America toward more openness and Europe toward uncertain hesitation between theoretical openness and attempts in many cases to find new means of indirect censorship. The same divergence can be seen in the related field of the explosion of personal data, with claims of protecting privacy often screening the reality of only governments having access to protected data about citizens. Although more sunshine laws are on the books than ever before in CSCE countries, they rarely seem to have been translated by court verdicts into wider actual access at least not within the European Union. In fact, the zone of privacy is expanding in most western European countries as governments respond to the growing power of automated data processing - and widening fears about its possible abuse - by legislating greater protection for individuals. In theory, this is for the betterment of all; in practice, it is often more leverage for the powerful. Similarly, amid the triumph of capitalism, privatisation could actually have the effect of removing data of great social significance from the government sphere, where it theoretically at least belongs to all citizens, and placing it in private hands where it may be hidden in the name of proprietary interests. The conclusion of the group was that, at a minimum, journalists' right to seek information must not be imperilled and the right of governments - and any other entity with authority - to withhold information in the name of national security or commercial value must be constantly and clearly justified. In democracies, the people's right to information is immutably primary. The corollary requirement is for the media to constantly and clearly explain the limitations on their own ability to fully know and evaluate evidence in an unfolding story - particularly on the breaking story with global implications and almost instantaneous world-wide distribution. Specific claims were made to the effect that the chances for democracy might be enhanced if press freedoms were restricted in perilous zones and times of tension. For example, several governmental representatives said, it was proper to try to prevent racist propaganda in situations of ethnic tension. Even facts - as distinct from opinion - may become incitements to escalation, some participants said. International media, by carelessness or ignorance, may fuel strife, so there can be motives for restricting its distribution. International broadcasting, by its intrusiveness, can be destabilising, so there is a need for regulation that is equally international in scope. Some critics said that the developing democracies were vulnerable to the media's power to colour the international environment, so some way needed to be found of redressing this imbalance. Other critics described the media's technological and financial power as going too far now in confronting democratic governments. These challenges by the Western media to foreign nations and their own governments prompted a common defence among several official participants and some intergovernmental bodies for the principle of media regulation. Rather than putting forward specific press curbs, this current seemed to reflect a mood among authorities that they need to reaffirm the legitimacy of their power, notably to protect secrecy and restrict the media where national security is at stake. This was the operative thrust which emerged from the broader general claim described earlier, that there are different cultural traditions of media between, broadly speaking, North America and the European members of CSCE. Some humility was incumbent on all parties, it was said, because every CSCE nation had lessons to teach the others. The end of political antagonism and advent of general reconciliation in Europe, the argument implied, meant that the old absolutes of press freedom were relics of a bygone ideological era. This view - a version of the-end-of-history fallacy - was systematically opposed by journalists from CSCE countries in our debate. While admitting difficulties of performing flawlessly, the journalists in our group sounded strikingly similar. Journalists in Central Asia want to get the story as much as their American counterparts. American journalists recalled the agonising and often dangerous involvement of their media covering the racial violence during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s - a parallel to situations in Eastern Europe today. While journalists often differ about the next right step in improving their own work, they displayed consistent agreement on the basics of journalism: information, the right to express opinion as well as facts, the need for diversity of media, the rights to publish without hindrance, protection from excessive reprisals that breed self-censorship. Reflecting this communality of views journalists from the CSCE area present at the meeting opposed any regulation of the media by outside bodies, however well-intentioned. Advocates of the ombudsman system - self-regulation, defended as a lesser evil than press laws which be twisted to censorship CSCE ODIHR BULLETIN Vol. 2, No. 1 32