NationStates Jolt Archive

New version up. Addresses some more issues mentioned. Comments would be very much appreciated.

Thanks, Broughdom


Unified News Agency & Broadcasting Service


Category: Education and Creativity
Area of Effect: Free Press


Description: The Nations of the World Assembly,

Observing that each specific nation has its own views on the mass media;

Taking into account the fact that most nations have their own news agencies and broadcasting services which are allowed different levels of freedom in reporting daily news from inside and outside their borders;

Believing that all citizens of World Assembly member nations have a right to the truth, and utilize that right to be educated about affairs in their own nation along with world affairs;

Noting with regret that in some nations press is so restricted that citizens are blinded by government created news and never find out what is really going on in their nation, or outside their borders;

Alarmed that in other nations press is so free that citizens do not know what is true and what is false due to the rights of the press to print whatever they want;

Guided by the system of some news media organisations from nations which have world news that is free to report anything yet regulated to provide only the truth;


The World Assembly hereby establishes a Unified News Agency & Broadcasting Service (UNABS) which is free to report news from and to all World Assembly nations, no matter what each nation’s specific views on free press are, following the guidelines below:

1) All World Assembly nations will allow the UNABS access inside their borders and the freedom to report news from anywhere, at the discretion of the reporters and each nation’s government (clause 2).

2) Nations reserve the right to restrict the UNABS from reporting news in areas where allowing reporter access would pose a genuine threat to National Security. If it is thought that the nation is restricting too much access then an appeal can be made, which must be taken to, and decided on by, the regulatory committee (clause 3).

3) The World Assembly UNABS will be regulated by a committee fully staffed with impartial members who will ensure only the truth is reported. In matters where the truth isn’t clear, the report must be totally objective and unbiased, again to be regulated by the committee.

4) It is up to the UNABS to decide what relevant news is, in the same way a regular media organisation does. However, areas of focus should include (but are not limited to): politics, sport, natural disasters, general entertainment, national conflicts and business.

5) Nations of the World Assembly will give their citizens full access to the news being reported by the UNABS via all available broadcast media, including the internet, television, radio and newspapers. For nations with limited availability of those mentioned, the news must be provided using the maximum possible means (i.e. radio and newspapers for those without TVs and computers)

6) The UNABS will: provide internet updates via a website; transmit radio and television broadcasts; distribute summarised news reports to be printed in local newspapers; and make news available via any other popular broadcast media. These will be available to all citizens of the World Assembly in accordance with clause 5.

7) Television and radio broadcasts will be 24 hour rolling news services to cater for the difference in time zones for nations.

8) The UNABS will be a non-profit organisation, being funded by every World Assembly member nation. Each nation must provide a percentage of the funds needed to run the agency, based on a combination of how many member nations there are and the size of their GDP at the time of funding.

Members of the World Assembly,

You shouldn't file it as a request, but as an action. You should change it to the format of "The Nations of the World Assembly,
Observing
Mandating
Further Mandating
etc."

The words themselves are of course changeable.

Observing that each specific nation has its own views on the mass media;

Taking into account the fact that most nations have their own news agencies which are allowed different levels of freedom in reporting daily news from inside and outside their borders;

Believing that all citizens of World Assembly member nations have a right to the truth, and utilize that right to be educated about affairs in their own nation along with world affairs;

Noting with regret that in some nations press is so restricted that citizens are blinded by government created news and never find out what is really going on in their nation, or outside their borders;

So far, so good. While the news agencies in our own are run by our own government, we do aim to tell the truth.

Alarmed that in other nations press is so free that citizens do not know what is true and what is false due to the rights of the press to print whatever it is they want;

Guided by the system of some news agencies from nations which have world news that is free to report anything yet regulated to provide only the truth;


More agreeal here. You raise some good points.

Requests that the World Assembly create a unified news agency which is free to report news from and to all World Assembly nations, no matter what each nations specific views on free press is, following the guidelines below:

As I said at the start, it is not a request but an action. "Requests that the World Assembly create" should become "Hereby establish" or similar.

