On the Press and Freedom

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

Noam Chomsky

I always considered the press to be the best way of acquiring information that was not as directed and controlled as the television. Since I was 14 I used to buy the newspaper that I thought was more independent from the others and read; something that I did especially on Sundays that I had free time.

Growing up I realized that the press was not as independent as it should be and that it did not offer the freedom of speech and structural pluralism that was suppose to (the extent to which the community has an open structure that permits minority voices and opinions to be heard). That was obvious as people who owned the largest newspapers also owed multinational companies, followed a political line something that created a bias and often lead to censorship. This of course is the case for the so called independent newspapers as the press imposes a limit and does not encourage independent writing. Nevertheless, this did not prevent me from reading and relying on the press for obtaining information.

Yesterday I started reading a newspaper and I really started questioning why I continue buying newspapers. Surely, inside newspapers we can read some nice articles but I have the impression that they get fewer as the years go by. On top of that they are filled with advertisements, cds, dvd’s and lack critique and diversity.

On the internet and inside blogs I have started realizing that I am reading more critical articles that are diverse and I also learn faster about the news that interest me as the internet does not select for me the topics that I should read but I make the selection. Of course the writers of the articles may also exhibit personal biases in their articles but on the internet one has the opportunity to discover pluralism. Different articles for the same topic can exhibit different opinions something that the press always lacked. The press could never successfully distance itself and present different views and opinions for the same incident.

I feel that the internet could be a tool that could empower people to express themselves. We can’t always rely on journalists to choose what could be interesting for us to learn. The news is made by people and can be distributed by the people whose opinions are not censored by their editor. I only fear that when governments realise this potential, they will start censoring internet pages as even though our constitution is based on the freedom of speech when the word freedom is mentioned there is always a person that tries to place a limit on what freedom represents.

(art by dorothy shoes)