Freedom of the press is a right that is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is essential to an effective democracy, in order to cast an educated vote people must be informed. Thomas Jefferson once said “Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.” How is freedom of the press defined? Most commonly freedom of the press is defined as the right to circulate opinions without government regulation. In the world today every person has the freedom to be a journalist or a broadcaster. Every person is able to publish their opinions though extensive different mediums. We live in a world of constant sharing. Despite the ability to share our freedom of the press in conditional. In “What Kind of an Animal is This
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The press is often owned by the people in power, which raises a conflict of interest when journalists print stories that cause problems for the owners. This problem was explored in the documentary Fear and Favor in the Newsroom. Bill Dedman was a journalist that published a series of Pulitzer Prize winning stories about black Americans being denied home loans. Dedman’s good journalism didn’t make everyone happy, board members and major advertisers thought he went too far because they did business with the banks (Sanders, "Fear and favor in the newsroom"). If anything is published that threatens the major advertisers or funders, the newspaper or news broadcasting station risk losing their funding. With such a heavy reliance on advertising funding to pay for the media today journalists are often discouraged from going after stories that may be controversial. It results in biased controlled journalism. If journalists push the boundaries and try to write controversial stories anyway they were often fired and replaced with people who are more compliant. GE owns the NBC Network which is a perfect example of corporate control of the media. Jeff Cohen founder of a New York-based media watch group, FAIR or Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, said the following in regards to GE’s influence on NBC News “When your boss is lobbying personally on one side of a controversy, the message is that these hundreds of journalists should avoid independent or balanced coverage of that issue. Such a meeting has a chilling effect on journalists, producers, correspondents and researchers.” (Shah). After 9/11 Bill Maher, the host of ABC’s Politically Incorrect, learned this lesson the hard way. He criticized Bill Clinton’s focus on missiles instead of ground troops and then his show was dropped and Sears and Fedex dropped their sponsorship (Ackerman).The majority of mass media is owned by a handful of large companies and
The press is often owned by the people in power, which raises a conflict of interest when journalists print stories that cause problems for the owners. This problem was explored in the documentary Fear and Favor in the Newsroom. Bill Dedman was a journalist that published a series of Pulitzer Prize winning stories about black Americans being denied home loans. Dedman’s good journalism didn’t make everyone happy, board members and major advertisers thought he went too far because they did business with the banks (Sanders, "Fear and favor in the newsroom"). If anything is published that threatens the major advertisers or funders, the newspaper or news broadcasting station risk losing their funding. With such a heavy reliance on advertising funding to pay for the media today journalists are often discouraged from going after stories that may be controversial. It results in biased controlled journalism. If journalists push the boundaries and try to write controversial stories anyway they were often fired and replaced with people who are more compliant. GE owns the NBC Network which is a perfect example of corporate control of the media. Jeff Cohen founder of a New York-based media watch group, FAIR or Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, said the following in regards to GE’s influence on NBC News “When your boss is lobbying personally on one side of a controversy, the message is that these hundreds of journalists should avoid independent or balanced coverage of that issue. Such a meeting has a chilling effect on journalists, producers, correspondents and researchers.” (Shah). After 9/11 Bill Maher, the host of ABC’s Politically Incorrect, learned this lesson the hard way. He criticized Bill Clinton’s focus on missiles instead of ground troops and then his show was dropped and Sears and Fedex dropped their sponsorship (Ackerman).The majority of mass media is owned by a handful of large companies and