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Essay on freedom of press
The freedom of the press essay
The freedom of the press essay
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According to Sussman (2001), In 500 B.C., Athenians in Greece enjoyed remarkable freedoms as the writer did not harshly trash the establishment, as Socrates discovered at his execution while In the 21st century, many countries still permit only such limited freedom but the 16th century printing press brought 4 new possibilities for free expression, but the Church and the State soon clamped down. So for centuries thereafter brave citizens tried to share ideas freely, but were harshly restricted even unto death. According to Sussman (2001), the similar aspect of press freedom, since before and now, is the right of the individual to be free of controls, influences and pressures by the state on the content of writing and speaking. In modern times, state controls over speech and writing have become highly change in greater variety and lately more subtle. With such controls that lead to self-censorship by the speaker and writer to avoid censorship or other forms of oppression or suppression.
While Balcha (2004) said that press freedom is the freedom to print or to spread the information by printing, broadcasting or through electronic media without existing of restraints such as licensing requirement or content review and without punish for what is said. The press is a very broad in terms that include newspapers, television, radio, books, lectures, movies, art, dance, telephone, cassettes, CDs, video discs, magazines, electronic bulletin boards, computer networks, billboards, and video tapes. The editor have the full authority to publish any news or article which they think should known by the readers without thinking about any implication that will be faced after the publication. It’s basically free from outside control of professional...
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...(IAMCR), Porto Alegre/Brazil. Retrieved from: http://www.kowi.wiso.unierlangeo.de/publikationen/good_press_freedom.pdf.
Federal Constitution, Article 10: Freedom of Speech, Assembly & Association.
Retrieved from: http://www.rsog.com.my/media/558.pdf.
Kuutti.,et.,al. (2010). Media Policies and Regulatory Practices in a selected set of European Countries, the EU & the Council of Europe: The Case of Finland.
Retrieved from: http://www. .mediadem.eliamep.gr/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Finland.pdf
Morning.,I.,S. (2008). Mind The Gap? Press Freedom & Pluralism in Finland.
Retrieved from: http://www.intellectbook.co.uk/file.download,id.19781841502434.213.pdf.
Sussman.,L.,R. (2001). Press Freedom in Our Genes. World Press Freedom Committee. Reston, Virginia.
Universal Declaration on Human Rights 1948, Article 19.
Retrieved from: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr.
The case, R. v. Keegstra, constructs a framework concerning whether the freedom of expression should be upheld in a democratic society, even wh...
This source supplies my paper with more evidence of how freedom of speech is in a dangerous place. American has always stood by freedom of speech, and to see how social media platforms try to manipulate and take off as the choose to increase slight bias is unpleasant. The article establishes a worry to the fellow readers that hold freedom of speech so high and that it is at risk. The article manages to explain why freedom of speech is in danger, and why there should be no limits to free speech.
The censorship of ideas is seen, not only on American soil, but in other countries, both now and in history. In a world where governments are to be respected, to think in a contradictory manner is anything but safe. All throughout history, ideological governmen...
Censorship takes on all different shapes and forms: banning of books, television guidelines, laws that curb specific types of speech, and imprisonment or even death for openly speaking. For example, in sixteenth century England, a loyal subject of Henry VII was imprisoned for saying, “I like not the proceedings of this realm. ”1 In earlier times this would have been punishable by death for treason. The need for freedom of speech was first brought up in Massachusetts Body of Liberties in 1641.
Electronic media content can be viewed differently according to personal opinions, but the First Amendment Rights of the United States Constitution lay the foundation for the legal system that is to be followed. These rights form a guide that help citizens have a stronger grasp on what is and isn’t acceptable within the eye of the law. Narrowing down to electronic media content, there has been a rise of tension involving first amendment rights of content regulations. The spectrum scarcity rationale has made it possible to control licensing schemes, along with direct content control to make sure rules are being followed according to the First Amendment. The differences between cable TV versus broadcasting are similar, yet contrasting.
In the U.S., the government does little to nothing at all to censor the press. In other countries around the world though, the press and media distributes nothing that the government does not want to public to know. Look at North
Tremblay tackles this issue by comparing the broadcasting policies by authorities in Canada , Quebec and United States . The policies in Canada clearly exist to maintain their national identity and cultural sovereignty. It is encouraged to use the “Canadian ways” to carry out functions which would be Canadian a...
