R.E. Turner Reflects on Working Toward Peace

As a businessman who has spent the last quarter of the century involved in creating television networks and producing and airing programming, I have tremendous respect for the power of the medium, and even greater interest in its future. One of the measures that people of my generation use to mark personal milestones and the passage of time is the advent of television, its growth, and its increasing sophistication. It amazes me to think that my children grew up-quite literally-with global breaking news coverage provided by CNN, and that their children will forever regard this remarkable window on the world as a simple fact of life, like computers and routine space travel. Just yesterday, it seems, our worldview was shaped almost entirely by radio, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the notion of American invincibility.

The more complex our world becomes, the more we rely on that electronic window to help us process it all. And the greater the responsibility we must shoulder to see that it is used as fairly as it is fearlessly.

If we entertain, we must also enlighten. In reporting the news, we must shed light on the conflicts that create it. As our businesses grow, so must we grow as human beings. We have a duty to embrace humanity with the same vision and daring that we do technology.

I have experienced more professional success than any man has a right to expect, and have enjoyed most every minute of it. Yet nothing I have achieved in business is ultimately as important as the smallest thing I can do to promote understanding across our world. More and more people are concerned about the environment, about resource conservation and population growth, about poverty and pollution. More and more, people see that squandering the planet's assets, which took billions and billions of years to create, is not our birthright. We are not entitled to greed or complacency when the future of the world is at stake.

I believe television is a great tool for uniting people behind the cause of our planet. Pictures and human stories are always more compelling than numbers. The earth's population is soon expected to reach six billion. Most demographers agree that it could reach eight billion within the next fifteen to twenty years. It is inconceivable that in my lifetime, I will be part of a world that labors to support a population of nearly ten billion people. Yet, as staggering as those numbers are, they can never tell the story as immediately, as indelibly, as one picture of a starving child, of one ancient tree felled for building lumber, of one bird driven to extinction. Television can open a dialogue. It can frighten, outrage, and mobilize. It can quicken the pace of change. It can, and it is up to us to see that it is given the opportunity.

What happens then is up to each of us. I have chosen to support an organization that shares my concerns and is not afraid to take up the challenges the world faces. The United Nations has the reach, resources, and membership to effect change in everything from landmine warfare and nuclear armament to inoculating children and saving forests. It is my responsibility, as someone with strong convictions, to be part of the solution, whether through the United Nations or a grassroots neighborhood group with a common interest.

We cannot expect anyone else to solve our problems. Now is the time to set our minds to international cooperation and communication. It is a difficult course, but it is the right thing to do. The hour is late. The task may well be beyond us. But I, for one, have always enjoyed a challenge.

 

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