Our perception of the world is increasingly influenced by a media kaleidoscope of fragmented facts, alarming anecdotes, sound bites and talking heads—all packaged and presented along countless channels each day. It is a grossly distorted if colourful view.

Adding to the dissonance are many within the media corps who, in actuality, manufacture a dangerous environment. The world they present is a threatening one, one they presume will compel the viewer to watch and worry—and tune in again. Thus, the very purpose of news reporting—to honestly inform and so empower the individual with the truth—seems all but lost in the daily overload of media messages.

To regain the public trust, members of the media must honour every free thinker‘s right to learn the truth about the influences and incidents that affect our lives, our society and our future. As well they must aid, not estrange, human relations; defend, not deny, human rights; and advance, not obviate, social change. What role should today‘s media play in ensuring that, in this unstable world, democracy and freedom of thought will not only survive, but flourish? To fulfil its actual purpose, the media must support and uphold a free society—one informed by a free and honest press. For almost four decades, the Church of Scientology has advanced that purpose through a unique publication: Freedom magazine.

Since the publication of the first Freedom edition in the United Kingdom in 1968, it has been an outlet for the voices that might otherwise never have been heard—human rights advocates and those seeking societal reform. Today, those voices are heard in 11 languages, through 22 different editions of Freedom—each with its own unique perspective and coverage. Common to each is Freedom‘s clarion purpose: to advance the cause of human rights. That purpose is grounded in the Creed of the Church of Scientology, which declares:

“We of the Church believe ... That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others....”