The Media in a World in Crisis-
Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

A talk by Bernard Margueritte on 'The Media in a World in Crisis- Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?'

We are all, in Europe, in the United States, in the world, experiencing a profound crisis. This is by no means a financial or even economic crisis only. It is a much more fundamental crisis, a crisis of values, indeed a crisis of civilization. We can and should try to improve this or that, but the odds are we will not make significant progress as long as we will live in a sick civilization, experiencing a spleen not “fin de siècle” but “début de siècle”.

If we don’t know where to go, if we have lost vision, enthusiasm, dynamism, if for example Europe- once home of humanism- is drifting away in a values-less world, we, people in the media, have to take for it a huge responsibility. Time has come for us to make a serious act of contrition, if we want to find the ways for a renewal. Indeed we have stopped long ago to enlighten and serve the citizen, what used to be our fundamental mission.

We need, time and again, to have a clear consciousness of the problems we are encountering and we need to make the owners of the media, the decision-makers and the public at large aware of the situation of the media. But the most important is that we have to do that because everyone must be aware that without honest media, dedicated to serve the public, conscious of their mission, there is simply no hope for the future of our civilization and for the world. This is the crucial point, the core of the matter. Media matters. We have to understand and explain that from what the media will be depends the future of our world. Nothing less.

Download the full talk here in PDF