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INFORMATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
Oleg
Kireev
Last
year the famous film director Lars von Trier published a documentary cinema
manifesto which defines the rules for documentary cinema making. These
rules allow us to avoid manipulation in editing, in filming etc., and
to present the object with maximal fullness.
In
the age of proceeding infowar - which the World-Information.org site has
dedicated brilliant materials to - we need clear rules concerning the
making and delivery of information. These will be rules defining an ethics
of information exchange.
Activists,
journalists and media workers who want to oppose informational noise and
falsifications will take responsibility in following these rules when
producing or delivering information. These rules will become a Charter
for informational human rights. They will not only formulate the professional
ethics of media-workers but will also give an information consumer an
idea of a quality information which he has right to demand. These rules
have to be compiled without any reservations about the relativity and
subjectivity of ethical demands or about the subjectivity of interpretation,
and published. For sure, they will stay open for further discussions and
corrections, but will become a basis for an informational solidarity.
Herewith I suggest several basic formulas for informational human rights.
1. When producing information, an informer gives all the present factual datas with maximal precision.
2. When transmitting an information, an informer doesn't change anything nor add anything. When there're several contradictory sources an informer delivers all factual datas with source indication.
3. An informer doesn't create informational cases himself. If information is produced by a participant of an action or an event, then he "forgets" about his participation when producing an information.
4. Information has to be delivered with minimum of generalizations, therefore an informer also "forgets" his analytical opinions (for instance those concerning causes and consequences of an event) and tells them separately from an immediate information.
5. Information has to be strictly tied in time to the event.
6. Any wrong information has to be refuted.
7. Any superfluous, unreliable or not-in-time information has to be qualified as an informational noise. An informational noise producer is as hostile as a manufactured information producer.
We
share the point of view that information is the highest value of contemporary
society. An agreement about common informational principles will allow
us to elaborate a perception of information which corresponds to its value.
This statement was presented at the "Uses and Abuses of the Language
of Human Rights" panel of Next 5 Minutes 4 in Amsterdam (Sept 2003)
and was posted to nettime
on September 12, 2003.