The Press and the Multilaterals
What is surprising to us is the way that very few of the hundreds of press people present in Doha tried to unravel this non-transparent process. For the most part, the press parroted the view of the EU, US, and WTO secretariat that the results of Doha were a compromise that benefited both developed countries and developing countries. The truth is Doha was a devastating defeat for the South. The only thing that can possibly be seen as a gain is the declaration that there is nothing in the TRIPs Agreement that would prevent countries from taking steps to protect public health. But even this gain is fragile, since it is a political statement, and there is nothing in the declaration that requires a change in the text of TRIPs, which remains highly draconian in its protection of drug patents.

Even more alarming is the acceptance of much of the press of the non-transparency that marks the WTO process from beginning to end. Is there an assumption here that economic institutions should not be measured by the same gauge of transparency and democracy as political institutions? Is there a feeling that economics is best left to the economic experts? Is it a case of being intimidated by a labyrinthine process? Or is it a case of not wanting to risk the ire of the monopolistic managements that now dominate the global media?

Transnational corporations have been tackled by investigative journalists in the populist tradition. Yet it has been left up to NGO activists and advocacy groups to expose the multilateral institutions and their workings. Here the work of Paul Blustein of the Washington Post on the IMF seems to be an exception, though I have yet to read it.

This is state of affairs is not good. Because much of the press accepts the mystique of these organizations, there is a strong tendency to repeat the shibboleths of these institutions about the anti-globalization movement, about our so-called lack of analysis, emotionalism, Luddism. It has taken massive actions on the streets by this movement to finally get the notice of the press that there is something to our side of the story. Politics and scandals and political corruption make great copy. The WTO, World Bank, and IMF can also make great copy, if we had investigative journalists willing to take on the gargantuan task of understanding and unraveling them.

Thank you.

• Global Trends in Access to Information
  —Thomas S. Blanton

• The Next Challenge: Making Global Institutions More Transparent
  —Walden Bello

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