To our storytellers a great commission has been laid upon you - to present uncontrolled truth. The manipulation of the presentation of reality has caused a great rift in humanity, allowing fear to motivate action and ignorance to prevent change. The power to reveal full truth, not just partial accounts, lies with the extensive reach of the media, and therefore the greatest challenge: to present all stories from all sides, without judgment.

Media is no longer just an avenue for information dissemination It has become a very powerful tool in shaping and moving world opinions and agenda. Hence, we need to harness such power to proclaim, awake and remind the entire global community on the importance of compassion in the conduct of our daily life on a regular basis.

We need a media change in what is considered newsworthy, focusing on successful initiatives in mediation, cooperation and coexistence. We need more stories about people taking risks to cross racial, ethnic, and religious lines to establish connections, fewer about predictable violence. Think of how many war heroes whose names we know, who have statues and monuments dedicated to them. Where are the monuments to the peacemakers? We need a vision of heroism that involves the challenges of a fully adult life, nurturing others and tolerating ambiguity. We need a media that educates us in the richness and contradiction of the world, not soundbites justifying yet another war.

A good media focus concerns a newly devised master hierarchy of virtues and values based upon behavioral principles, where the moral commonalties across all religious traditions can be emphasized: encouraging a new era in religious tolerance. This new ethical system eminently qualifies as the long anticipated foundation for a global system of planetary ethics serving a secular constituency, where such moral issues have typically been downplayed due to well-meaning attempts to avoid religious favoritism. This same system could also serve as a valuable adjunct to the major religions of the world without favoring any one of them, exhibiting the potential for promoting a peaceful coexistence with many of the established world religions, particularly in that it does not preclude the existence of a top-down pattern of influence (of a supernatural nature) as well. Consequently, this overall picture potentially amounts to the best of all possible worlds: enabling an ethical revival in the secular world (which has typically been downplayed), as well as the potential for an even greater degree of spiritual cooperation and tolerance amongst all of the established religions of the world. global-solutions.org

The hesitation of all the contributors on this section is palpable! In taking its message to the mainstream media the Charter will have a major challenge. While a free press is essential to a free society, in its nature it seeks confrontation, sensationalism and is hostile to the aspirational. Thanks to the internet, more humane, appropriate and effective forums now exist. www.charterforcompassion.com is an excellent example! The Charter should direct its call to action journalists and editors generally, but especially to film and documentary makers, and individuals who work in 'new media'. Documentary makers particularly have the ability to challenge the widespread belief that religion is only a source of hatred and bigotry. The world needs attitude changing stories such as a Muslim showing compassion to a secular westerner, or a Jew showing compassion to a Christian. The mainstream media will follow.

The media will have a special responsibility once organized religions and sympathizers have succeeded in mobilizing hundreds of thousands, millions of people behind this charter. Once we have shown that religion and faith and spitituality is very much alive and powerful and in touch with the world of today, we should ask people working in the media to step back a little from what has been accomplished through secularization and look at the whole picture again, and spread the word on what inspires those millions, how organized belief is able to mobilize. work together on our common goals. and unite.

The Federal Communications Commission(FCC), Media Agencies, Media Conglomerates, Creative Executives, Artists, Hosts, Prophets, Spokespeople, Agents,Storytellers, Writers, Psalmists, Painters and Musicians- All visionaries within our respective nations- We call you to action. We call anyone with the power to influence public opinion to action. This is the clarion call for Truth to partner with Compassion once again. This is the time for dreamers to dream better dreams, release limiting beliefs and dare to market a world where Compassion dwells among us daily, where the media once again represents those who need to be heard. We call you once again to help the world see what it somehow refuses to see- the TRUTH. Media, we call you to separate yourself, to consecrate yourself. Your mantle stands alone. Be Truth, Represent Truth, Report Truth, Speak Truth, Write Truth, Paint Truth, Film Truth. And as we recognize our own wretched state, we can then soberly turn to our neighbor and administer new-found Compassion.

We know that sensation sells right now at the current level of human consciousness. But there are wonderful sensations to be had, and described, around the practice of compassion... The grateful and astonished look in the eye of the recipient at the moment he or she realizes that the helping hand of love really has come to the rescue warms the heart behind that helping hand better than the finest overcoat could ever do. The heartfelt blessings of the homeless person to whom one has given two dollars instead of one ~ cheap at the price!... The list goes on and on...

Journalists, writers, editors, artists, filmmakers, radio and television personalities, and others in the media are the gatekeepers of public discourse and have great power to shape public opinion. As such, it is their responsibility to * Report on benevolent and compassionate actions by religious people and institutions, so that everyone will know that religion is serving a positive purpose in the world and is not primarily a source of intolerance, hatred, violence and conflict; * Give a wider and more potent voice to religious leaders, movements and organizations that are promoting the values of peace, love and compassion for all, interfaith understanding and reconciliation; * Investigate and expose dangerous religious leaders, movements and organizations that are undermining the wellbeing of society and doing damage to people's lives by teaching hate and attempting to divide, segregate, and alienate people along doctrinal lines, so that people will know to avoid these individuals and groups.

A compassionate media is first and foremost a truthful media. The reporting of every aspect of every story must be approached with a passionate commitment to the whole, unbiased truth. Concerns about ratings and readership must bow to the desire to inform the public about local and global events in as balanced, fair and objective a way as possible, so that the truth in the mirror the media holds up to the world will inspire people to examine their own lives and hearts, and compassionately act from that place.