Russian people enjoyed the liberty to express their views in the decade of 1855 to 1865. “The press then enjoyed greater freedom” (Newth, 2002). As the years passed by of non-censorship, the image of the Russian government and leader of Tsar Alexander at first was extremely favorable (Downs, 2014). Still, soon things started to go down in later years. In 1865, the censorship came back with Russian government and Alexander wanted to keep Russian image positive. The people of Russia soon started to lose their small freedom they had with free voice. Still, there was some sort of freedom of media, but it was not entirely true. “Although freedom of the press nominally existed in the Soviet Union, the government reserved the right to prevent the publication of certain materials.” (Kassof, 2004).
The phrase “the power of the press” is used often, but what exactly is the power of the press? Since the beginning of news reporting, it’s been known that what actually gets into the news reports is monitored and carefully picked by higher authorities. What isn’t widely known, however, is that the media can use specific wording and phrases that, on the surface, look like normal news coverage, but are actually a technique of the media to control the images people see and the words they hear and read. From this, people then form their ideals, but are these actually ideals of those people if the media from which they based them off of was controlled to begin with? It is the power of the press to control and manipulate the public’s ideals by what is released in the media.
While ruling by the England colonist, people living in the North America had little freedom of speech and of thought. The King had two methods to repress the free speech and thought. One is the “publication licensing system”, which prevented people from publish any negative or disrespectful information about their governors; another is the “seditious libel law”, making the behavior mentioned above a crime (Lewis, P.2). During this time, people had little tolerance of dissent. About two hundred years later from establishing the license system, in 1735, printer Zenger was sued because he printed a newspaper which attacked the governor. His lawyer argued the criticisms were not libel, which successfully persuaded the jury to decide Zenger was not guilty. This case impressed the colonies a lot. Soon in the late eighteen century, it led the governors to be afraid of the outrage from people and more and more people used truth to against the law of seditious libel. Under these circumstances, people came up an idea impelling government to add the freedom of press into their laws.
Freedom of speech cannot be considered an absolute freedom, and even society and the legal system recognize the boundaries or general situations where the speech should not be protected. Along with rights comes civil responsib...
“Journalism is not a crime,” (Echeverria 1) several journalists are protesting against government censorship of the media; journalists see that they are having lack of freedom when they write. Journalists can no longer write with liberty, the government restricts them. In many cases, governments punish journalists when they write against them. For example, nowadays Venezuela is in a critical situation due to the poor management of the government. Several journalists have been arrested for trying to communicate to the world about what is going on in Venezuela. The government made the decision to not give them paper so they are not able to write. At the same time, the government is not just affecting journalists; the situation has also forced the closure of various media outlets. Several journalists have claimed by the scarcity of paper, but there has not been any solution for this problem.
One of the fundamental roles of the media in a liberal democracy is to critically scrutinise governmental affairs: that is to act as a watchdog of government to ensure that the government can be held accountable by the public. However, the systematic deregulation of media systems worldwide is diminishing the ability of citizens to meaningfully participate in policymaking process governing the media (McChesney, 2003, p. 126). The relaxation of ownership rules and control, has resulted in a move away from diversity of production to a situation where media ownership is becoming increasing concentrated by just a few predominantly western global conglomerates (M...
Since the foundation of the United States after a harsh split from Britain, almost 200 years later, an issue that could claim the founding grounds for the country is now being challenged by educators, high-ranking officials, and other countries. Though it is being challenged, many libertarians, democrats, and free-speech thinkers hold the claim that censorship violates our so-called unalienable rights, as it has been proven throughout many court cases. Censorship in the United States is detrimental because it has drastically and negatively altered many significant events.
Whereas “unlimited freedom of the press” is guaranteed as a consequence of the right of man to individual liberty, freedom of the press is totally destroyed, because “freedom of the press should not be permitted when it endangers public liberty.” That is to say, therefore: The right of man to liberty ceases to be a right as soon as it comes into conflict with political life, whereas in theory political life is only the guarantee of human rights, the rights of the individual, and therefore must be abandoned as soon as it comes into contradiction with its aim, with these rights of man.” (Marx & Lederer, 1958)