On behalf of Tiempos del Mundo, I want to welcome you to this forum. I want to thank Michael Marshall of UPI and the World Media Association for this opportunity, and I want to especially thank Mr. Douglas D.M. Joo for allowing us to get together to enjoy this good fellowship and to reflect on what we do in the world we live in.

If I did my numbers right, 10 years ago on Thursday, the Chapultepec Declaration was signed in Mexico. In essence, this document highlights the need of free speech and freedom of expression, particularly in the context of a Latin America approaching a new millennium that already has arrived.

Also on the 23rd of this month but 16 years ago, Rev. Sun Myung Moon addressed guests of the 10th World Media Conference in Washington, D.C. On that occasion, Rev. Moon said that “the first responsibility of a human being is to exercise freedom to preserve our God-given value.” But most important, he also reminded us all that in order to do this, “we must live in accord with basic moral principles given by God.”

Rev. Moon recognized the power of the media because, he said, “In a world of conflict, the media play a large role in determining whether we live in peace or war.”

Speaking on the concept of “A Moral Media,” Rev. Moon also said “the media must stand at the very forefront in the defense of human dignity and freedom, and the crusade against all forms of injustice.” The media, he said, must become “the conscience of society.”

We have gathered here today because I believe and hope that we share common values and aspirations. Even if we don’t, the importance lies in the opening of forums like this. The thing is, some of us sometimes need to just stop altogether whatever it is that we are doing and be reminded of what matters most: freedom and peace and, with that, truth, family and faith.

The world is changing, and it is doing it fast. There are plenty of examples of this change for better and more just governments and societies. But for this change to take root, governments and societies need checks and balances. And here, media comes to mind, doesn’t it?

A free, responsible media is not a luxury. It is a right. But a moral media is not a luxury or a right. It is a necessity.

Democracy in Latin America is flourishing despite deep corruption, lack of adequate levels of transparency and disclosure and attempts to curtail journalistic freedom.
Here we have a fine example of how fast change is reshaping the political and social climate.

“We, the people” is taking shape in Latin America as more and more players in the local and global society serve as principals and agents for those necessary checks and balances in democracies across our hemisphere. The same goes on here at home.

I just came from a seven-day trip to El Salvador. I might be wrong, but judging by what I saw there, it seems to me that this little country is turning into a regional model of what freedom does when put to the test. Twelve years of civil war, two earthquakes and a hurricane have not managed to bend the will and determination of Salvadorans to overcome the burdens of hatred, class, poverty, family disintegration and despair.

There is still a great deal of work to be done in that country. However, the road less traveled is, sometimes, the road best suited for the Hummer of democracy and freedom. Think for a moment of 9/11 and the resolve that surfaced out of it.

In record time as well, Spain went from 40 years of General Francisco Franco to the building of a vibrant and solid Western democracy.

Instead of repeatedly having to look at this time from far away and with envy to what happened in the Spanish transition or elsewhere, Latin America now has its own examples and role models to follow. The media has played an essential role as an agent of this change.

I read somewhere that in a democracy, disclosure reports are to politics what financial statements are to businesses. But even so, as we all know, disclosure and statements are not to be taken at face value.

We have to really open our eyes and read between the lines because just a petty burglary indeed can hide a major journalistic jewel.

Silvio Waisbord, a professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Media at Rutgers University in New Jersey, writes that “the performance of the press during Watergate was held as the mirror that reflected the best that journalism could offer to democracy: holding power accountable.”

Asked about the media and democracy in Latin America, a colleague here in Washington said that it has only been since 1980 that freedom started to take shape in newsrooms across the continent. Before, there were many limits and grave consequences should someone attempt to talk about certain untouchable institutions, such as the church or the military.

A victory for the Latin American media, my friend said, has been to detach more and more from political power, becoming more independent. But he also said that the big battle ahead for the media is to also detach from economic power. In both cases, he pointed out, the underlying risk for editors and influential media conglomerates in Latin America is to believe that they too are now untouchable. Case in point, my friend tells me that it is a major risk for anyone in their countries to speak against, say, Televisa in Mexico, O Globo in Brazil or Clarin in Argentina.

It all seems to round the circle when we keep in mind Rev. Moon’s prudent observation that, in order to exercise freedom, we journalists must also become free and moral to practice what we preach and preach what we practice. I believe we have to do that every day, inside our newsrooms, and out there too, at the grocery store, the gas station, while driving and, particularly, in the intimacy of family and the safety of our homes.

Once this is obtained, wisdom will grant news outlets the authoritative muscle they need to truly help make this a much better, just and peaceful world.

Insight magazine comes to mind when thinking about journalists exercising freedom of the press. In its February 3 edition, Managing Editor Paul M. Rodriguez scored a major goal by opening his magazine that week with a story about the flu epidemic in the United States. However, the way Insight did it was not by reporting on what health officials were saying about it. Anyone can have access to that easy way out. Instead, what investigative reporter Kelly Patricia O’Meara did was to precisely inform the reader about “What they are not telling us about the flu.” And with that, the reader was well served. Thus was the truth.

The bottom line is that freedom is not free. It takes courage to seek and humility to practice.

Within organizations such as ours, personal and corporate courage is often inspired by the right leadership and always, always, by God’s loving grace.

Talking about leadership and in closing, I would like to mention just five words that President George W. Bush pronounced at the beginning of his first term in office. These five words I like very much indeed: “the bigotry of low expectations.”

Shouldn’t our aim as journalists be to raise our own standards, both personal and professional, so that we can be more prepared and responsive as we attempt to be of service to others?

So, whether it is in building democracies or friendships or families, let us keep mindful of the things that, according to another world leader of another time, will destroy us along the way:

Politics without principle;
Pleasure without conscience;
Wealth without work;
Knowledge without character;
Business without morality;
Science without humanity; and
Worship without sacrifice.

I know this for a fact and from my own personal experience. Thank you!