A Right to Media? Lorie M. Graham - Columbia Law School

2010] A RIGHT TO MEDIA? 447
Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the protection
of the moral and material interests of an individual or a group’s
scientific, literary, and artistic productions depends in part on the
accessibility of information, which includes:
the right to seek, receive and impart information on the
structure and functioning of the legal or policy regime to
protect the moral and material interests of authors
resulting from their scientific, literary and artistic
productions, including information on relevant legislation
and procedures. Such information should be
understandable to everyone and should be published also in
the languages of linguistic minorities and indigenous
peoples. 64
Because it reaches a large number of people, media is an
important component of this accessibility. However, the right to take
part in cultural life is often undermined through the “deprivation of
information to members or to groups in a society, the non-existence of
a free-flow of information, a one-way communication situation, [and]
monopolies of information or communications (whether by
governments or private companies) . . . . ” 65
Directly referencing media, Article 13 of the Children’s
Convention (CRC) calls for the child’s right to freedom of expression
and states that “this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and
impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers,
either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any
other media of the child’s choice.” 66 Additionally, the CRC explicitly
directs states to “recognize the important function performed by the
mass media.” 67 Expanding on the right to freedom of expression, the
CRC addresses the importance of media in Article 17: the state “shall
ensure that the child has access to information and material from a
diversity of national and international sources, especially those
aimed at the promotion of his or her social, spiritual and moral well-
Production of which He or She is the Author, para. 4, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/GC/17
(Jan. 12, 2006).
64. Id. para. 18.
65. Cate, supra note 48, at 382.
66. Children’s Convention, supra note 39, art. 13
67. Id. art. 17.