19
Worldwide Focus Issue 1
or even a television. Again, this phenomenon is not 100 percent general. There are journalists who write in their names without being paid to write lies, but the ones who are in charge are many more. A technique practiced at all levels of the press now is the ’grey propagande’ which reffers to those who mix in an article lies and well known truths in order to give the impression that all that it is written there is authentic. So, this is what you get when we talk about freedom of the press. Now, let me ask you what would change if we didn’t have the freedom of the press. Well, it wouldn’t make a world of difference because in that case, the press would be banned by law and not by people with money. Those who write „ugly” truths would go to jail, they wouldn’t only be fired from their work place. Not that I suggest going to jail is a a little, but the concept of „freedom of the Press” wouldn’t exist anyway as real and concrete. No matter the purpose of the press is, to manipulate or to inform, it is always written for citizens. Population is the one who consumes the product of the Press, so the influence of what is told in Press is crucial: there is a category of people who don’t know very much about what happens in this world and if they have the „luck” to encounter in their way an article full of lies they won’t distinguish if what they read is true or false, but they will simply assume that opinion as being theirs too. They don’feel manipulated. They just feel „informed”. And it’s not hard to find such people in these days. Their number even increases. Basically, the manipulators of the Press assist to a regression of the level of culture in society just because
Most of those modern monsters with ties are politicians or influential men who have enough money to defend themselves in the society by buying a newspaper or even a television. of their images which can’t get damaged. This is one of the most dangerous repercussions of this akward freedom of the press. Anyhow, the restriction of the freedom of the Press wouldn’t be a solution because after so many years of liberty, a ban in this sense would develop great fights and arguments all over the world. For example, nowdays teenagers are used to a lot of freedom, the freedom of...everything and it’s not only that, but they are also at the age when they think nothing could stop them. So, a restriction of any nature would be at least a crime in their opinion. They would shout out loud asking for democracy which is also a missunderstood term. Still, nothing wrong with what teenagers think: democracy and freedom of the press fit because only in a democratic country you can have the freedom of expressing any opinion you have, but I think that the concept of freedom of the press is not well understood. People believe it’s great to write about whatever crosses your mind and it really is, but how many of them ask themselves if what they write is useful or helpful or not? If what they write is just cheap stuff or if there are any constructive ideas which would help humanity in any sense? We already live in a world where alienation is dancing on the
tables and being profound is such a rare phenomenon. What I am trying to say is that before we hurry to enjoy the freedom of the press, we should maybe learn more about its moral weight. Everytime we think about writing something, it would be good to take into account if what we say will help someone in any way or would it be harmful? Still, the most important thing remains the honesty with which we write. There are true bad things who could help people to prevent unpleasant situations, and there are lies which are never any good, even if for a moment they could make people happy. So, in a world where we have the right to say anything we like about anything we want, we don’t know what to do with this freedom. We give it an unhealthy meaning and instead of enjoying it, we harm ourselves like birds on skyscapers. It would be more important to distinguish the things which is worth writing about or not, and only after that to meet with that great term of „Freedom of the Press”.