World media should shoulder due responsibilities for better world

The world today is wrestling with a torrent of global challenges like the once-in-a-century pandemic, the rising risk of global stagflation, resurgent protectionism and hegemonism, as well as a warming planet.

Those pressing planetary challenges demand strong, effective and collective efforts from all walks of life in every country around the world. Media, of course, has a unique and important role to play.

For press groups worldwide to play their part in helping build a better world for all, better coordination and communication are essential in every sense. The fourth World Media Summit (WMS) held Monday has provided a high-end communication and coordination platform for global media to help tackle the major questions of the times and expand consensus around the world.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a congratulatory letter to the summit, global media should endeavor to help foster friendship between peoples and facilitate cultural and people-to-people exchanges, making due contributions to championing the shared values of humanity and promoting the development of a community with a shared future for humanity.

As a bridge linking people's hearts and minds, media from around the world should play their due role in enhancing mutual understanding, promoting people-to-people exchanges and building bridges of mutual learning among civilizations, especially at a time of growing divisions and misunderstanding.

Authentic, objective and comprehensive reporting can foster understanding and unity among different countries and peoples. Biased journalism and even fake news, such as disinformation campaigns in the pandemic and the spread of terrorism propaganda online, can only inflate distrust and hostility, and function as tumors that will erode the humanity from inside.

Thus every member of the global media industry, particularly social media venues, must honor journalism ethics, and join hands to beat disinformation, hatred rhetoric and extremist ideas, to create a positive, healthy and constructive public opinion environment.

At the same time, media groups around the world should also better help developing countries make their voices heard on the world stage.

Over the past several centuries, global information has largely flown from the rich countries to poor ones. This should be changed to better reflect the evolving global political and economic landscape.

Such a cause has become increasingly urgent when developing world as well as the least developed economies are struggling to not only heal their people in the pandemic, but also feed them. Reporters around the world have a duty to alert the world about their miseries and sufferings, and urge the global community to offer more help.

Those are also a key part of the social responsibilities the media sector worldwide should take up as a driving force for social development and progress.

"The pandemic endangers the health of mankind, and the media have a mission to fulfill," said He Ping, executive president of the WMS and president of Xinhua News Agency of China, calling on global media to fully reflect the consensus and actions of all countries to jointly fight the COVID-19 pandemic, tell the anti-pandemic stories well, spread positive information, reflect ordinary people's feats, and tell the glory of human nature.

It is true that the media industry itself is facing arduous challenges, like limited face-to-face communication in the pandemic situation. However, those challenges also indicate new opportunities as they are compelling media organizations to do more on innovation and embrace transformation.

Information technology, represented by 5G, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, virtual technology and meta-universe, is profoundly reshaping journalism. World media should smartly use these technologies to analyze problems, present truth, enlighten meaningful discussions, so that humanity can better weather those daunting global conundrums of this stormy age.

In the final analysis, world media organizations have on their shoulders unshirkable obligations to make this world a better place for all. They should join hands even tighter, stimulate their own development, and make their share of contribution to the common cause of the human race.