The ICF Leads London Media Discussion

ICF Mission Statement

The International Communications Forum (ICF), founded in 1991, recognizes that the media is one of the world’s most powerful forces for good or ill. The media does not just report and reflect society but often shapes its direction. The ICF aims to:

strengthen public confidence in the media;
promote the bonds of trust within democratic societies;
inspire a commitment to service on the part of those who work in the media.

The ICF is committed to media ethics and the freedoms of expression and information. These need to be accompanied by a high sense of responsibility and respect for every audience. The ICF expects of media practitioners the same standards of integrity that they wish to see in all public servants. Through conferences and training programmes, ICF demonstrates its ethos on the basis of people-to-people and conscience-to-conscience dialogue.

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London, April 2006

“The British Media - a Force for Good?” was the subject of a Greencoat Forum event at the Initiatives of Change offices in London on 4th April, 2006. It was presented by an ICF Panel consisting of Dr. Frances Pinter, an international book publisher, Simon Cohen, London journalist, and Bill Porter, the ICF’s Founder President.

Frances spoke of the media’s unhappy influence in undermining trust between leaders and the public, often citing John Lloyd of the FINANCIAL TIMES from his latest book, WHAT THE MEDIA ARE DOING TO OUR POLITICS. However, she reminded us all that the basic standards achieved in Britain are high and continue to stand as beacons for many around the world. She affirmed that good could be done through providing access to basic learning materials. She herself had the good fortune to see the positive effect that she had made through the work of THE OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE in publishing translations of major books that had been denied to East Europe and Russia during the long years of Soviet domination, and of bringing new textbooks in history and sociology throughout the Russian school system - a major contribution by a British publisher to bring freedom of information and expression to the former Communist part of the world.

Simon Cohen emphasised the practice of misinformation in some sections of the British print media, often shown by the discrepancy of headlines in relation to the full text of a report. As a young journalist he had begun to get the impression that the British media was not a force for good, but felt that there had been some positive signs for the better and cited the supportive treatment given to Rajmohan Gandhi’s recent tour of the UK, enabling his thinking to reach millions through TV, radio and the press.

Bill Porter gave an initial survey of the statistics of the British media outreach with its world-beating, mass-circulation dailies, more than 100,000 hours of TV programmes per year and radio reaching 90 per cent of the population. In his own statement he pointed out that journalists were not paid to solve political and social problems. That politicians and diplomats were paid to do that, but that their failure to do so provided most of the copy for the reporting and analysis of the media. Nevertheless he felt that the media played a significant role in creating the behavioural climate which makes problems more difficult or more easy to solve. He concluded, We are asking the question, Is the British Media a Force for Good?, The answer, of course, is ‘Yes, in parts and sometimes.’ The real issue is how to make it in more parts and at more times.

There was a lively discussion and question time after the speaking, including a defence of the positive quality of the regional press and a condemnation of a national daily, which, fortunately for the speaker, did not have one of its many lawyers present. There were also appeals from persons from Africa and Asia that we in Britain would encourage the development of free and constructive media in their regions. More copies of Bill’s book, Do Something About It, were sold when many of the audience stayed to talk afterwards.

04/04/2006