It's a great pleasure to welcome you to The Washington Times. I hope you've had a very interesting and useful visit here in the United States.

I'd like to talk briefly today about the media's role in a democracy and its current situation. A free media, or originally a free press, has always played a central role in American democracy. This is partly a result of history. In the struggle in England and France against the power of the monarchy and in the great movement for independence in America in the 18 th Century, the press played a central role in the expansion of freedom.

As a result, the founders of America understood that American democracy had to have a free press at its center in order to sustain itself. So, Thomas Jefferson, who was the drafter of the Declaration of Independence and the third American president, said;

“Our liberty can only be guarded by the freedom of the press. That freedom cannot be limited without the danger of losing liberty.”

James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, in speaking about the importance of having popular information available said;

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. And the people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives.”

For Madison, in other words, knowledge came from the free press. The role that the press was accorded in early America was so important that the media and the press have come to be known as the fourth estate. In the American Constitution you have three branches of government that are mentioned in the Constitution. These are the Executive -- that is the President; the Legislature -- namely the Congress; and the Judiciary -- the courts and ultimately the Supreme Court. Although the media is not a formal part of the Constitution, it is considered to be so important that it is called the fourth estate, in addition to the three formal parts of the Constitution. The importance of a free press is enshrined in American law and in the American Constitution. The First Amendment to the Constitution lists a number of freedoms that American citizens must enjoy and that cannot be limited. Freedom of the press is one of those central freedoms.

As a result, in American democracy there is always great hesitancy, both in attitude and in law, to try to limit any freedom of the press. For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote;

“It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press that as yet, we've found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood.”

In other words, Jefferson thought that in the democratic system distinguishing between what is right and what is wrong in the press should be left to public opinion and public judgment. The law and the magistrate should not interfere in what people can and cannot read.

Let me read a quotation from another political leader which represents a very different tradition and understanding of the role of the press in society: Hu Yaobang, Chairman of the Chinese Communist party, said in 1985;

“I think it can be said that the party's journalism is the party's mouthpiece and the mouthpiece of the people themselves. Everybody will naturally and necessarily hold the same opinions on the basic issues and it would be unnatural to obstinately express different views.”

This is a completely different and opposite understanding of the role of media in society from the understanding within a democracy. Within a democracy, the idea is to allow many views to be expressed and then allow people to decide which is right, which makes the most sense.

Let me summarize the view of the role of the media in a democracy and why it is important. First, the health of the democratic political system depends upon efficient, accurate and complete transmission of social, political and cultural information in society. Second, the media are the channels of this information and because of that they should act in the public interest. If they do that, then citizens will be able to take part in an informed manner in debates about public policy.

That is the basic concept and understanding of the role that media plays in a democracy. As you will see, it means that media is meant to fulfill some public trust and carry out some public responsibility.

In the second part of my presentation I want to look at the actual state of the media in America today and consider whether it is able to carry out its public trust and responsibility. There are three things at the present time that are challenging the ability of American media to fulfill the role of a public trust. The first is the loss of public confidence, the second is commercial pressures, (in a free market society, the media have to make a living in the market place) and the third is development in technology that is changing the character of the media.

First is the loss of public confidence. Since 1985, people have grown to trust media less. So, between 1985 and 2002, when Americans were asked,

“Do you think news organizations are highly professional?”

The numbers declined from 72% in 1985, to 49% in 2002. When asked,

“Do you think news organizations are moral?”

In 1985, 54% said yes, and in 2002, only 39%. Finally, people were asked,

“Do you think news organizations try to cover their mistakes?”

In 1985, only 13% thought they tried to cover their mistakes but in 2002, 67%, or two-thirds thought they tried to cover their mistakes. That is the first challenge. More Americans lack confidence that American media is fulfilling its public responsibility and is reliable.

The second point that I mentioned is commercial pressure, and this problem comes in two forms. One is that media executives want to offer to the public whatever sells. For example in TV there is more emphasis on entertainment shows. We have the phenomenon known as “infotainment,” that is supposed to be information but is often about some sensational crime or scandal. As a result of this, there is less emphasis on the sort of news that would be important for creating informed citizens. So the amount of foreign news coverage in the United States has declined significantly in the past two or three decades.

The second aspect of commercial pressure is that more and more news organizations are now owned by bigger companies who are not only operating in the news area. As a result, this puts pressure on media companies not only to make some profit, but to make a high level of profit. And if they don't make that profit then those companies could be sold or changed or costs cut. So, for example, of the three major American TV networks, ABC is owned by the Disney Corporation, NBC is owned by General Electric, and CBS is owned by Viacom. As a result, there is a serious question about the real independence of these news operations.

In 2006, the company Knight Ridder, which owned a chain of newspapers across the country, sold those newspapers. Almost all of those newspapers were profitable, but the profit was not large enough to satisfy the shareholders so they sold them. We can see that everywhere there is a pressure on news media to meet business goals that have nothing to do with news gathering or informing the public. In the course of last year, we've seen two rounds of cuts in the number of journalists working at the Los Angeles Times, for example. This is all in order to meet corporate profit goals.

The result of this is that there are less journalists actually gathering original news information. We live in a society where everybody wants information through the internet, but there are fewer journalists actually doing the original news gathering. This also is a major challenge for the concept of how media should support democracy.

The last point that I want to talk about is technological change. You are all familiar with the internet. Today more and more people, and most especially young people, are getting their news from the internet rather than from television or newspapers. Over the past five years, we've seen a gradual decline in circulation of print newspapers. At many of those print newspapers that has led to cost savings by the cutting of editorial staff. Some people ask, “Is this the death of print journalism?” I think that is premature. I think newspapers will be with us for a long time, but I think also we will see the gradual decline in the number of people who go to newspapers as their first source of news.

In the world of television, we've seen a similar diversification of information and entertainment sources through cable television. Before in America there were three major channels. Now if you have satellite TV, you can watch 500 channels and pick the material you want.

So I think these three trends – loss of public support, commercial pressures and the information technology revolution – are all challenging the ability of traditional print and TV media to play the role of guardian of the public trust in a democracy. What the future will bring I don't know and I don't think anybody knows. I think what we can guarantee is that we're going to undergo a couple of decades of extensive change in information media and technology. What will come out at the end, I think it is too early to say.

There are positive possibilities and there are dangers. Some argue that the internet and the rise of blogs and citizen journalism are good for freedom of information and for democracy because citizens can access different sources of information that they can then evaluate for themselves. Others counter that you do not know where all this information on the internet comes from. You do not know whether or not it is reliable, so how do you decide what to believe. That was always the traditional media role of guarantor of reliability and checker of accuracy. Can new media prosper without the presence of that gatekeeper role? Only time will tell.

I'll leave you with just one thought that Mrs. Duggan touched on in her presentation. When Reverend Moon established the World Media Association, The Washington Times and other media organizations, he strongly believed in the need for media that have as their central goal the fulfillment of a public trust and a public responsibility. For a harmonious and a free society to flourish, media has to serve as the responsible educator of citizens about important aspects of their society and world that are beyond their direct experience. In other words, we need a media that serves as the conscience of society. And with that thought, I thank you very much for your attention and I hope you enjoy the rest of your visit. Thank you.