FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

From Free encyclopedia[19]

Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through mediums including various electronic media and published materials. While such freedom mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, its preservation may be sought through constitutional or other legal protections

Freedom of the Press is a yearly report by US-based non-governmental organization Freedom House, measuring the level of freedom and editorial independence enjoyed by the press in every nation and significant disputed territories around the world. Levels of freedom are scored on a scale from 1 (most free) to 100 (least free). Depending on the basics, the nations are then classified as "Free", "Partly Free", or "Not Free".

Freedom of the press is an extremely problematic problem/concept for most non-democratic systems of government since, in the modern age, strict control of access to information is critical to the existence of most non-democratic governments and their associated control systems and security apparatus. To this end, most non-democratic societies employ state-run news organizations to promote the propaganda critical to maintaining an existing political power base and suppress (often very brutally, through the use of police, military, or intelligence agencies) any significant attempts by the media or individual journalists to challenge the approved "government line" on contentious issues.

In such countries, journalists operating on the fringes of what is deemed to be acceptable will very often find themselves the subject of considerable intimidation by agents of the state. This can range from simple threats to their professional careers (firing, professional blacklisting) to death threats, kidnapping, torture, and assassination.

In terms of the rights of the people, one can argue that there is no such thing as too much news. Across the masthead of many American newspapers are inscribed the words from Scripture, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." The Founding Fathers believed that a free press was a necessary protection of the individual from the government. Justice Brandeis saw a free press as providing the information that a person needed to fulfill the obligations of citizenship. Probably in no other area is the nature of a right changing as rapidly as it is in the gathering and dissemination of information by the press, but the task remains the same. The First Amendment's Press Clause continues to be a structural bulwark of democracy and of the people.

SPIN CONTROL AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: