A Free Press Keeps Us Free

In June of 2009, the Chinese government arrested dissident author Liu Xiaobo. As Audra Ang of the Associated Press reports in her article, “Chinese Intellectuals Call for Release of Dissident,” Liu had recently co-authored “a bold manifesto urging civil rights and political reforms [within the Chinese government].” That manifesto may cost him fifteen years in prison for the crime of “inciting to subvert state power.” The heavy penalty reflects how seriously the regime regards its control of information. Like all totalitarian governments, the Chinese government understands that to control the people, it must control the press. And, just as a state-controlled media controls the populace, so a free press keeps the people free.

The success of any democracy depends upon the freedom of the press, because only a free press can provide  the information voters need to cast educated votes.   Bradley Steffens, in his editorial "The News Media Must Be Free," writes, “A free press is vital in a democracy. ... To make informed choices about their government, the people need to know what their leaders are saying and doing.”  This places the government’s interest in direct opposition to the populace’s at precisely the times when voters’ awareness of their leaders actions matter most:  when the leaders have something to hide.  “President Nixon's staff [attempted] to thwart [media] investigations into the Watergate scandal, President Reagan's staff … into the Iran-Contra affair, and President Clinton's staff … into the Democratic Party's 1996 campaign fund-raising efforts,” Steffens points out.  When the nation’s leaders seek to hide their actions from the voting public, only journalists and the media can ensure that the voting public learns what its leaders wish to conceal.  Journalists form the public's first line of defense against corruption in high office.  As Steffens writes, “A person cannot form a bad opinion of the government if he or she does not know what the government is doing.”  Every time reporters expose an abuse of power, those in power see that the public holds them accountable for their actions.

The role of journalists goes far beyond merely exposing political corruption, however.  At their best, journalists can help undermine the control of single-party regimes like China’s by alerting the public to untruths in the official propaganda.  In the United States and other multiparty democracies, journalists can fact-check partisan propaganda and provide necessary perspective during election years, when the voting public’s knowledge of their government and political candidates becomes crucial.  Informed votes, after all, require knowledge of all sides the debate.  A government- or party-controlled press can only present the side of the ruling faction.  This leads to distortions and omissions of fact that inhibit the ability of citizens to make educated choices.

The power of the media to control perceptions has been used by governments since the rise of the printing press.  Centuries before Communist China began jailing journalists, the Tudors of sixteenth-century England used their control over mass printing to depict the preceding century's Wars of the Roses as far bloodier and more brutal than scholars now believe they were.  The people accepted Tudor rule far more willingly when convinced the Tudor dynasty had lifted the realm out of a savage dark age.

But governments aren't the only abusers of media power.  Journalists abuse their own reach whenever they become the mouthpieces of a political party or corporate entity, whether for personal gain or out of a sincere belief in an ideology.  The political left and right wings and the corporate world all have some media propagandists, reporters who either fail to recognize, and therefore to report, problems in their chosen party or corporation, or who deliberately distort facts and withhold inconvenient information for the furtherance of an agenda.  These reporters pose nearly as great a danger to freedom of thought as a government-controlled press.  Their work can preclude voters from casting truly informed votes.  Freedom of the press cannot mean a complete lack of accountability.  A free press can only sustain a free society by using its freedom responsibly, to report the truth about events that matter in the world and allow the public to draw its own conclusions.

Ultimately, that ability to disseminate facts  to a public allowed to draw its own conclusions makes a free press vital to democracy.  The power of democracy lies not in the advancement of any one agenda, but in the ability of the voting public's power to decide the future for itself.  In "Censorship Threatens Freedom of the Press," Carl Jensen's lament for the decline of muckraking journalism, Jensen writes, “The press does have the power to stimulate people. ... Now let us seek a more responsible and responsive press.”  With the information that that press provides, responsible and responsive voters will have the tools necessary to make decisions that can “build a more enlightened and responsive society.”

Works Cited

Ang, Audra.  “China intellectuals call for release of dissident.”  WTOP Online.  26 June 2009.  9 July 2009.  . 

Jensen, Carl.  “Censorship Threatens Freedom of the Press.”  Current Controversies:  Free Speech 2000.  Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center.  Gale.  San Diego City College 2 July 2009.  . 

Steffens, Bradley.  “The News Media Must Be Free.”  Opposing Viewpoints Digests:  Censorship.  2001.  Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center.  Gale.  San Diego City College 2 July 2009.  .