The Mass Media

(Wise Sayings of Imam Khomeini)

o All mass media are educators; they must educate the country.

o Today, the radio and television have greater roles than other media.

o The radio and television should act as teachers of our youth and instructors

     of the people of our country.

o The radio and television are obligated to quote or narrate news that is

      100% true. They should avoid reporting or broadcasting news that is from

      non-reliable sources and is meant to create anxiety and mental confusion.

o We are not opposed to radio; we oppose perversion. We are not opposed

     to television; we oppose the things broadcasted, in favor of the aliens,

     aimed at holding our youth backward, and making us lose our human

resources.

o The radio must be a guide; the television must be a guide; the newspapers

      must be guides; they should not write things that stir up the people and

      make them deviate.

o What is important with respect to news agencies is quality. True and

      factual accounts of news encourage one to better read or listen.

o It is a fact that radio and television are more obligated to the barefooted

      than to others.

o The press must be a guidance firm.

o The press should be itinerant schools apprising the people of all the news,

     especially the news of the day.

o In my opinion, the newspapers belong to all the people and all have rights

      in them; it may be said sometimes that the place of one is usurped by

      another.

o Take note that if you want the country to be Islamic, its press, too, must be

      Islamic.

o The newspapers must not be quarrelsome; rather, they should be inclined

      to guidance.

o The newspapers belong to the third class; not to the first class (of people),

     and they must not also all belong to the government.

o The magazine should serve the country. Service to the country means to

     train; to train the youth; to mold the people, to mold prolific and thinking

     people so as for them to be useful for the country.

o That which is above all services is the thing that makes our human

     resources develop and grow, and it is the press that has this obligation.

     The importance of publications is on par with the blood that is shed at the

battlegrounds.

Source: 'Wise Sayings of Imam Khomeini" book