1) All World Assembly nations must allow the unified news agency access inside their borders and the freedom to report news from anywhere, at the discretion of the reporters

2) The World Assembly news agency must be regulated by representatives from each member state, who will ensure that only the relevant truth is reported.

Having 18,000 representatives is going to be problematic. Try thinking of a way to go around this.

3) Defining the truth as any item of news which can be proved by evidence, and defining relevant news as political, sport, natural disasters, wars and general entertainment.

There are more news categories than that. Try adding "including, but not limited to" to it.

4) Nations of the World Assembly must give their citizens access to the news being reported by the unified news agency, via television, radio and newspapers. For nations with limited availability of those mentioned, the news must be provided using the maximum possible means (i.e. radio and newspapers for those without TVs)

Well not all nations are able to do this, but as they are to do it to the maximum of their abilities this seems fine.

5) The unified news agency must be a non-profit organisation, being funded every 6 months by every World Assembly member nation. Each nation must provide a percentage of the funds needed to run the agency, based on a combination of how many member nations there are and how large or small their GDP is at the time of funding.

Alright, seems like a good way of funding it to me.

6) Each World Assembly nation must provide the same amount of reporters; however they will be rotated to report news from different nations, and never from their own nation.

Having a reporter report from his own nation may at times be a good thing. This clause should be changed to accomodate the possibility of that happening.


7) No nation will have any special rights with the unified news agency – If any extra funding is needed it will be shared through the same method mentioned in section 5).

Okay, good, good.

8) The universal language of the unified news agency will be English, with translators from each individual nation being employed if necessary.

I'm not sure if all nations will agree on this subject, but having one universal language is good. I suggest subtitling it in the local language.

9) The unified news agency will be a 24 hour rolling news service to cater for the difference in time zones.

You've thought of many things. Nicely added.

10) All future World Assembly members must abide by the rules of the unified news agency, and any nations which leave the World Assembly will have their branch of the news agency removed.

This clause serves no purpose, as this is always so. It can be removed.

Overall, I'd say you've done a very good job, especially for a first try. We'd support it.

-High Council Member M. Stuart
1st of September, 17:46

I haven't got time for a full response now, but here's one quick comment.

Having 18,000 representatives is going to be problematic. Try thinking of a way to go around this.
The usual way is to create a committee, regulator, agency, board or whatever else you may choose to call it to do the regulating on the WA's behalf. As per the committee rules, it would come fully staffed with perfectly efficient and non-partisan members, so don't even think about trying to define its membership.

That said, even I'm a bit leery of letting a WA committee define what is and isn't relevant for the press. True, yes; relevant, no.

Thanks for your helpful comments. I'll get to work on a second draft. Any other comments after this will also be taken into account. Thanks again :)

1) All World Assembly nations must allow the unified news agency access inside their borders and the freedom to report news from anywhere, at the discretion of the reporters
Two words: National Security...

8) The universal language of the unified news agency will be English, with translators from each individual nation being employed if necessary. Subtitles will also be provided in the local language for all non-English speaking nations.

Why does news have to english. Having the stsaion dubbed in my language is insulting to people.

10) All future World Assembly members must abide by the rules of the unified news agency, and any nations which leave the World Assembly will have their branch of the news agency removed.

Are you kidding me. Why should my nation have to listen to the rules of a news agency.


I am not going to rip into your proposal any more because others will. The nation of Neo Mithral Hall will not support you.

Two words: National Security...

It's a fair point. I'm unsure how to amend this to allow reporters access to where they need to be but without compromising nation security. I was also thinking of adding something to say that reporters would be given new security cards and other countermeasures to make sure they are who they say they are. What would be your thoughts on this? This first option does seem to be the most contentious in my opinion though.


Why does news have to english. Having the stsaion dubbed in my language is insulting to people.

Well what would you rather? Surely the logistical aspects of having all languages catered for is too much for one organisation?


Are you kidding me. Why should my nation have to listen to the rules of a news agency.

Point 10) has actually been removed from the second draft.



