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ARTICLES
THE BATTLE LINE OF
CIVILISATION
Click
here for an essay by William Porter, the ICF's Founder:
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COMMENTARY
- January 1, 2007
The Media: Messengers for
Change
By Henry F. Heald
Henry Heald is a semi-retired
freelance writer specializing in agriculture and international
development. He is also the Canadian
Representative for the International Communications Forum.
Despite
the low level of respect for the media among the general public, the
communications industry, as the largest business in the world, has the
responsibility to lead society towards sustainability based on sound moral
values.
The
world faces major moral problems and the organized religions seem ill
equipped to deal with them. The Christian Church is preoccupied with
proving the divinity of Jesus and helping the poor, but seems unable to
persuade its followers live by the truths preached by its founder. The Church
has failed to zero in on Jesus' chief target - the rich and powerful who
most need o understand the message of humility and compassion that he
taught.
Yes,
Jesus cared for the poor and the downtrodden, but the thrust of his message
was for the policy makers in the Establishment. That is why they killed
him. Much of what is good in society is the result of individuals living
out their faith, but much of what is evil in society is the direct result
of the churches' hierarchies' refusal to walk in the footsteps of their
founders.
--We
have an economic system that has no plan to ensure that everyone has enough
to live in dignity.
--We
have what we call a "correctional system" which is really a penal
system. It punishes offenders, but has no real concept of correcting
anything or anyone.
--We
have an educational system that trains people to get jobs, but doesn't
educate them to live in a global society where sharing is the only way that
works.
--We
have an agricultural system that produces more food than is needed by the
people who have the means to buy it, but no way to convert the hungry poor
into paying consumers.
--We
have a world body - The United Nations - which is certainly not united. It
serves only as a platform for each one's national proclamations and
legitimizes undemocratic regimes which should be dismissed as pariahs.
The
only force that can bring about change on the massive scale required is the
communications media. Unfortunately it is so seriously divided and confused
about its role that it is more often part of the problem than a key to its
solution.
Everything
we have learned since we finished school - as well as much we learned while
we were in school - comes from the media. The one thing that makes humans
different from any other species on the planet is our ability to think
beyond our immediate environment and to debate abstract ideas. Whether that
is a gift from an all-powerful God or the result of evolution and natural
selection, is irrelevant.
I
personally believe in an omnipotent creator who steered evolution to bring
us to where we are today. But that shouldn't hinder the creationist or the
atheist from joining in the task of making the media the vehicle for the
salvation of the planet.
Almost
every reporter, editor, broadcaster, author or artist believes that the
media have a responsibility to steer society towards sustainable moral
values. Then why don't they do something about it? For the same reason that
the practising Christian in the pew doesn't challenge the clergy; for the
same reason that the honest accountant doesn't challenge the crooked boss.
It is fear of being victimized or ostracized by the CEO's of the
Establishment. For journalists there is the added incentive that dirt pays
better.
William
E. Porter, a retired British journalist and book publisher living in France,
has written a book called "Do Something About It". It is the
story of how he overcame his fear of ridicule and challenged his media
colleagues to make the communications industry the pioneer of a just,
honest, creative global society. The International Communications Forum,
which he founded, has been bringing media practitioners together for some
15 years now, to look at the challenges facing their industry.
Fundamental
to his plan was the more basic decision to practise what he talked about:
to admit his own failures to live up to the values he espoused and to put
right what was wrong. Honesty with oneself is the necessary first step in
remaking the world. It is the same for the clergyman, the business manager,
the farmer, the prison guard, the politician, the mother, the teenager. If
we wait for religion to do it, it won't happen. It is up to the mass media,
including the entertainment media, to make it the popular thing to do.
We
praise the investigative journalist who finds where the dirt is hidden and
exposes it; who flushes the cheats out of the back rooms and makes them be
honest about their misuse of public funds.
But
we also need investigative journalists who will find and expose the hard
working men and women who play by the rules and set honest values and high
standards for society. Stories about the hockey coach who teaches young
players good sportsmanship and fair play and stands up to the
self-important parent who wants his/her child to be the star. Or about the
schoolteacher who gets to know her/his students and helps them overcome
their problems - academic or social. The honest politician who catches the
people in his constituency who fall through the cracks in the social safety
net and gets them the jobs or the training or the welfare they need and are
entitled to.
Often
it will be the journalists themselves who will need to have the courage to
be honest with their readers, their colleagues, their supervisors and
themselves. Honest about their personal lives, their practices, their work,
their goals and their motives.
