Media and public speech
What is owed to the truth in public?
Within modern society the communications media play a major role in information, cultural promotion, and formation. This role is increasing, as a result of technological progress, the extent and diversity of the news transmitted, and the influence exercised on public opinion.
The information provided by the media is at the service of the common good. Cf. IM 11. Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice, and solidarity:
The proper exercise of this right demands that the content of the communication be true and - within the limits set by justice and charity - complete. Further, it should be communicated honestly and properly. This means that in the gathering and in the publication of news, the moral law and the legitimate rights and dignity of man should be upheld. IM 5 # 2.
"It is necessary that all members of society meet the demands of justice and charity in this domain. They should help, through the means of social communication, in the formation and diffusion of sound public opinion." IM 8. Solidarity is a consequence of genuine and right communication and the free circulation of ideas that further knowledge and respect for others.
The means of social communication (especially the mass media) can give rise to a certain passivity among users, making them less than vigilant consumers of what is said or shown. Users should practice moderation and discipline in their approach to the mass media. They will want to form enlightened and correct consciences the more easily to resist unwholesome influences.
By the very nature of their profession, journalists have an obligation to serve the truth and not offend against charity in disseminating information. They should strive to respect, with equal care, the nature of the facts and the limits of critical judgment concerning individuals. They should not stoop to defamation.
"Civil authorities have particular responsibilities in this field because of the common good.... It is for the civil authority ... to defend and safeguard a true and just freedom of information." IM 12. By promulgating laws and overseeing their application, public authorities should ensure that "public morality and social progress are not gravely endangered" through misuse of the media. IM 12 # 2. Civil authorities should punish any violation of the rights of individuals to their reputation and privacy. They should give timely and reliable reports concerning the general good or respond to the well-founded concerns of the people. Nothing can justify recourse to disinformation for manipulating public opinion through the media. Interventions by public authority should avoid injuring the freedom of individuals or groups.
Moral judgment must condemn the plague of totalitarian states which systematically falsify the truth, exercise political control of opinion through the media, manipulate defendants and witnesses at public trials, and imagine that they secure their tyranny by strangling and repressing everything they consider "thought crimes."
Information is among the principal instruments of democratic participation. Participation without an understanding of the situation of the political community, the facts and the proposed solutions to problems is unthinkable. It is necessary to guarantee a real pluralism in this delicate area of social life, ensuring that there are many forms and instruments of information and communications. It is likewise necessary to facilitate conditions of equality in the possession and use of these instruments by means of appropriate laws. Among the obstacles that hinder the full exercise of the right to objectivity in information, Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 55 (1963) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1963), 260. special attention must be given to the phenomenon of the news media being controlled by just a few people or groups. This has dangerous effects for the entire democratic system when this phenomenon is accompanied by ever closer ties between governmental activity and the financial and information establishments.
The media must be used to build up and sustain the human community in its different sectors: economic, political, cultural, educational and religious. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Inter Mirifica, 3: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 56 (1964) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1964), 146; Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, 45: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 68 (1976) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1976), 35-36; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio, 37: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 282-286; Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Communio et Progressio, 126-134: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 63 (1971) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1971), 638-640; Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Aetatis Novae, 11: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 84 (1992) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1992), 455-456; Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Advertising (22 February 1997), 4-8: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 16 April 1997, pp. I-II. “The information provided by the media is at the service of the common good. Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice and solidarity”. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2494; cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Inter Mirifica, 11: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 56 (1964) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1964), 148-149. The essential question is whether the current information system is contributing to the betterment of the human person; that is, does it make people more spiritually mature, more aware of the dignity of their humanity, more responsible or more open to others, in particular to the neediest and the weakest. A further aspect of great importance is the requisite that new technologies respect legitimate cultural differences.
In the world of the media the intrinsic difficulties of communications are often exacerbated by ideology, the desire for profit and political control, rivalry and conflicts between groups, and other social evils. Moral values and principles apply also to the media. “The ethical dimension relates not just to the content of communication (the message) and the process of communication (how the communicating is done) but to fundamental structural and systemic issues, often involving large questions of policy bearing upon the distribution of sophisticated technology and product (who shall be information rich and who shall be information poor?)”. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications (4 June 2000), 20, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, p. 22. In all three areas — the message, the process and structural issues — one fundamental moral principle always applies: the human person and the human community are the end and measure of the use of the media. A second principle is complementary to the first: the good of human beings cannot be attained independently of the common good of the community to which they belong. Cf. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications (4 June 2000), 22, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, pp. 23-25. It is necessary that citizens participate in the decision-making process concerning media policies. This participation, which is to be public, has to be genuinely representative and not skewed in favour of special interest groups when the media are a money-making venture. Cf. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications (4 June 2000), 24, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, pp. 26-28.