agreed that it was nonsense to contemplate a pan-European ombudsman who would be expected to function in different cultural context. If any expected judicial powers were associated with such an initiative, it would be an invitation to pernicious national practices. In this regard, participants involved in work to elaborate journalists' manifestos of press freedom several of which were circulated and discussed - reached agreement, apparently for the first time that all these efforts are still at the stage of redefining their views and co-ordinating the wording in their texts. At this stage, the Charter for a Free Press, advocated by some groups, seemed to enjoy at least nearconsensus as a minimum statement of the requirements for media to function in democratic conditions. [See page 15 below. Ed.] Other still-evolving manifestos were described as seeking to provide more detailed answers to some specific restrictive threats to press freedoms and to expand the area covered in such statements to include working conditions for the media, including the economic security of journalists. Behind all these charters lies a shared conviction, according to journalists present in the group, that a multiplicity of media is the best guarantee of freedom of opinion; that censorship is too high a price to pay for restricting the information flow; that more information, not less, is the only formula for social maturing. There was absolutely no dissent from this view among journalists within a news story, it is essential to present all view points, there must be enough media - large and small, neutral and partisan, mainstream and highly specialised - to nourish debate. Once the media scene is rich enough, academic arguments about media bias tend to disappear. A common thread in all the discussions on these questions was a recognition that, by nature, the media make democratic authorities uncomfortable. This dynamic helps keep democracies from falling into a comfortable smugness that is bad for both voters and their leaders. The slope to authoritarianism emerges when people and government are ready to retreat from the stress of coping with the messiness of democratic decision-making. In this sense - and it is another example of the way fundamentals apply in all the nations in the CSCE - the relations between democratic media and the authorities is bound to be conflictual most of the time, participants concluded. This healthy jousting is what jurists have in mind when they describe press freedom as a process. Journalists tend to describe it as an endless campaign in which battles are won and lost, but the struggle goes on. It is a dynamic that the best policy-makers always keep in mind and even the worst must realise some of the time. Mistakes by the media are inevitable - they have been made, are being made, will be made - but that more invalidates the process than judicial errors destroy the need for courts or medical errors, for medicine. Media accountability needs expansion, the group agreed, with several participants calling for more pressure for media accuracy and fairness by consumer groups, both readers and advertisers. The ultimate sanction is the ability of the disenchanted to start their own media, a possibility that seems likely to become easier to put into practice with each new generation of technology. While concentration increases among major media, the impact of minor media seems to be growing, too. A general overview of the journalists' perspective as it emerged in our group might be this; Let the history books dwell on our governments successes and innovations and how our nations got things right. Let the press recount these successes when we see them, but above all let the press goad our publics about the possibility that the powers are getting things wrong - in time to do something about it. If that idea seems to be at the heart of the media's role, it also seems central to the CSCE process. That is perhaps why it felt right, among journalists in our discussion, for the CSCE to remain seized with the issue of press freedom. The search to expand it is part of our quest for liberty, the only foundation for peace. Joseph Fitchett, U.S.A. Journalist, International Herald Tribune CSCE ODIHR BULLETIN Vol. 2, No. 1 33