From "The More You Watch The Less You Know" (Seven Stories Press l997), by Danny Schechter
Two documents from historic and successful struggles for democracy have
helped me frame my thinking on media independence. One was our own
Declaration of Independence, the seminal statement of the American
Revolution that gave the grievances of a colonized people eloquent
expression. The other, from the modern era, was South Africa's Freedom
Charter, adopted at a Congress of the People in l955, a clarion call
for justice that outlined a vision and the principles for a
post-apartheid society. Both documents defined in their times and lands
what was wrong and pointed to what needed doing.
So, with a little creative borrowing, I drafted such a document for
adoption at the 1996 Congress of Media and Democracy, which appeared in
the Congress's final report. I include it here with no pretensions to
literary originality, as a working draft for readers to react to,
revise, and, hopefully, in part or in its entirety, to put to use.
We declare before our country and the world that the giant media
combines who put profit before the public interest do not speak for us.
We proclaim this democratic media charter and pledge ourselves to work
tirelessly until its goals have been achieved. We urge all Americans of
good will, and people throughout the world who want to participate in a
new democratic information order to join with us.
We call upon our colleagues, readers, editors, and audiences to inform
themselves and the American people about the dangers posed by the
concentration of media power in fewer and fewer hands. We urge that
more air time and news stories be devoted to a critical examination of
the relationship between media monopolies and the threat they pose to
the spirit and functioning of the first amendment. We cannot have a
meaningful democracy unless our media institutions provide reportage,
in-depth programming and coverage that reflects a more diverse range of
sources and opinions.
We urge our elected representatives to challenge excessive and
concentrated media power because it poses a threat to the future of
democracy.
We call for an end to all legislation that promotes censorship and
corporate practices that lead to self-censorship. We need government to
regulate media monopolies in the public interest and to keep our news
media and new electronic information highway open and free of the undue
and repressive influence of government bureaucrats, excessive
corporate branding, and one-note political agendas.
We urge non-governmental groups, advocacy organizations, labor unions,
community groups, and all environmental and social justice
organizations to make common cause with us in fighting to create more
points of access and accountability in our media system; we urge all
citizens to interact more with the media in their own communities by
monitoring performance, writing letters, calling talk shows, and
meeting editors and radio and TV executives.
We are against techno-solutions like the V Chip-and call instead for a
"D Chip," a commitment to use media to promote the values of democracy.
We want more than ritualized, look-alike and think-alike coverage of
elections. We want more coverage of citizen participation in civil
society, political movements, non-governmental organizations, and
community groups. We share the concerns of many parents with the
overload of shows that glamorize violence and cheapen sex.
We demand that media institutions in our society increase the
participation of minorities and women in all positions in their
organizations. Our newsrooms have to stop being among the most
segregated institutions in our country. Racism inside the media
contributes to the toleration of racism in the culture at large. We
urge news organizations to openly audit their performance in this
regard and publicize the results.
We further pledge to join and support efforts to stop attacks on labor
unions in our media institutions. Media workers must be guaranteed the
right to collective bargaining, and to belong to unions if they so
choose.
We call on media companies to reduce the growing internal gap between
salaries at the top and salaries at the bottom. Fairness and equity in
the media workplace is essential.
We call upon media institutions to explore the values and practices of
"public journalism" so that the media can begin to better serve the
needs of the people. We urge them to adopt codes of conduct that
rebuild their credibility in the eyes of a cynical public which no
longer trusts the media. We call upon the media to promote tolerance
and equality in American life.
We call upon U.S.-based multi-national media companies who already
generate more than half of their revenues outside the United States to
act responsibly in trading with the nations of the world. Many already
resent the dumping of American programming, however popular it may be
in the short run. Other countries deserve a chance to sell as well as
buy, to have their voices and concerns heard too. They have the means
of production but lack the means of distribution. We oppose the growth
of a new "electronic colonialism." We want more global sharing of
cultures and viewpoints.
We call upon the governments of the world to respect the rights of
journalists-who are in danger in many countries-and the right of the
people to read and see their reports.
We call for more public funding of the arts and humanities, including
documentary programming. We want America to allocate as much money
proportionately to support the arts and humanities as countries like
Canada, Germany, and England do. We have the money, let us find the
will.
We want to put the public back into public broadcasting and create
mechanisms for accountability that bring PBS back to its original
mandate to provide programming not available on the commercial
spectrum. We want to stop the give-away of the public airwaves and the
broadcast spectrum itself. The income from spectrum sales should be set
aside for public media. The corporate media sector should be taxed to
help subsidize public media so that the notion of the "free marketplace
of ideas" has meaning once again. Private companies can lease the
airwaves, not own them.
We pledge ourselves to working cooperatively and collaboratively to
help bring the media more in line with the values of democracy.
We ask all who share our goals to embrace this declaration and agree to
work on behalf of its tenets so that the principles of freedom of the
press, which have given America such a distinctive place among nations,
will not be compromised and denied because a handful of huge companies
and media moguls are in a position to dictate what our country sees,
hears, reads and, ultimately, thinks.
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