Latest News - December 2005

It has been a long time since I have not reported on the FIAT IFTA latest activities. Actually, we have been extremely busy in the last three months and we can be proud of what has been achieved. More especially, I would like to mention : the strengthening of the international position of FIAT ; the efforts made by the FIAT Board to develop a policy for endangered archives, with some concrete actions already in progress ; and of course the New-York conference, and the training events in Johannesburg, Beijing, and Mexico : all were resounding successes. And last but not least, the recruitment of many new members, including the United Nations !

I am very grateful to all those who have played a significant part in these achievements, and more especially to Sue Malden and Dan DiPierro.

Web updates

The web site has been updated, with detailed information about :

• New-York conference : final report, UN and Unesco messages, conference papers, pictures
• Southern African workshop : report and pictures
• Beijing seminar : report and pictures
• FIAT at WSIS : report and picture
• FIAT Award 2006 : the 2006 competition is open. It's time to send your nominations to Karl Maier.

The international scene

I would like to give an overview of the actions led by FIAT in the last fourteen months in this area. 

As you know, the first step, in October 2004, was the launching of the World call for the preservation of the broadcast heritage. 

The Call has gathered some 10.000 signatures from over 110 countries. It got the support from a number of international and national organisations. The Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcast Development, and Radio Educacion, in Mexico, publicised the Call on their home page.

The Call got also the support of its sister organisations through the Coordinating Council of Adiovisual Archives Association, thanks to the tactful mediation of its Convenor, Crispin Jewitt. The Call was formerly adopted by CCAAA and published on its web site in October 2005.

In September 2005, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director General of Unesco, has accepted to record a video message for the FIAT participants to the New-York Conference.  

At the same New-York Conference, a message from Mr Sashi Tharoor, Under Secretary General for Public Information and Communications, United Nations, was read by Susan Farkas, from the UN Department of Public Information.

Both messages emphasized the importance of preserving our audiovisual heritage and expressed their support to FIAT IFTA actions in this field.

On October 11th-13th, Dominique Saintville and I took part in the three days meeting of Commission V, one of the working commissions of the Unesco General Conference. We could make the two statements previously agreed on with CCAAA. The first one aimed at requesting the support of the Unesco General Conference to the FIAT Call. The second one was related to the initiative taken by the Czech Republic (for FIAF) to request the proclamation of an international "audiovisual day", on 27th October, the anniversary day of the adoption in Belgrade of the Unesco Recommendation for the safeguarding of moving images (1980). FIAT and CCAAA supported the Czech resolution, as well as the amendment proposed by Austria (all types of sound and audiovisual documents should be encompassed). It was also the opportunity to suggest an update of the Belgrade Recommendation. The Czech resolution was adopted. We should acknowledge that the real impact of the FIAT and CCAAA statements was marginal and that NGOs play a minor role in such a procedure. The only efficient method is the "draft resolution" tabled by one country and sustained by others. We should remember that ...

FIAT had been invited by EBU to organise a session about archives, at the Wold Electronic Media Forum, a side event organised on the occasion of the World Summit of the Information Society. It took place in Tunis, on 15th and 16th November. FIAT was represented by Sue Malden who chaired the session and presented the conclusions to Kofi Anan, the Secretary General of the United Nations. This was a unique opportunity for FIAT to raise the plight of endangered broadcast archives, on the basis of the issues raised in the Call.

Endangered archives : provision of replay equipment

I have already reported, in the paper presented at the closing session of the New-York Conference, on the cooperation developed with the Agence de la Francophonie and with the five African archivists who attended the Conference.

A few weeks after the Conference, we had the opportunity to implement one of the many recommendations listed in this paper, the provision of replay equipment. Actually, the French Forum des Images (the former Vidéothèque de Paris) offered to Ina a number of Umatic video recorders. Eight FIAT members have expressed their interest for approximately twenty machines. Presently, the machines are being checked at INA Video Maintenance Department and Dominique Saintville is doing her best to find the cheapest and most secure way to ship them to their recipients in Africa (6 countries), Macedonia and Afghanistan.

Another recommendation was the search of any opportunity to lobby for the preservation of the endangered heritage. Our colleague from Niger, Tanimoune Bissala, has already managed the transmission, on ORTN channels, of the video that was shown in New-York (and distributed to all participants) "A fading memory". Do not hesitate to do the same in your own country !

Madrid 2006

The University Carlos III of Madrid will be the host of the 2006 FIAT Conference, from 26th to 30th October. More details will be provided in January after the first meeting of the Conference Organising Committee.

You may have an overview of the conference venue, the campus of Getafe, in stills and video.

Welcome to the members who have joined FIAT IFTA, June - November 2005

Full members

• Comité Français de Radio Télévision, CFRT, France
• Framepool AG, Germany
• LJB, Libya
• Omnimago, Germany
• ORTB, Benin
• ORTM, Mali
• RTB, Burkina Faso
• Tal TV (ORTN), Niger
• Teleradio Moldova, Moldova
• TWI Archive, UK
• United Nations, Department of Public Information (New-York)

Associate organisational members

• Desjardin SAS, France
• ISAN International Agency, Switzerland
• Red de Radiodifusoras y Televisoras Educativas y Culturales de Mexico
• Terameta, France
• TVP Group, UK

Associate individual members

• Charles Morin, Canada

FIAT IFTA web site audience in 2005

Emmanuel Hoog