All you comments are very much appreciated :)

I think our nation would give our citizens full access to all foreign news agencies. And certainly for such Unified News Agency. But we are not in favour of giving them maximum or non limited access.

Also we do not believe that all nations must provide the same amount of reporters. We think that will not work with so many nations.

Than about the language: English, we hardly understand that queer language. Is it latin, alien or germanic from origin, we do not now. But we still are not decided if weird is better than wierd. So maybe it is better to make a new language with simple rules.

But we do think this proposal can be a good one if some of these problems can be solved.

Regards

I think you've got a slight confusion in what you're creating here. A news agency is an organisation that collates and distributes news reports (Reuters being the classic RL example). What it doesn't do is broadcast that news to the general populace; that's what newspapers, TV and radio broadcasts, web sites, mail feeds and so on do. Some of the regulations seem to blur that line rather confusingly, particularly number 9.

You're also trying to micromanage in places, which is never a good idea in a resolution. The language issue is a good example; if the regulatory committee decides that they can cope with multilingual output, let them. English isn't necessarily the best language to use anyway, and the agency is better placed to figure that out than the General Assembly. I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to record reportage in Kawaiian, you can't move without tripping over them these days.

Er, in the nicest possible sense, nuncia.

I keep wanting to capitalise "unified news agency", by the way. Giving it a snappy name could well help to sell the proposal to the majority of "read-nothings" out there.

I've got some grammatical nitpicks (mostly on the difference between "must" and "will"), but they can wait until this is nearer to being ready to go.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll get to work on some improvements. Just two things. What would the BBC and sky news be classed as? They broadcast news as well as collect their own news reports. I will try to clarify in the resolution what I'm creating, based on what you are saying about what a news agency is.


Er, in the nicest possible sense, nuncia.

What do you mean by this?

Thanks, Broughdom.

OOC: sorry I should have been a bit clearer. "In the nicest possible sense" was said as an aside to the young priestess (nuncia) who is saddled with leading the Eternal Kawaii, since it belatedly occurred to Cerys that she'd just been mildly rude to her people. The Kawaiians are currently exiled from their homeland due to natural disaster (it's full of monsters), and Gobbannium is one of a number of nations to have taken some of the refugees in.

Please don't create a new thread for each draft. Just edit your draft into first post for further discussion. Threads merged.

Okay, sorry :(

I've just updated the first post to show the latest version. All helpful comments and general thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I've decided to just delete my other posts and edit this first one with the latest proposal draft.
Thanks. You don't need to delete the other posts (it's interesting and often helpful to see the evolution of a proposal), but having the current version in the Original Post helps a lot.

4) It is up to the Unified News Agency & Broadcasting Service to decide what relevant news is, in the same way a regular media organisation does. However, areas of focus should include (but are not limited to): politics, sport, natural disasters, general entertainment, national conflicts and business.
I can't really complain at this clause, but the list of relevant things -- or really, having the list at all -- just strikes me as odd. If I can figure out why I'll let you know.

5) Nations of the World Assembly will give their citizens full access to the news being reported by the Unified News Agency & Broadcasting Service via the internet, television, radio and newspapers. For nations with limited availability of those mentioned, the news must be provided using the maximum possible means (i.e. radio and newspapers for those without TVs and computers)
The only thing that troubles me about this clause is that it isn't future-proofed. If some entirely new broadcast medium takes off in ten years time, the UNABS isn't going to be able to take advantage of it. Why not just say something open-ended like "all available broadcast media," and perhaps give the list as examples?

6) The Unified News Agency and Broadcasting Service will: create and distribute newspapers; transmit radio and television broadcasts; and provide internet updates via a website. These will be available to all citizens of the World Assembly in accordance with point 5.
Thank you for making it clearer throughout the proposal that you intend the UNABS to be a news broadcaster as well as a news gatherer. I'm very worried by the cost implications, though. In some ways its less the TV and radio that worry me -- satellite broadcasting is only a bit expensive -- than the newspapers. Printing and (especially) distributing a global newspaper on a daily or weekly basis is going to be hugely expensive. I know you've included a funding clause, and thank you for that, but I'm worried that member nations are going to be exposed to huge setup costs.

