I promised myself that I would stay out of this discussion. But I
couldn't help myself! To add to what Rocky says, the press in a
democratic society is free to print what they want so long as it meets
the laws on the books about libel and slander, plus being somewhat
truthful also helps.
The problem is that the owners of all the publications are political
animals and exercise a lot of control over what slant a story takes in
their publications.
If you really want the whole unbiased story, you must read ALL of the
news papers and watch ALL of the television news programs. Then you
have to digest all that and come up with your own opinion as to what is
the whole truth.
This, of course is likely to be influenced by your own personal biases
or political persuasion.
It's referred to as the "Multiplicity of ideas" and is the tenet on
which a free press is based.
Cheers,
Joe Curry
Texas Tech School of Journalism class of 1974.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Rocky Entriken
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 8:59 PM
To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Interesting Arabic & European News Coverage (Non Triumph)
>From the point of view of a journalist, it always pains me when someone
raises the red flag of "censorship" in this inaccurate manner.
Censorship is when some entity, usually government, decides what you can
or
cannot read. Or write. The Soviet Union declaring "Dr. Zhivago" not in
keeping with Soviet ideology and not permitting it to be published is
censorship.
A journalist covering a story, having a dozen factual points with
time/space
to report six, is not censoring, he is choosing. You may argue whether
he
chose correctly, but it is not censorship. Please! The role we
journalists
play in that regard has a name -- "gatekeeper." Yes, we have to decide
what
bits of information get through the gate. The training is to get the
most
relevant through and hold back the deadwood and chaff. I'm not going to
say
every journalist operates that way, but the good ones do. Just as every
racer doesn't take turn 1 the same way, neither does every journalist
agree
on what the most important elements of every story are. Those differing
opinions may indeed reflect the journalists' biases, but that is the
worst
it is -- a difference of opinion. The very fact another journalist may
report the same event in a different light only illustrates the utter
lack
of censorship involved.
My local paper recently chose not to print a column by Ann Coulter. The
publisher just decided she'd gone over the edge and he chose not to
provide
her space. Censorship? Not when, in the same statement -- openly
published -- he also provided URLs where any reader who really wanted
could
find the column (including on the paper's own website.) But of course
some
screamed "censorship." No, dear readers, censorship would be when some
entity decreed Ann Coulter would not be allowed to write her column, and
enforced the degree with legal punitive measures against both writers
and
publishers (see Boris Pasteryak, who had to renounce his Nobel Prize
because
of censorship).
Censorship is an ugly color. Dip your brush in it with care.
--Rocky Entriken
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