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DECLARATION ON THE ESSENTIAL ETHIC OF THE MEDIA
We live in critical times: our future, and the future of coming generations, is in our hands. The difference between a sustainable world with sufficient resources for everyone, and an inequitable world where ever more people are pressed into poverty while an affluent minority is surrounded by a rising tide of resentment, is made by choices we make today.
Recent protests against the current one-sided forms of globalization show that people are becoming aware of the inequities and threats and want to do something about them. Opinion surveys are producing impressive evidence that a new mindset is evolving in millions of people, with readiness to take an active part in the creation of a more just and sustainable society. The will to act would now be there, provided that information on the possibilities for effective action would be there as well. But this kind of information is sporadic and incomplete. The mass media prefers the sensationalistic aspects of political and social crises, protests and violence, ecological catastrophes, and the doings of the rich and famous. A reliable global flow of information on the dangers and opportunities that confront the human community is still lacking.
The world media has become one of the most powerful actors on the contemporary scene, and its responsibility must now match its power. In the democratic parts of the world the media lays claim to working unfettered by political, social, and cultural control and constraint. Such freedom is essential, and must be guaranteed. But if the media is not to be governed by anything other than its conscience, then its conscience must govern it, and govern it responsibly, so as to serve the public's as well as its own interests.
Responsible media is impartial and honest, neither bought by money nor cowed by threat. Impartiality and honesty make up the traditional aspect of media responsibility, and this aspect is as important as ever. But in these critical times media responsibility goes beyond the traditional dimensions: it extends to what the media communicates, in addition to how it communicates. It is just as irresponsible to communicate solely or even primarily content that excites and sells as to disseminate preconceived ideas for living and acting. In addition to reporting on current events and providing quality entertainment, it is the responsibility of the media to provide impartial in-depth information on local and global problems, on the technologies and policies that address those problems, and on the trends that emerge in new ways of living and acting. Such information may be good news or bad, but it is always relevant to the lives and prospects of the people who receive it.
The importance of conveying humanly and socially relevant information overrides considerations of short-term profit and popular appeal. Evidently, not everything that addresses the genuine interests of the public is as yet appreciated by that public; people's consciousness is evolving, but it still has a long way to grow. At the same time information truly relevant to people's lives and concerns evolves their consciousness and ensures the growth of its own popularity.
The Club of Budapest calls the consciousness needed to create a sustainable and equitable world planetary consciousness, and the ethic of those who have evolved a planetary consciousness planetary ethic. The planetary ethic is to live and act in a way that all people can live on this planet-to live with tolerance and appreciation of diversity, understanding and compassion for people less fortunate than oneself, and awareness of the limits of sustainability in nature and society. This ethic is urgently needed, for in a globally connected but locally diverse world we either evolve together, or we face catastrophe together.
When informed of the true nature of the situation in which they and their fellow humans find themselves, most people will opt to evolve together. As Thomas Jefferson said, if we believe the people are not sufficiently informed to take wise decisions on their own, we must inform them rather than take the power from their hands. In a democratic world disseminating relevant and honest information is the best way to enable people to take wise decisions of their own-the way to enable them to choose a path toward a more equitable and sustainable world. The essential planetary ethic of the media is to provide the necessary flow of relevant, impartial, and honest information.
Ervin Laszlo
For the Club of Budapest
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