Weighing the media on the scale of values: a think-tank of media professionals aims to work `from conscience to conscience'.

When British publisher William Porter visited Caux in 1990 he had no inkling that it would lead him to create a worldwide network of people in the communications industry concerned about media values. But ever since, Porter, a former chairman of the law panel of the British Publishers Association, has been the locomotive and engine driver of the International Communications Forum--an informal think-tank of media professionals who aim to address the balance between freedom and responsibility in the media.

On that first visit to Caux, Porter was concerned about the impact of the media on the world's cultural and moral climate. `If you are thinking that way, why don't you do something about it?' his wife told him. That, says Porter, was the spur he needed. Four weeks later his wife died, but Porter has remained true to her challenge. Since then, ICF has held forums and meetings from Nizhny Novgorod to Chicago, from Budapest to Toronto, in Poland, France, Switzerland, Scotland and India, often at the invitation of local professional media bodies.

This summer ICF organized a World Media Forum in Caux, the ninth in the series which has so far involved 1,200 media people.

ICF does not pass resolutions or publish recommendations. Rather, Porter sees its influence as working `from conscience to conscience' through men and women who apply values in their own lives `and so, naturally, transmit them through their work'.

It is not easy to quantify the effect of such an approach. But Porter admits that, as a former journalist and publisher (he set up the British arm of a multinational publishing group), he was never `assailed by ethical considerations. Sometimes I was under pressure to do wrong: to overlook false accounts, to pass dishonest advertising, to drink too much, to respond to immoral opportunities, to support policies that I knew to be unfair. Multiply me by thousands of senior creators and administrators and you have a good explanation of the harmful effect of the media on society.'

Porter insists it is not the destiny of the media to contribute to the `decline of civilization' but rather to be `a force for reconciliation and progress'--the theme of this summer's forum.

Addressing 600 people at a main session of the Caux conference, the BBC TV news presenter Martyn Lewis called for the media to present `a fairer, more realistic mirror image of the world we live in'. This would require a shift in the news agenda `so that explaining and analysing mankind's achievements becomes just as important as chronicling its failures'. It was not a question of journalists artificially creating positive stories but weighing those that naturally occurred on the same scales as negative stories. The determining factor for publishing a story should be the extent to which it had the potential to shape or change society or the world.

He attacked `lazy' journalism that perpetuated negative stereotypes. There was a mass exodus of journalists from Northern Ireland, for instance, after the IRA called its ceasefire. He quoted one journalist as saying, `You can photograph violence but you can't photograph peace.' But Lewis believed there was a move towards a more balanced journalism as more and more journalists were concluding there was a need for change. `It could become a flood,' he said, but this would require the mandate of editors and proprietors.

Lewis offered four `laws' for a more balanced news reporting: report negative stories at least partly through the eyes of those who are seeking solutions; don't automatically dismiss stories of success and achievement as the products of public relations teams; consider success to be as worthy of analysis as failure; and editors should encourage young journalists to write up positive stories in as interesting a way as negative ones.

Geoffrey Lean, environment correspondent Britain's Independent on Sunday and doyen of British environmental journalists, said that Lewis was calling for an approach which he and his colleagues had been working at for years. He admitted that `environmentalism started off with a lot of bad news stories'. But at least a third of each of his major articles aimed to express possible solutions to environmental problems. `If you scare, alarm or anger your readership people stop buying you,' he said. `Gloom is very disempowering. Optimism is the only operating philosophy.'

Zaki Badawi, Principal of the Muslim College in London and a popular broadcaster, was particularly concerned about the distorted picture of Islam portrayed by the media. Fringe communities within Islam were too easily reported as if they were the mainstream. TV programmes such as Death of a Princess wrongly confused state politics with Islam. `Misrepresentation of Islam does not only harm Muslims,' he said, `it also harms those who receive wrong information' by keeping them ignorant.

He commended a series of articles by British journalist Graham Turner, sitting next to him at the forum, which had concluded that the West had much to learn from the family and faith values of Muslim communities.

Polish journalist Jan Pieklo from Krakow, who has reported from Sarajevo on the Balkan conflict, urged journalists to avoid `media cliches which promote simplifications and generalizations' about ethnic minorities. Journalists in Eastern and Central Europe faced a new problem since the collapse of the Soviet monolith: `how to report on national minorities without harming bilateral relations' between countries. Journalists from five countries had recently met in Auschwitz to discuss ways of combatting national hatred and racism. They had issued a nine-point declaration on the reporting of ethnic minorities. Media people, he said, could encourage the young to be `tolerant towards different cultures and religions. These differences and riches should be for the benefit of the entire world.'

Russia's new openness had led to a `landslide of news about corruption', said Natalia Skvortzova, chair of the journalists' union in Nizhny Novgorod. Unfortunately, this had `emptied the souls of people and destroyed their hopes of anything better'. Now, she believed, Russian journalists were realizing they also needed to `evoke confidence in people by emphasizing positive changes'. Freedom of opinion was okay. But journalists could not be free from moral norms, she said.

On matters of personal conscience, William Porter admitted that he had recently found himself `slipping into deceit to pay a large bill in cash in order to evade tax. It was only when I asked myself if I had the gall to do this and then talk to the media about moral values that I turned my back on it.'

`Freedom of the spirit is the most important kind of freedom,' commented Graham Turner, feature writer for Britain's Daily Mail. `If you don't have that you can forget the rest.' (See page 28.)

John Farquharson, former deputy editor of The Canberra Times, announced that the next ICF would be held in Sydney at the end of October.