Archbishop Rowan Williams Attacks "Adversarial & Suspicious" News Media

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams will criticise news media in an address to British media, politicians and church leaders at Lambeth Palace in London Wednesday night. Dr Williams believes that news media is "adversarial and suspicious" and tends to hold people "guilty until proven innocent".

While acknowledging that thriving media is vital to a "mature democracy," the Archbishop will argue that some aspects of the practices are "lethally damaging" to journalism and he believes that a far-reaching assessment is needed to raise "embarrassingly low levels of trust" in the journalistic profession.

"High levels of adversarial and suspicious probing send the clear message that any kind of concealment is guilty until proved innocent. That is a case that needs more than just assumptions to be morally persuasive."

The courage and commitment of many journalists will be praised by Dr Williams as he stresses that the main task of the media is to "nourish the common good" of society. However, "some aspects of current practice" damage the profession and he will criticise the way news is packaged as a product for the consumers.

He will argue that "there is a tension at the heart of the journalistic enterprise."

"Its justification is that it promises to deliver what other sources can't - information that is needed to equip the reader or viewer or listener for a more free and significant role as a human agent.

"But at the same time it is bound to a method and a rhetoric that treats its public as consumers and the information it purveys as a commodity.

"There are undoubtedly facts which would be of huge interest to a certain sort of public, but are not by any stretch of the imagination matters of public interest in the sense that not knowing them creates or prolongs a seriously unjust situation," he said.

Dr Williams will say that more thoughts must be given to the types of stories that interest the public.

However, he will add to some extent that societies get the media they deserve and the industry should not be made a scapegoat.