and viewers want from the media? They want to see news events or stories which could catch their eyeballs, more violence, more wars, more infotainment and more militainment. enjoyment and entertainment.

Due to the nature of entertainment and infotainment, the problem with the general public is that the more they consume the mass media today, the less they know about the world around them. For example, infotainment and militainment tend to simplify news events into white and black, angel and demon, evil and good. The reporting pattern of 911 journalism is:

Good guy vs. bad guy

George Bush vs. Saddam Hussein

Us vs. them

The coverage of SARS is an illustrative case to show how much Chinese media have changed in the context of  911 journalism.

News of SARS reached the Chinese public through a short-text message, sent to mobile phones in Guangzhou around noon on Feb. 8 2003. "There is a fatal flu in Guangzhou," it read. This same message was resent 40 million times that day, 41 million times the next day and 45 million times on Feb. 10 The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported SARS on Feb. 11 and the next day all the nation’s press carried the news. But the global media did not clamor for the serious epidemic until the end of Iraqi war, which was exactly two months later, when the global media hit a fever pitch starting from April 11 the day after the fall of Bagdad.

The global communications system and the Chinese government propaganda system worked together to outpace efforts to expose the public health crisis. Between March 5 and March 15, China’s state national TV network CCTV's seven o'clock evening news program ( Xinwen lianbo), which is the official news program in China intended to set the national political focus and agenda, focused almost exclusively on the National People’s Congress.

After the closing of the National People’s Congress in mid March, the Chinese media immediately shifted their attention to the coming Iraqi War. From March 20 to April 10, all the Chinese media were vying for eyes and ears of news from Iraq. China’s strictly-controlled electronic media blazed new trails March 20 with live reporting of the start of the war. Within minutes of US missiles hitting Baghdad, state television channels and radio began simultaneous coverage of the events by 24-hour relaying CNN, including a live broadcast of US President George W. Bush's speech. The three main channels of the central government's China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast live feeds from CNN in Iraq while translating the accompanying reports into Chinese. Xinhua and the People's Daily also got into the act by posting up-to-date news on the war, including a fully-translated text of Bush's speech on their Web sites. Radio and TV stations across the country also interrupted their normal broadcasts to provide live coverage.

The government's decision to allow live