Greetings from Stockholm, where I’ve been participating in a media round table conference. I hope it is a sign of the respect accorded the MediaChannel.org that I was asked to make the opening presentation on the topic at hand: “Are the New Media Good for Democracy?” The event is being sponsored aspart the annual meeting of Internatational IDEA, Europe’s far less ideological answer to America’s National Endowment for Democracy. IDEA stands for Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Happily, the Institute seems to recognize that elections alone do not real democracies make … and hence the parallel media event co-sponsored by theFinancial Times and the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter (DN) .

Sweden is a world leader in promoting information technologies (IT), with a vast amount of governmentspent to bring the country on-line. It has reached 70% of the citizenry already. Hence the focus on theimpact of new media. The IDEA conference is all about the relationship between the Information Revolution and Democracy, a subject I will get back to in further columns.

Our own discourse, was limited just to journalists, something I can never understand. Do they assume that the public and the other delegates to the conference, a mix of 250 politicians, NGO’s, professors and election experts, aren’t or shouldn’t be interested in what media people think? I don’t know, but here we are talking among ourselves again. That is not say the discourse is uninteresting. Quite the reverse.

We have heard panels on the growth and limits of the internet in China revolving around the experiences of SOHU.com, that country’s partially foreign owned and NASDAQ listed portal. I was fascinated about the discussion of how and why chat rooms are monitored and censored to placate government fears. One example: an ultra nationalist rant submitted in the aftermath of the China spyplane incident. One of the site’s 20 million registered users wrote in to say that he wanted to turn himself into a missile to attack LosAngeles. That let’s all make war on America comment was not posted.

Gordana Igric, of the always excellent InternationalWar and Peace Reporting site (Iwpr.org) discussed the growth in popularity of their London based news service, which under editor and Media Channel affiliate Tony Borden, has been a model of Balkans coverage for years in the present crisis. Their reporting on the wars in that region is known for itsdepth and distinction. And it’s work is especially valued now as war erupts in Macedonia with Milosovicpossibly on his way to the Hague.

The first session closed with a debate between two London based journalists on just how optimistic or pessimistic we should be about the Internet as a tool for democracy. David Manasian, an American who edits the Global Agenda section of The Economist played the pessimist while veteran Guardian Foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele was more hopeful. Nik Gowing of BBC World wrapped up the session warning of ways in whichboth journalism and democracy are threatened by audiences turning away from news and news itself threatened on sides by propagandists with inflammatory web sites.

They are planning to web cast the session on the IDEA website at www.idea.int You will be able to see your News Dissector holding forth on his birthday.