U.S. freedom of press under threat: The French view
France's Le Figaro notes the threat to U.S. free speech and free press - not only by recent government actions, such as the Patriot Act and attacks on journalist-source confidentiality (think Matt Cooper and Judith Miller), but also by a general willingness by Americans to let these freedoms atrophy. As Exhibit A it points to USA Today's recent survey of 112,000 American high school students, which showed
- that 32% of them believe that there is too much freedom of the press, versus 10% only who believe that there is not enough. If 51% find it normal that the media publish whatever news they want, no less than 36% would prefer that the media be subject to government authorization beforehand. And the newspaper added that "the results of this poll correspond very closely to those of recent studies of adult attitudes."
The French newspaper, not surprisingly, rounds things off bt bringing in good old Thomas Jefferson, "the author of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America," who once said that "he would prefer to live in a country without a government to living in a country without freedom of the press. That is obviously not the opinion of all his twenty-first century fellow citizens," says Le Figaro. I think the evidence suggests the French are right on this one.
posted by hdougie at 3/01/2005 09:05:00 PM
1 Comments:
The results of this USA Today's recent survey are horrible. I am not sure why high schoolers would think that there is to much freedom of the press. Apparently they are not being taught the origins and importance of the free press here in American society (and indeed, the rest of the world).
I am not exactly an expert on the origins of free press, except knowing that this wasn't exactly a right granted to all people. But I do know about the importance of a free press. The strength of a democracy depends nothing more on the strength of its people - and a free press gives people the information they need to make sound judgments. Imagine a press run by the government. There wqould never be any reports about the faults of the Bush Administration (VERY hard to imagine, right?). And if there were no bad things reported, the public would have no idea what was really going on in this country, and who they really want to be in office come next election.
Freedom of the press is the most important right we as Americans have. It is a key to the truth. Some of us may not like the truth, or may find it annoying or boring, but the bottomline is we need to know the truth in order to make accurate decisions. The only way to get to the truth is through freedom of the press. I know when I was in high school, I never got that message, and I wish todays high schoolers would get it.
Joe Mignano
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