Jacques Bourquin, President 1964-1972

From Past, Present and Future: A collection of papers and letters from some members of the international council. IAMCR, 1980

The 5th General Assembly met at Herzeg-Novi, from the 5th to the 9th September 1966, with an attendance of some seventy members of the IAMCR representing 17 countries in Europe, America and Asia. The theme of the important sources of information within the framework of national development was dealt with by Messrs G. Maletzke (Berlin), Osolnik (Belgrade), Edelstein (Seattle), Adams (Chapel Hill).

The encouragement of joint research in the field of the media was dealt with by: E.B. Simpson (Cardiff), Herbert Schiller (Illinois) and Wolfgang Rodel (Leipzig). After hearing the section presidents, Kafel (terminology and methodology), Löffler (legal), Edelstein (psycho-sociological), Klimes (historical), Fattorello (professional education), the Assembly revised the constitution of the Association and the members present received from the President, Mr Bourquin, the list of research establishments and that of current studies and theses drawn up for the IAMCR by Jean-Francois Bruttin.

Jovan Marinovic was congratulated on the complete success of the congress in an outstandingly pleasant seaside setting, and J. Zassoursky (USSR) was elected as a new member of the Committee.

The current business of the Association was dealt with at two Executive Committee meetings: 18th November 1966 in Paris on the occasion of the Unesco Assembly meeting and on 21st and 22nd November 1966 at Cracow, where Mme. Irena Tetelowska had arranged a symposium. On this occasion the committee regretted that out of 300 members who had been in touch, only 70 were paying subscriptions. The committee also made arrangements for the celebration of the tenth anniversary of IAMCR to take place at the University of Prague, on the 2, 3 and 4 November 1967. The Secretary General V. Klimes would organize for this occasion in collaboration with the OIJ, an international symposium on new trends in the training of journalists.

At this celebration, which was attended by some forty members and the delegates of Unesco, the opportunity was taken to specify, in the presence of the Minister Jiri Hajek, and of several hundred lecturers and students, the role of our Association “which brings together researchers from both socialist and capitalist countries, and scholars belonging to industrial countries and to developing regions of the world who are united by a common enthusiasm for research in the field of information, to the exclusion of any political polemic”. The themes of these meetings at which reports were presented by Professor M. Kafel (Warsaw) and Professor Hennart (Lille) and papers by Messrs E. Goldstucker and Klimes (Prague) resulted in a 40 page brochure of great interest to historians but which, although published in French, English, Russian, German and Gzech, is now out of print.

In the same year, the historical section of the IAMCR met at Munich on the 20th and 21st November 1967, under the chairmanship of Professor V. Klimes and Professor O. Roegele. On the 28th November the 10th anniversary of the International Centre for Higher Education in Journalism at Strasbourg was celebrated under the aegis of Professor Leaute and Professor Fattorello.

On the 26th April 1968 the Sixth General Assembly of IAMCR took place at the University of Navarre in Pamplona (Spain). Perfectly organized by Professor Angel Benito, it was preceded on the 24th and 25th April by a meeting of the Professional Education Section under the chairmanship of Professor Fattorello. Reports were presented by Professor Fernandez, Professor Klimes (Czechoslovakia), Professor Topuz (Unesco), Professor Walsh (USA) and Professor Voyenne (Paris). The Assembly appointed Professor J.N. Zassoursky (Moscow) as vice-president and Professor E. Dusiska (Leipzig) became a member of the Executive Committee. Mme J. Tetelowska (Cracow) was appointed chairman of the bibliography section.

The media and International understanding was the main theme dealt with at the symposium at Ljubljana (Yugoslavia) which brought together 180 participants and which made possible a meeting of the Executive Committee of IAMCR on the 5th September 1968. A new section with Bogdan Osolnik (Yugoslavia) as chairman and Frans Kempers (Holland) as secretary, was se up with the task of studying the role of the media in international understanding.

Two months later the Executive Committee met on 5th November 1968 in Paris, where members of IAMCR were taking part in the General Conference of Unesco. On the 11th April 1969 members of the committee met in Monaco, the lecal section, under the chairmanship of Professor Martin Löffler having, on the 9th and 10th April, dealt with the code of honour and deontology of those working in the media, paying particular attention to the protection of the individual in relation to the need for information. On her way to this last meeting, Madame Irena Tetelowska, Head of the Centre for Research on the Press at Cracow University, chairman of the bibliographical section, was killed in an air disaster.

Mass media and the individual was the main theme on the agenda at Barcelona for the 7th international week organized from the 3rd to the 7th November 1969 by the Spanish IAMCR committee, under the chairmanship of Juan Beneyto and of the lively Jorge Xifra, director of the Institute of Social Sciences in Barcelona. About forty members of IAMCR took part in meetings in the Catalonian capital and drew up the programme for the next ordinary General Assembly.

The VIIth ordinary General Assembly of IAMCR took place at Constance (FRG) from the 1st to the 4th September 1970; it was organized, methodically and successfully, by Mmes. Brigitte Weil (Sud Kurrier) and Noelle-Neumann (Institute of Demoskopie, Allensbach), Professor Wilmont Haacke, Professor Otto B. Roegele, the assistant secretary, Professor Martin Löffler and Professor Fritz Eberhard. More than a hundred of our members attended. The different sections displayed intense activity:

1.     The section dealing with international understanding listened to Bogdan Osolnik (president), Tomo Martelanc and Georges Mond;
2.     The technological section examined reports from Emil Dusika and from Charles Minassian;
3.     The psycho-sociological section organized a very wide debate led by Alex S. Edelstein, Kaarle Nordenstreng, France Vreg and R.L. Brown;
4.     The satellites section listened to reports by Dallas W. Smythe, its chairman, Daniel Secourt, Fred Siebert, Franz Eberhard, Jose Maria Desantes, Martin Bravo, Herbert Schiller and Robert Lindsay;
5.     The bibliography section appointed as chairman Walery Pisarek (Cracow) to replace our lamented colleague Irena Tetelowska.

James Halloran and Bogdan Osolnik were elected vice-presidents. Future general assemblies, corresponding to invitations received, were then arranged for Buenos-Aires (1972) and Leipzig (1974). Resolutions were passed, one demanding international protection for journalists on dangerous assignments, and the other, the resumption of work on an international declaration on liberty of information and international understanding.

Meanwhile the IAMCR was closely associated with the organization at lake Bled (Yugoslavia) of a symposium on “the new frontiers of Television” from the 2nd to the 4th June 1971, while the Executive and the Executive Committee were meeting at the villa Bled on the 5th June. It was, alas, an occasion for paying homage to the memory of two of the original members; vice-president Miecyslaw Kafel (Warsaw) and Jean-Louis Hebarre (Paris). The work of the Committee was continued at Capo-Caccia (Sardinia) from the 4th to the 8th July 1971 on the occasion of seminars dealing with information and regional autonomy. The replacement of the sections by working parties of limited duration was discussed but was opposed by vice-president Fattorello.

The theme “Information and social integration” was to be dealt with at Barcelona from the 8th to the 12th November 1971. It was an opportunity for a meeting between the Executive and the International Committee. They took the necessary dispositions for the VIIIth General Assembly, which was definitely fixed at Buenos-Aires, from the 15th to the 27th September 1972, in order to allow for a contact which would be as complete as possible between researchers from Europe, the U.S.A. and South America.