The Battle for Global News: Who Controls the World's Narrative?

Daya Thussu's early career at the Press Trust of India (PTI) in the 1980s offered a unique perspective on international news. While working at India's largest news agency, Thussu encountered two distinct streams of global information: one from established Western agencies like Reuters, and another from a network connecting newsrooms across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, known as the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool (NANAP). His role involved selecting and distributing these diverse dispatches, providing him with a firsthand understanding of how the world's stories were being told and by whom.

For decades, a few Western news agencies had a near-monopoly on international reporting. However, as former colonies gained independence, a movement emerged to challenge this dominance. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a coalition of countries seeking neutrality during the Cold War, spearheaded an effort to foster direct news exchange among member nations, bypassing traditional Western gatekeepers. This initiative raised a critical question that resonates even today: Who determines what the global public knows?

The mid-19th century saw the rise of powerful European news agencies like Germany's Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau, Britain's Reuters, and France's Agence Havas. These agencies formed agreements that effectively divided global news markets, influencing which stories reached international audiences. Reuters, in particular, leveraged its ties to the British Empire's infrastructure to build an extensive global reach.

As colonial empires waned in the 20th century, newly independent nations began to question the persistent Western control over news dissemination. The Bandung Conference in 1955 and the formal establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 marked significant steps towards asserting their own voices. NAM aimed to create an independent path for its member states, which included leaders like Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, India's Jawaharlal Nehru, and Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser.

By the 1970s, NAM countries were actively seeking greater self-reliance, scrutinizing the dominance of Western and Soviet media. This led to discussions about a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), debated within UNESCO. The goal was to empower developing countries to build their own news infrastructure and reduce dependence on Western media conglomerates. Nabil Dajani, an emeritus professor at the American University of Beirut, recalls the optimism of this era, viewing NWICO as an ambitious attempt to address global information inequalities. He notes that NAM countries felt Western agencies often focused on negative portrayals of developing nations, arguing that information should be a human right, not merely a commodity.

Daya Thussu, now a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, continued to contribute to global debates on information flow. He emphasized the importance of a two-way exchange, allowing people to understand cultures and daily life beyond just political events, which were often overlooked by Western media.

The ambition to create a more equitable information system began to materialize in 1975 with the official launch of NANAP. Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency played a crucial role in facilitating this network. Ljubica Markovic, who worked at Tanjug, described the enthusiasm for international media cooperation, with Tanjug serving as a central hub for news exchange among non-aligned countries. Journalists at Tanjug prepared domestic stories for international distribution and processed incoming reports from other agencies.

The vision of NAM also inspired publications like 'Third World' magazine, co-founded by Beatriz Bissio. Published in multiple languages, the magazine aimed to provide perspectives on Africa and Asia for Latin American readers, bridging information gaps and highlighting struggles against dictatorships and for liberation that mainstream media often ignored. NANAP was instrumental in facilitating these connections, enabling direct exchanges with journalists and agencies across the Global South.

Despite its expansion, with nearly all 108 NAM member countries participating by 1992, NANAP faced significant challenges. The volume of news exchanged grew substantially, but it remained dwart compared to the output of major Western agencies like The Associated Press and Reuters. Translation issues and varying journalism standards across member countries presented difficulties. Furthermore, many NANAP members were state-controlled national agencies, and their output was often perceived as official propaganda, limiting its use in other countries' media.

The ambition extended to broadcasting with the launch of the Broadcasting Organization of Non-Aligned Countries (BONAC) in 1977. This initiative aimed to facilitate the sharing of radio and television broadcasts, but faced technical, structural, and financial hurdles due to the diverse media infrastructures of member nations. The economic dependence of many NAM nations on Western powers also posed a significant challenge.

A landmark report by UNESCO in 1980, 'Many Voices, One World,' chaired by Sean MacBride, exposed global information inequalities and advocated for a more balanced media economy. However, the report faced strong opposition from the US and UK, who viewed its proposals as governmental overreach. Their subsequent withdrawal from UNESCO in the mid-1980s severely impacted the organization's ability to promote media democratization.

The geopolitical shifts of the late 20th century, including the end of the Cold War and the breakup of Yugoslavia, led to the gradual dissolution of initiatives like NWICO, NANAP, and BONAC. However, the spirit of international cooperation fostered by these efforts may have influenced subsequent media developments. The emergence of broadcasters like Al Jazeera in the late 1990s and early 2000s, offering perspectives from the Global South, can be seen as a continuation of the earlier struggle for a more diverse global news landscape.

NANAP, rebranded as the NAM News Network (NNN) in 2005, continues to operate, albeit with reduced newswire operations. For those who participated, it represented a vital moment for South-South media cooperation, enabling them to share stories and perspectives that were often marginalized. The challenges faced by NANAP, from translation issues to the influence of state propaganda, highlight the complexities of achieving a truly equitable global information system.

Nabil Dajani reflects that while technologies have evolved, the fundamental struggle over who controls information and whose voices are heard remains unresolved. He suggests that understanding the history of these past efforts, including their successes and failures, can provide valuable lessons for building a more equitable global media landscape in the digital age, where new imbalances, such as technological monopolies and digital divides, have emerged.