I’m always glad to see Christians getting off their backsides and doing something rather than just moaning about the state of our society and how godless it is.

Seasoned blogger, Paul Burgin, has done just that by founding the Media Ethics Society.  Paul is a Christian who regularly engages with politics  and is a member of the Christian Socialist Movement, which is the affiliated to the Labour Party.  He blogs at Mars Hill.

Paul describes the society as  a loose coalition of people who have concerns with the way certain aspects of the media behave in this country. It is not pro-Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem or partisan in any similar way.  Along with a new website, there is also a Facebook group.

In his opening post at the new Media Ethics Society website, Paul answers his own question, “Why we exist?” with this response:

“If there is ever a time to campaign hard and to work hard in whatever way each of us sees fit to create a national debate, change our media for the better and to hold them to account, and to make them realise that they are as answerable as MP’s and bankers, and the rest of society this is it!

“I hope to one day live in a society where most people make moral choices in what paper they buy
I hope to one day live in a society where our media treat people as innocent before proven guilty
I hope to one day live in a society where papers do not invade people’s privacy to the point where they might as well be a dissident in a dictatorship, and to cap it all the paper responsible pretend they are Woodward and Bernstein in their defence
I hope to one day live in a society where papers do not have moral outrage consistently paraded in their editorials, whilst consistently having page three girls or photos of attractive teenage girls receiving their examination results. Why not some average looking girls and boys as well?
I hope to one day live in a society where columnists no longer say outrageous and offensive things for the sake of attention
I hope to one day live in a society where the values of Reith outstrip the values of Northcliffe when it comes to journalism
I hope to one day live in a society where there are more Marie Colvin’s and less hacks who defend ripping apart someone’s private life for the sake of public titillation
I hope to one day live in a society where journalists, hacks, and Editors not only publicly apologise for painful and needless offence, but realise that to apologise is because you are wrong, not because you expect forgiveness, and to see where they are wrong
I hope to live in a society where some Editors are less Pharisaical and more humble
I hope to one day live in a society where whole sections of society are not demonised by some papers because they are different to many of their readers’
I hope to live in a society where some journos realise that their attitudes and behaviour put people like me off becoming a regular tabloid journalist for life
I hope to live in a society where tabloids realise they can be like the Daily Mirror in the 1970s and mix light entertainment with good investigative copy that educates, entertains, and informs, not titilates, divides, and causes fear, anger, and resentment
I look forward to the day when I feel there has been enough change in me where I can show more humility regarding the things I detest and loathe within the media”

The Media Ethics Society site is very much in its infancy, but if you’ve been paying close attention to the Leveson inquiry or have an interest in the way the   media and press operate, then I suggest you head over and take a look.

Categories: Media, Morals & ethics

Tags: Christian, Christian Socialist Movement, ethics, Leveson Inquiry, media, Media Ethics Society, newspapers, Paul Burgin, press