Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 252

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 9: Activities in the Media, Education and the Arts for the Culture of Heart
Chapter 2: World Media Conferences and Media Outlets
Section 4. The Segye Times, A responsible and moral media
Section 4. The Segye Times, Paragraph 23

A responsible and moral media

True Father said, "The media should be the voice of truth and the conscience of society." He gave instructions that The Segye Times should function as an influential newspaper that presents sound arguments. He emphasized especially that the current world is descending into chaos due to the collapse of moral values and that the newspaper should take responsibility to guide society. He also said that its interaction with sister news organizations, The Washington Times and United Press International, will strengthen our international media network.

11  The character se (世) in The Segye Times means world. The character il (日) in Ilbo (Times) means day. Therefore The Segye Times reports world news of the day. What kind of day? A good day, not a bad day. What is a good day in Korea? The Segye Times should praise what is good and critique what is bad. This is the right path. You must be responsible journalists. You should take responsibility in this way and put your life on the line for this principle.

12  As newspaper journalists, you ought to leave a legacy of positive achievements in society. What should that legacy be? How many journalists are confident enough to declare, "I took the path of righteousness in my career," and to testify about that to their children? This is a serious matter. The reality is that we cannot significantly or permanently move the world by means of knowledge, money or power. We can move the world only with truth. Truth in the end is what moves the world. Ultimately, The Segye Times is fighting daily to establish righteousness rooted in truth.

13  The Segye Times should be a record of the most worthwhile stories from all over the world and it should establish a reputation that we have a high standard. From that position, you must critique issues relating to the nation, to Asia and to the world. As a journalist, you decide that certain points in a news story are key, and present them as such, but what percentage of your story will receive approval when seen through the lens of God's absolute truth? You may have written the article flawlessly from a technical journalistic perspective, but what percentage would be flawless from God's perspective? This is where the problem often lies. Do not try to deceive your conscience.

14  Media organizations should establish high standards that educate society. Presently, they are wreaking havoc in the world. You journalists should not become like blase university professors who care little about their students. Instead, you should take responsibility to raise young people in a way even better than you were raised yourself. University graduates who received a great education all too often end up falling into corruption in the workplace. Who causes this? Journalists have a great deal of responsibility. In reporting the news, journalists seek glory for themselves and fail to think about the good of the people. This is why I have come here to call for a responsible and godly media. Through such media organizations, we can improve society by educating our readership.

15  The Segye Times was founded as a bastion of righteousness that should press forward boldly. How boldly should you press forward? You must press forward even more boldly than I do. Sons and daughters and descendants should be better than their forebears. Only then can a particular family, company or nation prosper. Therefore, you should be more tenacious and advance more forcefully than I do. When you fight for something, you should not only put your life on the line; you should say, "Father, having put my life on the line, I put my love, health, children, money and influence on the line, and I will press forward even more boldly than you!" Moreover, your thoughts and actions should be one. When you do that, a new door to a world of unity will be opened.

16  In the future the Unification Thought Institute should become the research department of The Segye Times. Also in the future, all the newsroom executives higher than assistant managing editor, including the editor-in-chief, managing editor and editorial page editor, should take responsibility for guiding the nation's leaders, based on clear thinking both in public policy and theology. Of course, it is important to write outstanding articles, but guiding the leaders of the country is even more crucial. My standards for education, exemplified in venues such as the ICUS and the World Media Conference, are preparations for this. This standard of guidance should be instilled in the Korean media. In public schools, teaching is based on a fixed curriculum mandated by government policy. In other words, department of education regulations limit what can be taught. But the media contends with no such constraints. Therefore, the media must operate according to a clear ideological perspective for the sake of strengthening a new direction of education. Moreover, we need to do this in light of our face-to-face confrontation with North Korea.

17  Our newspaper company needs to be a beacon of moral guidance. Our challenge is how to raise people who can revolutionize the entire newspaper industry in five to ten years. This is why we need to revitalize ourselves and become moral beacons. We need to elevate the social prestige of journalists above that of professors and teachers. With this in mind, we must develop a newspaper that deals with the issues of character education, civic virtue, public ethics and personal morality.

18  More than 1,000 people work for The Washington Times, most of whom are veteran American media professionals who are respectful of my work. I dream of connecting The Segye Times with The Washington Times, of setting it up so that individuals from The Washington Times can be seamlessly exchanged with The Segye Times. I have come to realize that it is useless for The Segye Times' journalists to be just correspondents for The Washington Times. They should work as "exchange agents" and then serve as correspondents. Only then will they be able to use The Washington Times wherever they go. They should not work only on their own newspaper while following The Washington Times around. We also should set up a system for such exchanges with the Sekai Nippo and The Middle East Times. What I am envisioning is to streamline our company so that the workforce can be balanced to provide the most substantial international coverage for all. There is a saying, "The proof is in the pudding." There must be a way to have exchanges like this happen between our newspapers. Based on this, The Segye Times will become even more hopeful, as part of a single family of media organizations under one roof, governed by a comprehensive strategy.

19  When you write an article, you should put your reputation on the line and write it responsibly. When I started The Washington Times in America, I told them not to follow The Washington Post or The New York Times. This was a declaration of independence. I set up a standard of autonomy. Now, Japan's Sekai Nippo has risen to this standard. I advised The Washington Times not to increase its print run until there is greater demand. Now we have become established; many people recognize us, including the United States government. Why is that? It is because no one can equal the quality of our coverage of local, national and world affairs; we have our finger on the pulse of information. American newspapers today are all too often indirect purveyors of communist disinformation. They have given up moral standards and run provocative articles promoting an ideology of decadence. But we are different. Let there be light in your eyes and study hard how to be independent.

20  In the future, I plan to establish The Segye Times as an international model of journalism, a newspaper that represents Asia. It will be read all around the world just as The Washington Times is. In order to do that, The Segye Times can translate and reprint even a large portion of The Washington Times, printed in Washington, D.C. This will result in the world news section doubling in size. The Washington Times articles from the culture section, the religion section and the family section are especially valuable for The Segye Times. In the process, you can interfuse Korea's state of affairs with America’s, and the result will be a new global newspaper.

21  The leading international wire services send correspondents to fewer than 100 countries. However, our reporters cover 180 nations. They take photos and file articles from those locations, including expert analysis, which we introduce to the Korean people. We also have the option of including viewpoints on a story from neighboring countries. Because we have done this, Koreans learn about the world directly from our sources. We publish extensively about each nation. If we vary the number of pages to accommodate articles about several nations at once, everyone will come to read our newspaper and lose interest in other papers. What I am saying is, we should not increase circulation merely by following the lead of other companies.

22  The world is in a state of chaos due to a loss of values. Therefore, someone has to take a stand; this is the time we need to do this. As the communist and democratic worlds are both collapsing, who will take a stand? There is no one but us, no one but Reverend Moon. Now the age of autonomy has come and we must stand and move forward independently. We have to thoroughly teach people about this. We must not follow others. The Washington Times has gone this way, which is why it could achieve a global stature in such a short time. I am saying that you should not just be a follower. We must press forward boldly, standing on our own principles.

23  The Segye Times absolutely should not follow the other ten newspaper companies in Korea. When I founded The Washington Times, one of the first things I told them was not to follow what existing newspapers were doing. From a publicly recognized position, a national newspaper can exert influence over a nation and on a nation's governance. If you, as a newly founded newspaper, simply follow the other newspapers, you will not influence people any more than the other papers do, no matter how much you engage them.