Free Press?

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MacAllister

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Amendment I - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

In 2002, the US was ranked 17th in the world, with regard to Freedom of the Press. By 2006, that ranking has fallen drastically--the US is now ranked well below countries like El Salvador. (Rankings taken from the Worldwide Press Freedom Index.)

The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.


Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, has been held without trial since June 2002 at the US military base at Guantanamo, and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April this year.

Bilal Hussein is a Pulitzer-prize winning photo-journalist, btw.

My question for discussion is this: As a writer, how important is free speech to you? How do we best defend and exercise that right?

Glen Greenwald writes:
Bilal Hussein is the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer who was detained by the U.S. military in Iraq back in April -- almost six months ago. Along with 14,000 other people around the world (at least), he continues to remain in U.S. custody without being charged with any crime. The U.S. military has vaguely claimed that he has close ties with Iraqi insurgents but refuses to specify what it is specifically that he is alleged to have done, refuses to provide any hearing or process of any kind for him to learn of the charges or contest them, and refuses to respond to AP's requests for information about why he is being held.

As writers, are we honestly going to just swallow that a free press needs to be curtailed, that it poses some threat? Because, so far, we seem to be doing precisely that.

Thoughts?
 
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SpookyWriter

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The terms Free Press (speech) and America do not agree with each other. Our press is manipulated and controlled by special interest. The Iraq (war) illegal invasion of a sovereign country was another example of the press sleeping with the government and not providing independent reporting.

The press in Iraq were orchestrated much like a marching band. They didn't report objectively because they were the guest of the American military and subject to their rules of what is news worthy.

If you live or travel outside of America then you can actually see what's happening in the world today. But you will not get the facts, truth, or straight talk from the American press.

I wondered what happened. Just when did the press become a mouth piece for special interest?

I admire any journalist who stands up to the obstacles of government and war to report the truth. I think we should demand to know what's really going on in the world.

But we don't. We are complaisant to get our sound bites of the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are docile to the truth. We don't want to know what's really going on with secret prisons. We just want the bad guys to go away and let us enjoy the NBA playoffs.

ETA: Free speech is losing ground in this country. Dare say something offensive about the (fill in the blanks) and become watched. Don't dare confront the leaders in this country about how poorly they're doing for fear of being arrested or detained. The wicked truth is that freedom of speech is important and becoming a mockery by our elected leaders. They don't want us to speak out against the injustice of their agenda.
 
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wordmonkey

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SpookyWriter said:
I wondered what happened. Just when did the press become a mouth piece for special interest?

Actually if you look back, just a little over a hundred years and look at the country Theodore Roosevelt stepped into as President, you will see that this country has slide back to the way things were then.

However, with specific reference to the press, for the longest time the press has had a bias. What is different now is that the bias is predominantly one way (connected to the robber barons.... er.... I mean corporations that own them) now.

On face value, I have no problem with that. As long as you know the bias you can filter accordingly. It's when they claim to be free of bias but aren't that I think is wrong. The idea of the crusading free press was a post WWII thing that pretty much died in the seventies and was savaged by the equal time rules that were killed Reagan. (I know that's specific to broadcast, but it stands as a time marker and event.)

Of course, some of our colleagues here might disagree. Some might well respond, "Non-issue. Left-wing agenda. Nothing to see here. Move along and stop thinking."

The grand experiment has been hijacked by people who see no value in experimentation.

WOW! Well thanks for that depressing little start to the day!
 

SC Harrison

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MacAllister said:
My question for discussion is this: As a writer, how important is free speech to you? How do we best defend and exercise that right?

Aside from personal efforts such as blogging, any other efforts to exercise this right will be screened by editors and/or publishers before reaching print. If they are being unduly influenced by some outside source, your only choice is to a) allow the filtering, or b) hope some other entity will publish you.
 

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I found this very interesting, thanks for posting it Mac. Freedom of speech is such an inherent right, it must be fought for and claimed. I imagine that there's a danger of its erosion arriving at a critical mass whereby there isn't even enough freedom of speech to talk about the fact that there isn't any freedom of speech (!) so then how will anybody know?
 

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The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.

