Week 5: Response to Discussion One and Two

WednesdayFeb 7 at 1:47am

Manage Discussion Entry

I believe that the importance of freedom of press is best summed up in the summary of chapter four in our textbook: “If we think of journalism as primarily a search for truth about social facts that are relevant to a society’s purposes, then once again we cannot reasonably expect journalism to arrive at the truth if journalists are not allowed freely to pursue their inquiries,” (Jacquette, 2007, p.122). Without freedom of press the truth could easily be manipulated, or even completely avoided. We have seen this before in fascist nations, such as Nazi Germany, where propaganda and lies convinced many people to do terrible things. To maintain a sense of truth and perspective in society, freedom of press is necessary.

I think that bias and opinions in the news is the biggest threat to freedom of speech as we currently have in America. I think that this is a very real issue because different news networks give different “facts” regarding certain issues. If I watch Fox News for an hour, and then MSNBC for an hour, I will most likely hear the same stories being told in completely different fashions with different “facts” and opinions. If a person only gets their news from one source and doesn’t try to determine whether what they hear is true or not, that person can end up believing something that may not be the truth. If enough people fell into this trap, and other networks began to lose viewership, then that network would control all the news. While censorship and protecting sources are also threats to freedom of speech, I don’t believe that they are nearly as realistic as severe biases.

Source:

Jacquette, D. (2007). Journalistic ethics: Moral responsibility in the media. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.