Two words: National Security.It's a fair point. I'm unsure how to amend this to allow reporters access to where they need to be but without compromising nation security. I was also thinking of adding something to say that reporters would be given new security cards and other countermeasures to make sure they are who they say they are. What would be your thoughts on this? This first option does seem to be the most contentious in my opinion though.
I'm not sure whether this point is fixable. Allowing reporters freedom to go to & report from "anywhere" would be a genuine risk to National Security (in most nations, anyway) regardless of whatever accreditation might be required, but letting national governments limit access on National Security grounds would create a loophole that the less pleasant regimes could exploit to keep their misdeeds private. Maybe allowing restrictions "where allowing access by reporters would pose a genuine threat to National Security", with a right of appeal to a WA committee, might be considered workable & acceptable enough to pass...

I'd like to point out that whilst an idea for a united news agency is a good idea, it is not really viable for the UNA&BS to go on to replace other news agencies because that would be a threat to free enterprise. However, it is possible to create a resolution that bans governments or the WA from controlling on what agencies are allowed and not allowed to say.

Right, I've addressesd the latest issues and put up a new version on the front page.

Changes: Used UNABS as there were too many characters with new additions; Slight change to clauses 1 and 2 in accordance with Bears Armed comments; changed clauses 5 and 6 in accordance with Gobbannaen WA Mission's comments.

Haven't changed clause 4 yet (mainly the list) as I'd rather leave it if it isn't necessary to remove it. However if there's a valid reason I will remove the list.

Let me know of your opinions on this new version.

Thanks very much :)

Well, you can't force every nation to fund one organization as they may not be interested in them. And of course, you can't open them to sponsorship as it may threaten the neutrality of the UNA&BS. However, allowing them to sell some shares to the private market may help in survival. Just my thoughts.

I'd like to point out that whilst an idea for a united news agency is a good idea, it is not really viable for the UNA&BS to go on to replace other news agencies because that would be a threat to free enterprise.
Good heavens, Charlotte, are you saying that a WA sponsored news agency will be so efficient and omnipresent as to threaten the very existence of the other "free" news agencies? This I have to see.

Well, you can't force every nation to fund one organization as they may not be interested in them.
Oh yes you can. It might or might not be a good idea, but it's very much possible.

And of course, you can't open them to sponsorship as it may threaten the neutrality of the UNA&BS. However, allowing them to sell some shares to the private market may help in survival.
And that, of course, wouldn't threaten their neutrality at all. ::snorts::

Oh yes you can. It might or might not be a good idea, but it's very much possible.

I was going to say that ha.

I was also thinking about this funding lark. If it were to cost the UNABS £18 billion to set up and run for just one year (a totally random figure but it makes the maths easy), and as there there are roughly 18,000 member nations of the WA, that would equate to an average of £1 million per nation. And when you take into account that the percentage given to run it is based on each nations GDP, that sum is minimal. With a few nations having massive economies like below, it would end up only requiring 0.0000001% of a nations GDP (or something like that anyway):

The GDP of the UK in 2007 was approximately $2.772 trillion, or around £1.35 trillion. Even if there are only a few nations like that in the WA (which is unlikely, most have decent economies so there are probably many) then the UNABS would be funded very easily and would hardly put a dent in a nations economy.

And with each nation paying the same percentage of their GDP, no nation can feel hard done by. A nation with £1 trillion GDP paying £1 Billion for something is exactly the same as a nation with £1 million GDP paying £1000 for something. It affects both in the same way.

That doesn't really have much to do with the proposal, but I felt it was a point worth making :D

Anyway, what about the proposal? Do you think it could be ready to go soon? Cheers.

If it were to cost the UNABS £18 billion to set up and run for just one year (a totally random figure but it makes the maths easy), and as there there are roughly 18,000 member nations of the WA, that would equate to an average of £1 million per nation.

The trouble with picking random starting numbers is that you get random results. I doubt that £18 billion is even close to the revenue budget for a year, and the capital setup costs will be several orders of magnitude higher than that.