The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.html
 

robeiae

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MacAllister said:
In 2002, the US was ranked 17th in the world, with regard to Freedom of the Press. By 2006, that ranking has fallen drastically--the US is now ranked well below countries like El Salvador.
The rankings are arbitrary and largely meaningless.

From "How the index was drawn up":
Reporters Without Borders sent out a questionnaire based on the main criteria for such freedom and asking for details of directs attacks on journalists (such as murders, imprisonment, physical assaults and threats) and on the media (censorship, confiscation, searches and pressure). It also asked about the degree of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for such violations.
So by defintion, the index is based on nothing but random opinions.

Here are some things to chew on:

1) What's the relationship between size, with regard to the nations, and the numbers of "violations" against journalists? In other words, were the numbers figured on a per capita basis, or just taken as raw data? And did someone bother to see whether or not population increases correlate to increses in "violations" directly? Is the correlation even, or does it have an exponential component (I suspect the latter)?

2) What's the relationship between population demographics and the number of "violations"? Do more homogenous populations, in any category, exhibit more or less violations, or is this not a factor?

3) What about the size of the media/press, relative to the population? Is this consistent for all nations considered or does it change wildly? How might that effect the conclusions?

4) And then there is the average age of the members of the media/press. Do those with younger averages typically show more or less violations?

I could go on...and on...and on...

I also noted that the initial rankings in 2002 had the the U.S. ranked lower than European countries because of legal problems for reporters refusing to reveal their sources. I know media types like to hang their hats on this 'right,' but I can't seem to find it in the First Amendment, above and beyond the general right of Freedom of Speech...
Bilal Hussein is a Pulitzer-prize winning photo-journalist, btw.
So he's beyond reproach and could not possibly have done anything wrong? A poor bit of reasoning, Mac. I know nothing about him, but a Pulitzer doesn't automatically make someone perfect.
My question for discussion is this: As a writer, how important is free speech to you? How do we best defend and exercise that right?

Glen Greenwald writes:

As writers, are we honestly going to just swallow that a free press needs to be curtailed, that it poses some threat? Because, so far, we seem to be doing precisely that.

Thoughts?
Considering the current volume of "the press" (which is so far above anything in the past, what with 24 hour cable news and the internet), I'm having a hard time finding any significant curtailments that cause me to worry. And as I've noted before, I don't do slippery slopes.
 
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aghast

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one only needs to go outside of this country, say europe, to realize how much curtailing is in america press media - we are running a propaganda machine (on both red and blue sides) here - theres no secret that editors at major papers and news orgs stifle or discourage material out of many reasons - political leanings, fear, risk of prosecution, etc, e.g. americans are only hearing a small part of the truths in iraq
 
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SC Harrison

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robeiae said:
The rankings are arbitrary and largely meaningless.

I could go on...and on...and on...

Regardless of the methods used in developing the rankings, if the same methods were used from year to year (which is the question you should have posited), the decline (or perception of) in journalistic freedom is apparent.

I understand your disinclination for slippery slopes, so you may want to ignore the rest of this. Opinions and perceptions, especially amongst those who bring us information, are critical in detecting whether our duly elected government is operating within its constitutional limitations. Sometimes smoke just happens, but you need to look anyway to make sure there isn't a fire.
 

robeiae

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SC Harrison said:
Regardless of the methods used in developing the rankings, if the same methods were used from year to year (which is the question you should have posited), the decline (or perception of) in journalistic freedom is apparent.
Incorrect, as the comparison of the U.S. ranking does not actually indicate a "decline," per se. It indicates a change in the arbitrary rank that the U.S. has been assigned. This change could just as easily be a product of perceived "increases" in other nations; the rankings are not based on empirical quantitative differences in any way, shape, or form. In fact, the rankings are necassarily based on qualitative differences. which are established through random opinion of a tiny portion of the overall population. Like I said: arbitrary.

You can, of course, make the judgement of whether or not journalistic freedom has declined or increased in a given nation or the world at large, based on your own experiences and knowledge. And that judgement is clearly an opinion. These rankings are no more meaningful than that opinion.
 

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MacAllister said:
My question for discussion is this: As a writer, how important is free speech to you? How do we best defend and exercise that right?

As a writer, I take the freedom of speech very seriously. I understand that I have a responsibility to choose my words carefully, because they may hurt others (this board is rife with sensitive-types who care not for freedom of speech, only that their noses don't smell the stink of offensive material, for instance).

