Friday, February 22, 2008

Jessica K- "Reporters should submit their work to government officials so they may determine if it's a threat to the country."

I disagree with this statement. Reporters have the right to write whatever they want as long as it's not going against the law and ethics. Let's say the government was making a poor decision and a reporter wanted to write about it. Then this reporter should have the right to tell the general public and inform them what is going on. The government might find it threatening to their publicity, but everyone deserves to know what's going on.
It's not the job of a government official to determine what should be printed and what shouldn't be, but between the reporter and their editor after considering the public's view of whether or not an article should be printed.

2 comments:

Deep Thoughts - 1984 said...

I totally agree with Jessica on this topic. The reason for the Press is to report the facts. If the government were to take control of that then there wouldnt be any "truth". The Press has the great ability to sway the minds of the people. I could understand why the government would want to control it but that just wouldnt be fair for the people. People deserve the right to know what is happening in the world around them

-Marvin Eng

Deep Thoughts - 1984 said...

I agree with Jessica and Marvin on this one. If the Party didn't control what was published in the papers, the country of Oceania would have been very different. They wouldn't have been able to get away with all the lying they did and there would have been way more freedom. If it's a threat to the country hopefully the editors and the people high up at the newspaper would catch it before the reporter had it published. The government shouldn't have the right to step in and limit a piece of news just because it might harm their reputation.

-Laura West