Freedom of Press

History

Freedom of Press spawned from Tuesday Heights' experience as Assistant News Editor for her university's newspaper. Part of learning how to run a newspaper is exploring the law that gives journalists the rights and privileges to report the news to its audience. Thus, writing the proposal and eventual resolution came from her endeavor to better understand her (RL) first amendment rights as a journalist and how she wished they were interpreted in the real world.

The Proposal List

Freedom of Press was submitted twice to the proposal list. The first time, 7 June 2004, was a close call – coming down to three approvals at one point close to update - after a telegram campaign and forum debate. The second time, June 11, 2004, and after another round of telegramming the delegates that had previously supported the proposal brought Freedom of Press to a vote before the NS UN body.

• 7 June 2004 Submission Debate
• 11 June 2004 Submission Debate

Credits

For the most part, this resolution was written without much aid for the general NS UN body.

• Resolution Voting Debate

Text of the Resolution

Article I

CONVINCED that the freedom of press is a vital part of every nation's fundamental right of expression and a vital part of every human's right to the truth and knowledge of one's given country and one's perception of other countries. Freedom of press allows objective members of society to highlight the good and the bad of a given nation and to allow for members of that nation and members not of that nation to see an unbiased account of the current state of a given country.

Article II

DEEPLY DISTURBED by the quality of information on the state of the union in every member nation is widely disregarded to ignorance by the world because of lack of knowledge. Freedom of the press gives precedence to expanding the knowledge base of the current state of member and non-member nations alike.

Article III

CONDEMNING the misinformation of governments to the world that wish not to share the everyday occurrences in a given country through strict control of what can and cannot be reported by all forms of the press.

Section I

1. APPEALS to all member nations to enact legislature to allow immediate freedom of the press within their borders.

Section II

1. URGES all member nations to send the press to neighboring countries, far away countries, and even to areas of combat to bring back the full story to its citizens.

Section III

1. RECOMMENDS all members promote and expand the reaches of press within their given countries so that all citizens have some access to the news.

Section IV

1. SUPPORTS all member nations in an effort to expand their news capabilities with needed funds, government assistance, and trade agreements to conform to the new standards of freedom of press.

Statistics

Votes For: 12,882

Votes Against: 3,446

Implemented: Mon Jun 21 2004

Additional Materials

• Scandal Rocks Government! NationStates daily issue
• UN Timeline
• Index of UN Resolutions
• United Nations