However, I will never lay down my right to say whatever I want, specifically how I want. No word is verboten to me, to use as I feel warranted.

The first amendment was written *specifically* so that common people could insult politicians and heads of state without fear of reprisal. I do not believe it was written to protect writers from being forced to turn over sources or archives. I don't believe it protects writers in the event they perform criminal acts.

America remains one of the few nations in the world where you can say anything you want about whoever you want, without fear of anything more than social stigmatizing and popular repercussions -- not jail time and a hatchet on your neck.
 

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DeniseK said:

Apparently you forget how our justice system works. Someone will take this to the supreme court, the supreme court will go "nope, unconstitutional" and the law will be thrown out.

You guys panic like a bunch of 3-year-olds who don't realize our country actually works pretty good when you let it.
 

SC Harrison

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dclary said:
Apparently you forget how our justice system works. Someone will take this to the supreme court, the supreme court will go "nope, unconstitutional" and the law will be thrown out.

You guys panic like a bunch of 3-year-olds who don't realize our country actually works pretty good when you let it.

It works pretty good because some people don't just "let it". :)

We're a work in progress, and nobody is perfect, which means we gotta keep our eyes on stuff.
 

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SC Harrison said:
It works pretty good because some people don't just "let it". :)

We're a work in progress, and nobody is perfect, which means we gotta keep our eyes on stuff.

Exactly. But it requires faith in the system, not fear of it.
 

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What worries me more than the curtailment of freedom of the press is what
seems to be the average person’s (not picking on any one nationality)
lack of interest in the facts and the desire to filter information through
an emotion-based “what should be” screen (blind patriotism or partisanism). Like what SpookyWriter mentioned. So many people in the US seem
to assume or want to believe what’s on CNN is the whole truth. There are alternative news
sources, but to get a truly in-depth understanding of, say, what’s going
on in Iraq, would take more digging than your average full-time-working
parent of 2.5 kids has time for. I don't know if people are complacent or
just burned out.

I agree with what wordmonkey said about press bias. Biased news sources
aren’t as big a problem if it’s obvious whose side they’re biased toward
and there are other easily available news sources with different biases.
The country where I live now is in the top ten of that
Reporters Sans Frontieres list, but certainly not because journalists
are free from police harassment. I think the only reason is because most
papers and TV stations proudly define themselves as leftist or rightist
(at a variety of points on that continuum) and take steps to protect
“their” reporters. Also, these news sources tend to balance each other
out and even among the major newspapers, you’re unlikely to find ubiquitous support for a given issue.

I think (hope) there will always be people willing to risk their lives, if need be, to
get at the truth, whether that means investigating under cover, running an
illicit newspaper, or just owning a short-wave radio and telling the neighbors
what they heard on it. If no one cares to hear the news, though, what
good does finding it do?

Anyway, I don't have any answers, just musing.

Z

And sorry for the wierd formatting. Don't know why it's doing that.
 
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It must be really easy to have amazing freedom of the press when you're Finland and have like three newspapers, two magazines, one TV station and like a grand total of 12 reporters covering snow and cheese 365 a year.

"No violations in Finland!!! They're #1."

"America, sorry...despite only 8 of what we'd call 'violations' out of 1344 newspapers, 10 channels, 87 magazines, 12,987 active reporters and covering about 346,329 total stories, we're gonna have to drop you below Venezeuala this year. Yes, Hugo Chaves allows more freedom of speech than you. I know it's hard to believe. But we did a study!!!!!!!"

lol...

the whole thing ....laughable.

But, I enjoy freedom of speech.

Especially when it doesn't violate laws.

If it does, sorry.

If you don't like that, then call your senators and congressmen and tell them to pease heed the call to have the United States and our intellience services and our military to no longer have classified info.

Every day, every thing, every plan, every weapon should be broadcast on the "Classified Info Station."

And then we won't have any more freedom of speech issues.

Thank you.
 
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"Congrats, Finland!! Our exhaustive check has shown that out of the 187 Finland Gazette Front Page Stories entited 'We love Hockey!' not a single one was squashed by the government. You guys are so free with your press!"
Wik Werner
Freedom of Press Insititute Chairman
 
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