began with the meeting of non-aligned nations in Algiers, 1973; again in Tunis 1976, and later in 1976 at the New Delhi Ministerial Conference of Non-Aligned Nations. The "new order" plan was textually formulated by Tunisia's Information Minister Mustapha Masmoudi. Masmoudi submitted working paper No. 31 to the MacBride Commission. These proposals of 1978 were titled the 'Mass Media Declaration.' The MacBride Commission at the time was a 16-member body created by UNESCO to study communication issues. The UNESCO work on the NWICO was immediately met with criticism from many areas, mainly from Western countries. An interim report released in 1979 by UNESCO was targeted by the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. While these organizations took issue with some of the early proposals including right of reply and press councils, they also were troubled by the phrase "New World Information and Communication Order", seeing it as a dog-whistle for the use of government propaganda in the guise of information flow balance. The criticism of UNESCO was sometimes overdrawn, as when presstime (the journal of the American Newspapers Publishers Association) carried an article suggesting that a study on U.S.-UNESCO relations commissioned by UNESCO was "a cheap shot against the press" and that "it will add no luster to UNESCO's image," before the book even coming into existence. In 1980 the MacBride Report was published. The report stated that the right to inform and be informed was critical to modern societies, and that information was a key resource. The report than proposed five main ideas of action to progress these goals Include communication as a fundamental right. Reduce imbalances in the news structure. Strengthen a global strategy for communication while respecting cultural identities and individual rights. Promote the creation of national communication policies to be coherent and lasting in the processes of development. Explore how the NWICO could be used to benefit a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Following the release of the report director-general Amadou Mahtar M'Bow was reelected as the head of UNESCO, and those in favor of the NWICO movement found the report giving them strength. UNESCO received a thirty four percent increase in funding, and the United States agreed in principle to creating a new international body for communication in developing countries "within the framework of UNESCO". The report itself was controversial, as many viewed it as lending strength to the Communist