Trusting us works

Young Business South Africa
Originally uploaded by larstorres.

Geoff Mulgan did it again. He managed to come up with a practical but idealistic suggestion for tackling problems in our society. This time it was accountability of the media.

In a recent essay he co-authored for Demos he suggests an Open Commission for Accuracy in the Media (OCAM) that would report on complaints and rulings on media.

My first reaction was slightly negative. Oh my goodness, it was Orwell, 1984 and strict government control again. But Mulgan and Co. go the other way. They suggest that governments should try to learn from the open source movement and let the people guide other people. They come up with an idea that there should be a website that would operate like eBay where readers, viewers and listeners could rate media on accuracy, honesty and usefulness.

I really like the idea. It is a combination of participatory democracy, investments in media literacy and building of trust in society. It would be a signal that our government trust us and want us to be involved.

What is important that systems such as OCAM would be governmentally supported through taxes. Systems such as OCAM would be a great way of widening the role governments nowadays play in the field of media through public broadcasting. A fundamental investment would also be enhanced teaching of media literacy in schools, which teach us the skills to be critical and voice our concerns.