Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 459 – Part IV.

YOUCAT Question n. 459 - Part IV. What ethical responsibilities are connected with the communications media?

(Youcat answer - repeated) Media producers have a responsibility toward media consumers. Above all they must truthfully inform. In both the gathering and the publication of real news, the rights and dignity of individuals must be observed.

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2498 b) Civil authorities should punish any violation of the rights of individuals to their reputation and privacy. They should give timely and reliable reports concerning the general good or respond to the well-founded concerns of the people. Nothing can justify recourse to disinformation for manipulating public opinion through the media. Interventions by public authority should avoid injuring the freedom of individuals or groups.     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) The means of social communication should contribute to the establishment of justice, freedom, and solidarity in the world. In actual fact, the media are not uncommonly used as weapons in ideological conflict, or else, in a quest for higher ratings, all ethical regulation of the content is abandoned and the  media are turned into instruments for seducing people and making them dependent.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2499) Moral judgment must condemn the plague of totalitarian states which systematically falsify the truth, exercise political control of opinion through the media, manipulate defendants and witnesses at public trials, and imagine that they secure their tyranny by strangling and repressing everything they consider "thought crimes."    

(The next question is: What dangers result from the media?)