Most of the world's people denied truthful reporting

HoustonChronicle.com ^ | May 7, 2002, 11:04PM | unsigned editorial

[rw4site]

PRESS FREEDOM

Most of the world's people denied truthful reporting

A free people cannot exist in the absence of a free press. Most people in the world are denied a free press, and without one they cannot experience freedom.

A free press keeps government in check. It exposes the corruptions and weaknesses of the powerful and elite. It can right wrongs.

For those reasons and many more, governments and the powerful and the elite are rarely comfortable with a free press. A free press reveals things they don't want the people to know.

World Press Freedom Day, recognized this month, commemorated the anniversary of the signing of the Windhoek Declaration on May 3, 1991, a statement of principles written by publishers, editors and reporters in Africa who hoped to preserve and extend press freedom around the world.

That goal remains under attack. In many nations newspapers are being shut down and reporters and editors beaten up and killed for telling the truth.

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers knew the importance of press freedom and guaranteed its protection in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, along with protecting the people's right to freely express themselves, practice their religions, peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Press freedom was viewed as a radical idea in its time. It is still unacceptable in most countries of the world and has been restrained by the Bush administration since Sept. 11. Public and press access to presidential archives and other public records has been limited or denied. The names of hundreds of aliens imprisoned in the United States have been kept secret. Reporters' traditional access to the front lines of U.S. military operations has eroded.

"Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed?" asked Vladimir Lenin, who was successful in fooling many of the world's intellectuals at the time of the Russian revolution. "Why should a government, which is doing what it believes to be right, allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinion calculated to embarrass the government?"

But men of freedom and good have always known better.

"To the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been obtained by reason and humanity over error and oppression," said James Madison.

"A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny," said Winston Churchill.

A free press is necessary for a free people.

---

[rw4site]

Re: "To the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses"

They recognoize a problem of abuses exists.

One little "abuse" with a large portion of America's press is that they consider the freedom to be exclusively theirs.

Another little "abuse" is they don't report much on political matters other than what their agenda supports.

It's all about what they don't report.

[rw4site]

"recognoize" = recognize

[SkyPilot]

HEADLINE: Most of the world's people denied truthful reporting

SUBHEADLINE: No kidding. And it ain't just in the Third World either.

I believe the Liberal Media in the US is the only example in history of a Free Press that refuses to report the Truth.

[What Is Ain't]

Most of the world's people denied truthful reporting

This is especially true of the people who read the Houston Chronicle.

[tcostell]

Are there any Houston Residence that would like to confirm whether this is the pot calling the kettle black? After all, what does the US media know about "truthful" reporting?

[tcostell]

Residence = Residents

LOL, it's really early here, no coffee yet.

[DB]

A free press is a free press. That doesn't mean people not in the press have to cooperate with the press or provide it information. The free press is supposed to discover information by its own means and not rely on government to feed it. If the press wants war front coverage, have at it. Just don't expect military resources to be used to protect you while your run around the front lines.

When the government stops the press by force (or law) then that is a whole other matter.

Just because Bush doesn't provide the press with the information it wants doesn't mean he is some how limiting the freedom of the press.

[Maceman]

Most of the world's people denied truthful reporting

I didn't know most of the world's people could get the CBS, ABC and NBC signals.

[gunnedah]

The problem with the press is the same as with government,they have their own agendas.You can send Geraldo to a war zone and make him a star but he will still never know how those people live.The press like our government officials live in their own little world.It is like Clinton telling you he feels your pain and he has always lived off of government and in his Ivory Tower.The only pain he ever felt was Hillary smacking him.

[FreePaul]

This article appeared in the Houston Chronicle, a paper with an increasing problem with truthful reporting. We suffer from having only one major newspaper which has an interest in promoting their agenda instead of accurate reporting.

[Boonie Rat]

When I lived in Houston the Chronicle was referred to as the Houston Comical. The Post had better coverage before it was shut down, and it didn't amount to diddly.

Boonie Rat

MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66

[tdadams]

[Freedom of the press] has been restrained by the Bush administration since Sept. 11... "Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed?" asked Vladimir Lenin.

I'm sure there was no agenda whatsoever in making this analogy.

[dalebert]

The press has become as big a liar as Arafat. But what is worse is they seem clueless.

[EdReform]

Bump

[friendly]

"Most of the world's people denied truthful reporting"

That would without a doubt include the DNC's rigid control of the mass media.

One telling piece of absolute evidence?: "Bias" and other exposes receive their only mainstream exposure on Fox occasionally. Otherwise it's an astonishing and unprecedented total media blackout for the #1 bestseller.

Incidentally Terry McAulfee, the DNC head, Clinton family buttboy, and $100,000 to $18 million stock fraud con artist, has announced a coordinated well funded campaign to neutralize the growing influence of talk radio and internet media critics. Free Republic and Drudge Report have been under coordinated legal assault by the DNC and its operatives for some time. We can expect more litigation. I have also noticed a distinct rise in site disrupters over the last several weeks.

On a positive note, circulation is way up at the fastest growing print newspaper in the US, the 200 year old, fiercely pro-Republican NY Post in New York City. And did you ever look at the end of the Drudge Report at circulation (hits per day) figures. Drudge is rapidly approaching ONE BILLION hits per year!

[Tacis]

Oh, BS!! Look, CNN is CNN! LIVE WITH IT!!!

[SkyPilot]

I have noticed an increase in the disruptors here in Free Republic recently as well.

I don't like to do the "Well, you're new--so screw you!" routine. But it is easy to tell sometimes.

Part of it is directly attributable to homosexual and gay rights groups who feel threatened by the current scandal in the Catholic Church. A recent post here on FR from GLAAD made that all too clear.

Some of the disruptors here on Free Republic were cited by our lurkers on Democratic Underground. They were even soliciting screen names from their friends that sounded "Right-Wing Wacko-like."

Oh, and I forgot to add this comment to the above article regarding what the Houston Chronicle says about media:

It exposes the corruptions and weaknesses of the powerful and elite.

Or...not.....

[eFudd]

A free people cannot exist in the absence of a free press.

Wrong! A free press has nothing to with people being free.

A free press will help prevent a government from increasing the enslavement of its subjects, but to the degree the people are governed those people are not free.

The press most definitely does not make people free. In fact the press, by promoting its own agenda, works towards the intellectual enslavement of its own readers or listeners.

[friendly]

Bump for truthful reporting through the Internet. We are denied it elsewhere.