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The Fourth Estate:
David Puttnam: Does the media have a "duty of care"?
David Puttnam spent thirty years as an independent producer of award-winning films, including The Mission, The Killing Fields, Local Hero, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Memphis Belle. His films have won ten Oscars, 25 Baftas and the Palme D'Or at Cannes.
Among many talents ... film maker. Midnight Express (1978), The Killing Fields (1984) and The Mission (1986)
From the talk -> quoting Marcus Aurelius ...
If it is not true don't say it. If it is not right don't do it.
I'd like to start, if I may, with the story of the Paisley snail. ...
See the video/story - you must be hooked by now!
... Last year, the Hansard Society, a nonpartisan charity which seeks to strengthen parliamentary democracy and encourage greater public involvement in politics published, alongside their annual audit of political engagement, an additional section devoted entirely to politics and the media. Here are a couple of rather depressing observations from that survey. Tabloid newspapers do not appear to advance the political citizenship of their readers, relative even to those who read no newspapers whatsoever. Tabloid-only readers are twice as likely to agree with a negative view of politics than readers of no newspapers. They're not just less politically engaged. They are consuming media that reinforces their negative evaluation of politics, thereby contributing to a fatalistic and cynical attitude to democracy and their own role within it. Little wonder that the report concluded that in this respect, the press, particularly the tabloids, appear not to be living up to the importance of their role in our democracy. ...
...But most of us, I think, accept some small role for the state to enforce a duty of care, and the key word here is reasonable. Judges must ask, did they take reasonable care and could they have reasonably foreseen the consequences of their actions? Far from signifying overbearing state power, it's that small common sense test of reasonableness that I'd like us to apply to those in the media who, after all, set the tone and the content for much of our democratic discourse. ...
...Democracy, well-led and well-informed, can achieve very great things, but there's a precondition. We have to trust that those making those decisions are acting in the best interest not of themselves but of the whole of the people. We need factually-based options, clearly laid out, not those of a few powerful and potentially manipulative corporations pursuing their own frequently narrow agendas, but accurate, unprejudiced information with which to make our own judgments. If we want to provide decent, fulfilling lives for our children and our children's children, we need to exercise to the very greatest degree possible that duty of care for a vibrant, and hopefully a lasting, democracy. ...
#Trump ? #TED -David #Puttnam: Does the #media have a " #DutyOfCare "? #FourthEstate #Tabloid #Journalist - WI 1848 Forward
#Trump ? WI 1848 Forward: #TED -David #Puttnam: Does the #media have a " #DutyOfCare "? #FourthEstate #Journalist
