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Plan to Close Down the UNESCO Magazine Under Fire - UN Finance - Global Policy Forum Plan to Close Down
the UNESCO Magazine Under FireBy Julio Godoy
Inter Press Service
June 7, 2001Courier - the flagship publication of Unesco - is under fire: it does not cover its costs by selling enough copies. Unesco's Director General Koichiro Matsuura now wants to close it down, facing an overwhelming opposition from member states and, of course, staff. The underlying issue is whether a cultural publication with no advertising can be expected to live up to market rules. A plan by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Director General, Koichiro Matsuura, to close down the organisation's magazine, Courier, has sparked a bitter opposition . In an official document presented to the UNESCO Executive Committee, Matsuura argued that Courier has been facing financial difficulties and declining readership. According to official figures, the Courier faces a yearly deficit of some 5.5 million dollars. "This deficit," Matsuura argued, "can no longer be ignored."
Matsuura said the magazine has lost more than 160,000 registered readers -- from "some 200,000 sold copies to 39,000 right now" -- since 1980s. The only way to save the Courier would be to increase UNESCO's budget by some 8 million dollars, up to 552 million dollars, Matsuura said. Otherwise, the magazine would be forced to close down by the end of the year, he added.
But Matsuura's decision has only been supported by Japan, Canada and the Dominican Republic out of UNESCO's 58 Executive Committee who have been meeting in Paris since May 21. The other 55 member states of the Executive Committee have rejected the proposition, and have demanded Matsuura to postpone its implementation, to have time to study alternative ways of solving the Courier's problems. In an open letter to Matsuura, the 55 Ambassadors accredited to UNESCO say: "For more than 50 years, the Courier has made UNESCO known to millions of people, particularly students, on all continents. It has opened a unique window on the world to readers, most importantly in those countries where universal and humanist information has been difficult to come by." "For these reasons," they say, "we ask you (Matsuura) to reconsider your decision and to find new ways of providing the Courier with the means necessary to continue its revival and spread its message."
"To shut down the best known publication of our organisation is surely not the best way to achieve this purpose," Jean Musitelli, France's Ambassador to UNESCO, told IPS. The Courier has been the main UNESCO publication since the foundation of the organisation more than 50 years ago. The magazine appears once a month in English, French and Spanish. In addition, there are 28 other editions, in languages such as Chinese, Basque, Catalan, Portuguese, Russian, German, Kiswahili, Arabic and Thai. The magazine covers culture, science, education, peace, environment and development, and is considered to be a world-wide symbol of UNESCO. "Because of its contents, the Courier is a real herald of UNESCO", Musitelli said.
Currently, some 39,000 copies of the three main editions are sold every month, down from 43,000 copies in 1998. Sources within the publication say the other editions of the Courier sell more copies. "We sell 96,000 copies in other languages," said a source within the publication. All in all, 135,000 copies are sold all over the world, up from 133,000 three years ago. "In addition", the source said, "some 60,000 readers visit our Internet site every month."
Another UNESCO source emphasised that the number of copies sold doesn't say anything about the actual number of readers. "A copy may be read by hundreds of persons," the source said, "since our main clients in the countries of the South, in Africa, Latin America and Asia, are libraries and other educational centres."
The source also rejected an argument put forward by Matsuura, related to the age of readers. "According to the General Director, readers of the Courier are well over 55 years old," he told IPS. "But this figure comes out from a study carried out only in France, and only among subscribed individual readers," he said. ''This study left out French libraries, schools and other educational centres that subscribe to the magazine, where its readers are likely to be young people.'' "If the study Matsuura quotes is not representative of all French Courier readers, how can it be of all its world clients," the source wondered. Emphasising his point, Musitelli said: "There are countries where UNESCO is known only through the Courier."
"An alternative to shutting down the Courier could be to invest in a real campaign of promotion of the magazine, something that has never been made," the French ambassador argued. That way, Musitelli pointed out, the Courier could increase its readership. For such a campaign, however, a new extra allocation for the monthly would be needed - money that UNESCO doesn't have.
Federico Mayor, who served as UNESCO's General Director between 1987 and 1999, was an ardent defender of the Courier, an UNESCO source said. "Matsuura wants to make a sharp contrast with Mayor's past administration, and therefore has chosen to close down the Courier so as to disassociate his policy from that of his predecessor.
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