Using our voice to support just causes

The media informs, entertains, stimulates debate, and: the media can help. Again and again, Bertelsmann’s media contribute to the fight against poverty, disease, discrimination and environmental pollution. By giving advice, or by generating awareness for those who cannot make their own voice heard.

We know that the content we create and disseminate as a media company reaches millions of people worldwide every day. For Bertelsmann this reach comes with a great responsibility. We consider it our obligation to use this reach to make a difference: to help people, to draw attention to pressing problems in our society and to expose wrongdoing or injustice.

How can the media help?

By using our media to systematically address important social issues, and to communicate them in a vivid, easily understood way, we seek to sensitize people and increase public awareness of these issues. For example, the RTL Group station Antena 3 launched Spain’s biggest road safety campaign, "Ponle Freno," which is now supported by around 200,000 people and 170 institutions. The Gruner+Jahr magazine GEO has run an annual Biodiversity Day since 1999 to sharpen people’s awareness about the biodiversity on our doorsteps. Random House offers books on themes like poverty, world hunger and climate change. And Arvato’s printer Mohn Media helps publishers like Britain’s Dorling Kindersley to maximize the credibility of their books on sustainability by making their production as environmentally friendly as possible.

Appealing for donations

Many of our media use the attention that they get to raise funds for good causes. In this way, we support projects around the world. "Télévie," a joint initiative between RTL-TVI in Belgium and RTL Lëtzebuerg, has raised more than €100 million since its inception in 1989 for the Belgian "Fonds National de la recherché" benefitting research and treatment of leukemia in children and adults. And viewers donate to the American TV format "Idol gives back" for disadvantaged youth in America and Africa. And Germany’s RTL Spendenmarathon telethon has raised over €78 million since 1996, providing long-term relief to tens of thousands of children in need. “Stern” magazine has participated in a wide range of relief campaigns to help people in need since 1973.

Offering advice

In addition to information and entertainment, "self-help" has always been one of the key areas covered by the media, which gives advice on all aspects of life: from health and nutrition, money and career to partnerships and education. Classic examples include Gruner+Jahr magazines devoted to a single theme, such as "stern Gesund leben" (Stern healthy living), “GEO kompakt” or "Eltern" (Parents) and its Spanish counterpart "Ser Padres." At Random House too, self-help is a fixture in the publishing program: advice publications from the various imprints offer support in almost every situation. RTL Group’s self-help TV formats take a slightly different approach. Programs such as "Raus aus den Schulden" (Get Out Of Debt) and "Supernanny" help people in problematic situations to help themselves – for example by reporting on the experiences of others who have the same problem and showing how they arrived at a solution.