The media must be kept neutral and free to avail everyone to all information. Where it needs improvement is with balance. It is used to spoon-feeding the public what it thinks the public can tolerate and this doesn't provide an accurate picture. One need only look to other countries to see how very veiled our information is. The majority of people have no idea what is accurate or true.

Cleaned up the boilerplate a bit, added Jett Hanna's phrasing encouraging the media to play an active role in highlighting suffering and the ways that the audience can help, and incorporated Winston Rekert's insight to shine light on the positive as well_______The Media has a major responsibility due to its key role in informing and educating the public. It must be careful not to simply endorse prevailing views but also give the public information that enables them to learn to enter into the minds and hearts of others, appreciate their positions, and take a more balanced view of other religions and people. Special effort should be made to increase awareness about those who are hurting, what may cause their pain, and how others can help alleviate their suffering. Highlighting positive stories of people making a difference can also give us hope in humanity and inspire us to action.

You can't control the media with rules. Better and more specific education of media consumers means that they will be more discerning and less easily influenced... it will take time ..but....

Digital video is the most available, cost effective and time efficient way to communicate a complex message. That's why my ministry is producing films on You Tube, under the name projectpeace. The greatest stride in human evolution of the past fifty years is our ability to communicate electronically, globally, instantaneously. It is as though the global brain were in the process of waking up, albeit in a drowsy, uncoodinated state. The challenge of media is to focus on solutions to fundamental imbalances impacting our society, rather than merely reporting the symptoms of imbalance.

Media do not exist in void, they respond to the cultural, political, economic, ideological spheres, yet and at the same time they shape them. Media's responsibilities toward humanity are great, and their task of focusing on compassion can be fulfilled, if other societal, political, religious, educational institutions awaken people's consciousness to their interconnection with all human beings and the universe. A global cultural (spiritual) revolution is urgently needed to break barriers and to reveal our hidden spiritual connection that we - citizen of the world tend to ignore and hence veil the spontaneous feeling of compassion. If this happened, media would take their role to facilitate the accomplishment.

Today's media is both out of control and uncontrollable in many of its manifestations, so we need to concentrate our efforts on those areas where it can be controlled and directed towards the "common good". There are many laws in place which are designed to curb such things as "inciting to riot" and "hate crimes", so what we need to do is encourage the enforcement of these laws by actively seeking the support of legal experts with experience in the area of media "hate-mongering".

Have a major responsibility. They have a key role in the providing of information. By means of film, for example, members of the public learn to enter into the minds and hearts of others and to appreciate their position. Must be careful not simply to endorse any views but give the public information that will enable them to take a more balanced view of a religion or a people.

The various forms of media available today has a global reach and can be used as information, creation, and mediation tool. In a global age of media we should all have access to inspiring and informative news, share our thoughts, culture, and likenessess, and in a positive way preserve and share the cultural diversities. The media and famous media representatives share a great responsibility to shape a global cultural landscape and foster compassion and peace.

The media is our teacher. We absorb its message and the energy behind its stories. It's time for the media to take responsibility for the enormous social influence it weilds. Imagine a world in which the media glorifies peace, idolizes expansiveness, and every single night features stories of compassion and love...

Media are the eyes of the world. Also uncontrollable, so do not believe what you see. Media object should be to help in keeping harmony.

The media should definitely be constrained to quit its partisan position of backing and even deceitfully creating the status quo. We need a return to the state "... before corporate journalism was invented, before the first schools of journalism were set up and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around those whose "professionalism" and "objectivity" carried an unspoken obligation to ensure that news and opinion were in tune with an establishment consensus, regardless of the truth..." as John Pilger puts it.

Until the main media services stop the sensationalism and returns to unbiased and broadly diversified coverage it is nothing more than socially condoned perpetrator of psychic abuse and harm. Every media player ultimately has choice, no one can force them to alter information, misconstrue and mislead, or become brilliant at triggering the baser instincts that breed fear, rage, betrayal, loss, and violence against others. I wonder if they ever think about what they are telling and teaching the children.

Until the main media services stop the sensationalism and returns to unbiased and broadly diversified coverage it is nothing more than socially condoned perpetrator of psychic abuse and harm. Every media player ultimately has choice, no one can force them to alter information, misconstrue and mislead, or become brilliant at triggering the baser instincts that breed fear, rage, betrayal, loss, and violence against others. I wonder if they ever think about what they are telling and teaching the children.

The media should balance the requirements of compassion with its basic duty of providing information to the public. Despite the forces that bear on the media (market ratings, political doctrine, or otherwise), those responsible for the content and format of the dissemination of information must always ask themselves what compassion requires of them. It may be good for ratings, for example, to broadcast the plight of a given family who has suffered tragedy; to expose their agony to the world, and thereby cater to the baser instincts in all of us to look on. But compassion requires, in this example, refraining from the ratings boost that the naked suffering of the family by airing only information that the public can use.

The New Fourth Estate is already here. We are Citizen Journalists and Activists fueled by Compassion and Hope. "HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine Eileen Fleming, Citizen Journalist and Founder WAWA: http://www.wearewideawake.org/ Author "Keep Hope Alive" "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" "So, That was 54..." Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"