Alliance Programme for
Health, Peace and Social Justice
7. Media Responsibility
While the basic law in most countries does not impose any censorship on the media, during the last few years - chiefly in the wake of radio and TV privatisation - the media have increasingly come to tow the line dictated by the interests of big company groups, above all the pharmaceutical cartel. In the case of some media, dependency on the pharmaceutical cartel is particularly apparent. Here the same people chair both executive committees and supervisory boards, ensuring the cartel direct access to hugely powerful newspapers. As was necessary in the case of the IG Farben company group in its day, these structures must be disentangled and made distinct from each other.
Broadcasts by independent radio and above all TV stations increasingly take the form of dumbed-down “comedy” formats. In their concealment of a country’s social reality and their conjuring of fantasy worlds, they directly comply with the interests of an advertising-based economy, which wastes billions on useless commodity advertising. The independent media must therefore be subject to stricter public control. In the case of both public and independent media this will ensure that they heed their social obligations as purveyors of education and information, and also exercise critical control on the power wielded by economic and political spheres. Here prime importance will be given to information relating to health prevention, and natural remedies that combat diseases without incurring side effects.
In the context of a combined public and independent media company system, public radio stations with programmes more strongly focused on the common good must be encouraged. In particular, however, smaller initiatives and units such as local newspapers, citizens’ radio projects and other basic means of communication should be promoted as “media by the people for the people”.
The so-called “new media” such as the internet must not be misused and left beyond reach of the law. In particular, child pornography and other forms of human exploitation must be prevented with the cooperation of these media.
Media which actively and knowingly oppose health education and the ending of the business with disease must be held to account before international institutions such as the International Criminal Court.