Media can deepen divides by offending or confronting another’s culture or identity. Cartoons published in the Danish Press in 2005 that depicted the Prophet Mohammed, for instance, set off protests throughout the Muslim world, with critics calling the cartoons racist and blasphemous.

On the other hand, media can serve to «promote a tolerance and acceptance of difference,» according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). To do so, UNESCO says, media must «challenge prevailing attitudes and assumptions concerning the many ‘others’ in our world,» moving «beyond scripted stereotypes [and] stripping away the ignorance that breeds mistrust and suspicion.»

To highlight this goal, UNESCO has made the theme of World Press Freedom Day 2009, to be celebrated May 2 and 3, «the potential of media in fostering dialogue, mutual understanding and reconciliation.»

Is the role of media really to promote tolerance, understanding, and an acceptance of diversity, as UNESCO calls for? Or is the media’s role simply to report the facts, even if such facts breed mistrust or fuel divides?

IJNET