<B>By Pauline Etienne</B>

Parliament resumes today. The press can?t remain indifferent when it has been threatened so many times with revision of the legislation. The latest warnings by the prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, go back to last December, when he attacked the journalists present at his press conference on a road accident case. ?I am in favour of the freedom of the press but journalists have to take their responsibilities as well,? he said.

He then seized the opportunity to announce that the legislation concerning the press would be reviewed and sanctions against those undermining people?s private lives would become more severe. Well, this is nothing new. We are used to seeing those in power threatening the press with new limits to their freedom as soon as they are unhappy with one article?

Last week, journalist Eduardo Cue was in Mauritius to deliver lectures under the aegis of the US embassy on ?Journalism ethics and democracy and the role of the media?. What he had to say was full of lessons - both for the profession and the authorities. ?I don?t believe that the authorities should interfere with the journalists? duties. Each time they have tried to do so worldwide, it has proved to be a failure?, he asserted.

So, it seems the only way of preventing the government from implementing new laws that would undermine our liberty would be to implement our own regulations. By doing so, the authorities would realise that we act in good faith and would not find it necessary to provide us with unnecessary barriers. Our own barriers would be better than theirs.

With this in mind, the first regulatory institution that comes to mind is the much discussed ?press council?. Even though it has been mentioned a thousand times, some companies owning press titles do not seem eager to have such self-regulation. We all want to be free in the way we do our job. We are all professionals and know where to stop.

But we have to acknowledge that there are risks in not being regulated at all. We all have our weaknesses and the media have a far too important responsibility towards the public to close our eyes to our possible flaws. Setting up a self-regulatory body could only be beneficial to all. The government would not have to interfere in our job; we would set up the body as we feel it should be; the public would have even more trust in the media.

If the whole profession is still not convinced of the necessity of such a body, other alternative solutions are there until everyone is ready. One of them is the appointment of an ombudsperson. His/her main duty would be to closely monitor the press and make sure it does not go beyond certain limits of what is acceptable in our society.

However, a far quicker solution in the short term could be that each press group drafts and adopts its own ethical code but it would impose the same limits of responsibility on everyone.

The press benefits from tremendous public trust. The latest survey showed that newspapers are even more popular than they were six months ago. Readership has gone up. The press is the most credible institution in the country. It is important not to lose this credibility.

The more cynical amongst us could be wondering why we need such regulations since we have survived ? and well ? without them for more than 200 years. This is true. But the world is changing ? and with it, the way we do our job. Information can be collected not only in the field but also online. In this new context, we have to be more cautious about delivering true and correct information. Having regulations would only make us more credible?