Most
media corporations have a Code of Ethics that their employees are expected
to live up to. Presumably the owners and managers are also expected to live
up to it. Finding loopholes to avoid obeying their Code seems to be more
the norm. Ethics are simply moral standards. As one Russian journalist
remarked at a meeting of the International Communications Forum, "I
always thought the Ten Commandments made a pretty good Code of Ethics."
Basic
moral standards practised on the job, in the home and in the secret
recesses of the mind. That is what will build a sustainable global society.
Moses spelled them out for the Hebrew refugees fleeing Egypt. Muhammad spelled them
out for the nomads in the Arab deserts.
Dozens
of spiritual leaders over the centuries have spelled them out for their
followers. Jesus of Nazareth encapsulated them in his Sermon on the Mount,
reinforced them with the parables he told his followers and backed them up
with the way he lived and the way he treated people.
They
can be summed up as honesty, purity of motive, forgiveness, humility and
compassion. And where better to demonstrate them than in the media that
billions of people read, watch and listen to every day.
PUBLISHERS IN THE VANGUARD OF ETHICAL
PRACTICE
"Ethics in Publishing: Are You Kidding?" was the subject
chaired by Gordon Graham, Editor of LOGOS, The Journal of the World Book
Community and an initiator of the International Communications Forum at the
Congress of the International Publishers Association in Berlin on 22nd June
2004. Introducing the subject as a "tough assignment" he said:
“Publishing is, of
course, part of the world of business, and Ethics in business is a
much-discussed subject these days. But publishing is a unique kind of
business. We traffic in ideas and this places us at the centre of the
business world, not its periphery. Reaching publishing decisions, we are
obliged to make ethical judgments about our authors, their intentions and
the substance of the man¬uscripts which are offered to us.
“Anyway, what is
ethics? It is the exercise of moral choice, the making of which may. or may
not serve the dec¬ision maker's short-term interest, and which may, or may
not, prove to have been in their long-term interest. After all, in
principle, we are all ethical - aren't we? But ethics becomes complex when
we are faced with practical decisions and seek a balance between what we
publishers delicately call commerce and culture. or, more bluntly,
self-interest and the public good.
“Copyright is the one
legal and moral question on which publishers are not only united, but
active. Is this because copyright is our life's blood or because we believe
infringe¬ments are morally wrong? Or both?
“The defence of freedom
to publish is beyond the means of the individual publisher and devolves on
our professional associations. This is the only reason why it is
approp¬riate that our topic is part of the deliberations of this congress.
Associations can be no stronger than their members. There have been notable
victories of which the publishing industry can be proud, but we should ask
ourselves to what extent our collective actions are motivated by
com¬mercial threats and to what extent by the conviction that a free and
moral publishing industry is at the heart of a democratic society. To sum
up, publishers are by definition in the vanguard of ethical practice. The
responsibility has never been greater than it is today, because the
boun¬daries between ethics and amorality have become blurred in so many
directions and many people are deeply confused. Our five-hundred-year-old role
as guardians and gatekeepers –- decision makers who, with our capital and
our consciences, determine what the public should read – is under threat as
never before.
“We can divide this
threat under three headings:
1. by governments, who are not necessarily authoritarian or oppressive.
Democratic governments do sometimes challenge the independence of
publishing and freedom of speech on al¬leged grounds of public interest.
2. by the Internet, insofar as it is used to challenge the principle of
copyright and to undermine the role of the pub¬lisher as a conscientious
intermediary between author and reader.
3. by ourselves, insofar as we subordinate the interests of authors and readers
to those of our shareholders.”
Graham concluded:
“So, if we publishers are to remain in this century responsible conduits of
knowledge and ideas, we have to be alert to, and conscious of, our ethical
responsibility. We have to demonstrate by our actions that we are a
profes¬sion as well as a business. We have to be more proactive, and less
reactive. In what looks increasingly like an age of moral decline, people
are yearning for moral leadership in which publishers are uniquely equipped
to play a part."
IF
MEDIA IS IN THE DOGHOUSE, MAYBE WE DESERVE IT
Click
below to read an editorial that appeared in the October 2002 issue of IFAJ
News, the journal of the International Federation of Agricultural
Journalists.
Hans Matthiesen is a
rado broadcaster in Dreiech-Gotzanhain,
Germany.
The article is reproduced by kind permission of Owen Roberts, the editor of
the IFAJ News.
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