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Seven News: Principles & Purposes
7 News believes that the interests of the community are best represented by the people themselves. We believe that people should have as much control as possible over the decisions that effect their lives, and we believe that 7 News should do whatever it can to help the community to achieve that control. It is our conviction that the actions of even the most benevolently motivated government, corporation, bureaucrat, or social worker, are of infinitely less value than actions of people actively participating in the democratic running of public affairs. 7 News itself is run democratically, and it answerable to the community. 7 News must always be subject to democratic control - of the people who work on it, and of the larger community and its representatives. 7 News must act as an voice for local people, a forum where people can write with their problems and ideas, where different ideas and issues can be discussed. 7 News' pages are open to persons with conflicting ideas, but 7 News itself is not neutral. There are many problems - economic, social, political - that face the community and threaten its well-being. 7 News' role is to do what it can to help solve those problems, by writing about them and their causes, and by assisting the efforts of people to get together to do something about them. 7 News is largely local in orientation, but not exclusively, because many problems that affect the local community have dimensions and causes that are not local. 7 News' coverage must always strive to keep a balance of different kinds of content - serious and fun, political and unpolitical, stories and pictures, information and opinion. It must always strive to provide variety, to be a paper that is entertaining and enjoyable as well as serious and thought-provoking. 7 News has an important role to play in providing the community with information. One kind is local information, information that lets people know what is happening on their street and in their neighbourhood, in the kind of detail other media cannot provide. Another kind is information that other media often ignore, information that they fail to report properly because of the biases of their particular worldview. 7 News considers it important not only to provide facts, but also to explain and interpret them. 7 News will not necessarily restrict itself only
to publishing a newspaper. 7 News also participate in other
activities that accord with its principles and that promise to be
of value to the community, such as community organizing, sponsorships
of public meetings, involvement in community radio or TV, etc.
Ulli Diemer
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