WE at the BusinessMirror, along with our sister companies CNN Philippines, radio station DWIZ and the Philippines Graphic magazine have a vested interest and are deeply committed to freedom of the press and media.
The collective freedom of the press is the mirror image of the individual’s freedom of speech and expression. We cannot have one without the other. An assault on one is a restriction of the other.
The American Declaration of Independence reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That one sentence reversed millennia of the “Divine Right of Kings” to the divine right of the people.
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution qualified the foundation of those rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”
Yet, over the past 230 years, nations around the world have continuously struggled with the practical reality of how those words apply in everyday life. Does freedom of speech allow for materials that fit the changing definition of what is obscene and pornographic? Does freedom of the press give the right to call for the unconstitutional overthrow of a legally elected government?
While it is easy to dismiss these as extreme examples, it is always the outliers that challenge our core beliefs.
The press and media are always under scrutiny and even attack, and press and media practitioners must be vigilant. However, as we have written in the past, it seems that the public, which we say that we serve, is less concerned than maybe it should be. The last decade has been a literally dangerous time for those in the press and there is little public outcry. There may be a reason for that.
A recent Gallup opinion poll in the US recently showed that 84 percent of the people said that the news media was “very important” or “critical” to democracy. Yet, 43 percent also said that media did a “very poor” or “poor” job of supporting democracy.
A poll conducted by the Media Research Center found that 69 percent do not believe the news media are “honest and truthful.” Only 41 percent “trust” the press, and a meager 36 percent said, “news organizations generally get the facts straight.”
A press and media that are perceived in these ways are going to be subject to reactions like this. “A [Philippine] House subcommittee is proposing that the 1987 Constitution’s bill of rights provision protecting press freedom be changed to a right to responsible exercise of free speech.”
With that kind of language as law, both a free press and free speech is doomed.
But Jonathan S. Tobin wrote this in the National Review magazine: “The worst thing those who care about press freedom can do is ignore the public’s justified concerns about polarized and politicized media.”
The Chicago Times wrote in 1861, “It is a newspaper’s duty to print the news and raise hell.” However, that requires the public’s trust and the best way to protect and even increase press freedom is for the press and media to be held to account—and not by the government. News must always be absolutely factual, and bias views placed clearly in the “Opinion” section.