{"id":424,"date":"2007-05-13T15:37:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-13T21:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=424"},"modified":"2007-05-13T15:37:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-13T21:37:00","slug":"freedom-of-speech-and-the-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/05\/freedom-of-speech-and-the-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of speech and the media"},"content":{"rendered":"

R<\/span>ichard Sambrook<\/a> posts<\/a> at the End of Journalism<\/span><\/span><\/a>, on freedom of speech. (There’s a hat-tip to dear old Simon ‘Cue’ Cumbers<\/a>, among others.)<\/p>\n

He ends his piece: <\/p>\n

…if you doubt whether accurate, impartial, independent journalism can make a difference, you should recognise that some of theforces opposed to it don\u2019t doubt it for a second.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I prefer Lydia Polzer<\/span><\/a>‘s observations: <\/p>\n

Maybe when we are asking what threatens a free media, we are really trying to establish, what the media needs to be free from. It is not just the political but also the social and economic context in which the media are operating that determines the extent and nature of its freedom.<\/p>\n

The media will always be a reinforcing part and a reflection of the political and economic system within which it operates. The hopes pinned on the media as a tool for a more democratic society should not be too high.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Think I’d agree with that. Good reporting is bearing witness. Journalism is most powerful – and most dangerous for those practising it – when the act of bearing witness most threatens those with power.<\/p>\n

In societies like ours (the UK) where journalism itself still wields power, it becomes another form of negotiated influence. Maybe that’s why I prefer the BBC<\/span>‘s foreign reporting, which manages – just – to tread outside those confines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Sambrook posts at the End of Journalism, on freedom of speech. (There’s a hat-tip to dear old Simon ‘Cue’ Cumbers, among others.) He ends his piece: …if you doubt whether accurate, impartial, independent journalism can make a difference, you should recognise that some of theforces opposed to it don\u2019t doubt it for a second. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-journalists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}