VATICAN CITY, MAY 30, 2000 (VIS) - Archbishop John Foley and Bishop Pierfranco Pastore, president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, presented the newest council document this morning in the Holy See Press Office.
Archbishop Foley stated that "after the positive response to our 1997 document, 'Ethics in Advertising', which went well beyond our expectations, we received suggestions from throughout the world, asking us to broaden our reflections to include the entire field of communications. Today's document, 'Ethics in Communications', is the answer to that request."
"We wished to follow the much appreciated formula of the preceding document, first treating the positive aspects of communications which are useful for people, then those (aspects) which violate their good."
In his presentation, Archbishop Foley stressed three points made in the document: 1. "Communications should be by persons for the integral development of persons"; 2. "The good of persons cannot be realized apart from the common good of the communities to which they belong"; 3. "Decisions about media content and policy should not be left only to the market and to economic factors - profits - since these cannot be counted on to safeguard either the public interest as a whole or, especially, the legitimate interests of minorities."
Bishop Pastore indicated that, in preparing the document, it had been considered important "not to forget that the question of truth calls for everyone to participate in the search for that truth."
"We feel that our views coincide with those of many people if we affirm that manipulative possibilities, inherent in the power and sophistication of the instruments, together with an unscrupulous and substantially 'immoral' use of the communications media, render conditioning or even the destruction of individual liberty and democracy in general, a real possibility."
Finally, he highlighted that "when we reach the point of endangering these values or putting them in doubt, it is absolutely essential to make a more attentive ethical examination; we must insist on the fact that ethics are the heart of information and that all information without ethics can be immoral."
Archbishop Foley stated that "after the positive response to our 1997 document, 'Ethics in Advertising', which went well beyond our expectations, we received suggestions from throughout the world, asking us to broaden our reflections to include the entire field of communications. Today's document, 'Ethics in Communications', is the answer to that request."
"We wished to follow the much appreciated formula of the preceding document, first treating the positive aspects of communications which are useful for people, then those (aspects) which violate their good."
In his presentation, Archbishop Foley stressed three points made in the document: 1. "Communications should be by persons for the integral development of persons"; 2. "The good of persons cannot be realized apart from the common good of the communities to which they belong"; 3. "Decisions about media content and policy should not be left only to the market and to economic factors - profits - since these cannot be counted on to safeguard either the public interest as a whole or, especially, the legitimate interests of minorities."
Bishop Pastore indicated that, in preparing the document, it had been considered important "not to forget that the question of truth calls for everyone to participate in the search for that truth."
"We feel that our views coincide with those of many people if we affirm that manipulative possibilities, inherent in the power and sophistication of the instruments, together with an unscrupulous and substantially 'immoral' use of the communications media, render conditioning or even the destruction of individual liberty and democracy in general, a real possibility."
Finally, he highlighted that "when we reach the point of endangering these values or putting them in doubt, it is absolutely essential to make a more attentive ethical examination; we must insist on the fact that ethics are the heart of information and that all information without ethics can be immoral."
OP;ETHICS; COMMUNICATION;...;FOLEY; PASTORE;VIS;20000530;Word: 340;
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