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Commonwealth Secretariat press release

Commonwealth Broadcasters to discuss "Responsibility to Democracy"

5 April 2001

Broadcasters, MPs, representatives of civil society, election managers and others from four continents will arrive in Canada this weekend for the Commonwealth Workshop on Broadcasting and Democracy, the latest in a series of Commonwealth meetings on the theme Deepening Democracy.

The workshop will consider the relationship between broadcasting and the democratic process, and in particular the public service responsibilities of both public and privately owned broadcasters. It will open on Monday 9 April 2001. Over the following three days it will focus on four key themes:

· the responsibilities of broadcasters to democracy;
· ways of ensuring balanced news coverage;
· broadcasting arrangements at election time;
· how broadcasting can contribute to the discussion of major social and political issues.

Senior radio and television broadcasters from Australia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Grenada, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Republic of Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Canada itself are among those attending the workshop.


Note to Editors:

The workshop takes place in the Holiday Inn on King, Toronto, from Monday 9 to Wednesday 11 April. It has been organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat in co-operation with the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.


Five previous meetings in this Deepening Democracy series have already been held. The first - on The Role of the Opposition - took place in London in 1998, in co-operation with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and with financial support from the United Kingdom Government. The second - the Workshop of Commonwealth Domestic Election Observers - was held in Jamaica in 1999. In 2000 there were three workshops: Gender and Democracy was held in Namibia, Democracy and Small States in Malta and Devolution and Decentralisation in the United Kingdom. The remaining workshops in the series will focus on Accountability, Scrutiny and Oversight (to be held in Australia in May 2001), Money and Democratic Politics (to be held in India in 2001), Voter Registration and Electoral Systems (2002). Further information can be obtained from:

Commonwealth Secretariat Information & Public Affairs Division: +44 207 747 6385
Workshop Organiser Christopher Child, at Holiday Inn on King: +1 416 599 4000.






01/28 05 April 2001
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ISSUED BY THE COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIVISION
Commonwealth Secretariat Marlborough House Pall Mall London SW1Y 5HX United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7747 6385/6 Fax: +44 (0)20 7839 9081
Email: info@commonwealth.int