The plurality of media outlets is under scrutiny these days. The UN Committee on the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in its discussion in 1983 of the implications of Article 19 CCPR (Freedom of Opinion) has stated:

“little attention has so far been given to the fact that, because of the development of modern mass media, effective measures are necessary to prevent such control of the media interfering with the right of everyone to freedom of expression,”

One of the Committee’s experts said:

“By this sentence, the Committee managed to come to unite these kinds of worries by careful wording, but what it means is that any kind of concentration, any kind of control of the media, is harmful to the enjoyment of this freedom. Sometimes the Committee acts in a very “superstitious” way. It does not mention things that should be mentioned.”

Now the Committee is working on a new statement, which shall also be more specific on the issue of diversity of ownership:

“States parties should take appropriate action, consistent with the Covenant, to prevent undue media dominance or concentration by privately controlled media groups in monopolistic situations that may be harmful to a diversity of sources and views.”

FAIR – Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting – takes a critical look at the discussion of “poverty” as the economic crisis widens and deepens. Not entirely surprisingly there are some traps the mass-media are falling into. The stereotypes of the “good times” are maintained as the focus is not on low-income poor who have been stuck on the margines of society for years and are hit hardest by the economic down-turn but rather on the newly poor who by and large have a middle-class background. 

Speaking of poverty, Peter Singer observes “There is a psychological difficulty in really thinking seriously about large-scale poverty when it happens far away from you and you don’t know the people involved,” in a discussion of his new book – The Life You can Save: Ending World Poverty Now.

Outrage in Davos, where a shop owner was forced to remove a Tibet flag on orders of the police as the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China visited the World Economic Forum, reports the NZZ.

The Austrian Daily Der Standard reports on the positive effect of the Para-Olympics in creating awareness about the rights of persons with disabilities in China. In March the first report on the situation of persons with disabilities was discussed by the government. Interestingly the article quotes that 83 Millionen persons with disabilities live in China, a number that seems low given that the WHO – World Health Organization – estimates that at least 10% of every population have a disability and that poverty is a major source of disabilities. 

The government has also passed amendments to the Chinese Disability Act and adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. A Professor at Renda University, Zheng Gongcheng is quoted as saying that these changes would not have been possible at this speed without the Para-Olympics.

Compare, however a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which documents the impossibility of interviewing persons with disabilities in rural China despite promises to grant full access for journalists.