World View: 'We live in a global culture of immediacy." So the Norwegian foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Store, told a group of journalists from all round the world in Bali last weekend, who were invited by his government and that of Indonesia to discuss contemporary issues of tolerance and diversity in the media, writes Paul Gillespie.
He referred especially to the worldwide debate on the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by a Danish magazine. No place can really be called far from home in such an age of interdependence, he insisted, when offence is taken on a global basis.
Most of the 72 senior journalists from 44 countries attending agreed it had been wrong to publish and republish the cartoons, although a minority had done so to show what the argument was about. But they were intrigued to learn it was only three months after their original publication in Denmark that the international furore developed. This was because they were publicised by an imam living in Denmark during a campaigning tour of several Middle Eastern countries.
Thus immediacy was not involved on that occasion. Rather was the issue politicised from a relatively extreme wing of one Islamic tradition at a time of widespread concern about a fundamental clash of values between Muslim civilisations and western ones. As cultural polarisation escalated last spring there was the usual collapse of dialogue into confrontation between us and them and a loss of the sense of complexity and diversity which are essential parts of the real inter-cultural picture.
Ignorance of these aspects and of the likely consequences of publishing the cartoons were potent factors leading the Danish editors to regret their action.
Most of those attending this dialogue believed real lessons have been learned from the experience.
While freedom of expression is a universal value it has to be understood in the context of other values which can take precedence.
And a freedom exercised in one place can narrow it elsewhere, as an Indonesian journalist pointed out. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population - over 200 million - and yet it is highly diverse and struggling to build a new democracy with a vigorous debate on freedom of expression.
The Danish example did not help Indonesian journalists resisting new media restrictions in the name of protecting the public from blasphemy and pornography.
The Indonesian president, Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told the gathering he would not have been elected if the country's journalists had not courageously resisted censorship - and he asked the meeting to applaud them.
As he pointed out, democracy is a work in progress there and in many other states.
The media are an essential part of it: They "are with us every day of our lives - upon waking, while we are at work and at play, while we lounge in our living rooms.
They can pierce into our consciousness and leave lasting impressions there.
They can therefore tremendously add impact and velocity to any dialogue between civilisations.
The media of different nations can connect civilisations in a way that other channels cannot".
Mr Store said he had first come to Indonesia 11 years ago and if anyone had told him then he would be addressing such a meeting he would have thought them mad. The role of media is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, the Indonesian foreign minister told the gathering, quoting the Irish-American Peter Finley Dunne on the role of newspapers. It is good to hear such elementary values repeated 100 years after he spelled them out as follows in his Mr Dooley column: "Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th'ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward." It takes resources to fulfil such a role - all the more so if the local is becoming genuinely global. Several speakers disputed that this is so. Media are still published for particular audiences. But these are no longer as homogeneous or self-contained as before now that "civilisations interpenetrate and enrich one another", as president Yudhoyono put it. And it is this growing complexity which creates the need for greater knowledge and understanding of different cultures among journalists.
There is a sharp contrast between the public need for a scrupulous mediation of this growing immediacy and the reality of shrinking budgets and cuts in the numbers of foreign correspondents, the former CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy told the gathering. Riz Khan, formerly with the BBC and now working for the new English service of al-Jazeera, agreed it is a challenging time for journalists.
They both described how little time there is for reflection, preparation and research before going on air with supposed authority.
As a result there is a new homogenisation of media, a dangerous simplicity in which the space for those with whom we disagree is narrowed or reduced to the point where we speak only to ourselves, Ferial Haffegee editor of the South African investigative weekly, the Mail & Guardian, argued.
There is an emphasis on generalisation, not specialisation. We are in danger of losing the advantages of the robust democracy she regards as the main achievement of the transition in her own country, which has many lessons for other states.
Such an impoverishment of the national and increasingly global public sphere should be resisted by journalists and editors, it was agreed.
There was a significant consensus between east and west, north and south on this.
A more engaged and ethical journalism is needed to insist on professional standards of accuracy, truthfulness and balance in a more interdependent world.
The idea of a global code of conduct for journalists did not find favour with this group. The objective is one thing, getting it another.
It is better to use existing national and international legal norms (which anyway converge) and explore ways in which improved education, training and exchange projects can encourage better standards. We were grateful that these enlightened governments from two ends of the world brought us together. Bali helped too.