08-01 Freedom of the Press

In Turkey it is illegal to insult Turkey. In Poland it is a criminal offense to slander the good name of the Polish nation. In America President Trump condemned the media as the “enemy of the people”. Each of above actions weaken the freedoms we cherish.
I remember investing in a Turkish ETF a decade or so ago when I excitedly believed Turkey was on the cusp of rising above the morass of Middle Eastern hatred and chaos. Having visited Poland about two decades ago I was terribly impressed at how brilliantly they were moving forward after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Big changes are taking place and I’m not sure we really get it. I certainly don’t. I’m not even sure the above leaders get it. Perhaps the weakened, partisan media is part of it.
In our polarized planet, leaders win or lose by the margin of error. Which is why firms like Cambridge Analytica who can provide a little edge are so valued, in spite of being shut down.
The media plays a large role in helping us craft our political opinions. Currently in the US, 85% of the media is seriously anti-Trump. Is Trump really that bad or are there other factors at play here?
One effect for people like me is to eschew my once favored news outlet, CNN, as I’ve given up looking for any balance. I guess they are just a business fighting for market share. CNN on the left and Fox News on the right. In Canada the CBC, a state-owned outlet, is infinitely more balanced.
So the polarization and the media game evolves. Some of us give up listening to the main stream news and rely on our favorite bloggers, who we tend to select because we “get” their positioning. No real balance there either. Or worse, we get tired of the negative and nasty news and turn to reality TV, which has redefined the meaning of “reality”.
While we treasure freedom of the press we need to tread carefully. In a recent editorial celebrating World Press Freedom Day, it started with “Journalists deal in facts…”. Really? Obviously there are scads of noble journalist that try to file stories from the worst places on the planet, and too many die or are imprisoned for their efforts. But there are also scads of horrid journalists that don’t deserve to be called journalists. Were the so-called journalists hounding Princess Di seeking facts? Are the CNN or MSNBC expert journalists focussed on facts?
The unfettered press could use a little fettering. Is news really news or simply entertainment? With the big outlets operating twenty four hours they need to engage their audience to draw in the ads. They certainly don’t have any Morrow’s or Cronkite’s on their staff.
If news is really entertainment, then does it need or deserve First Amendment rights? Do the British tabloid journalist use or abuse those rights? I guess as long as we buy shit publications there will be shit journalists.
It’s easy to get frustrated by the freedoms we enjoy and abuse in our democracies. What we read and listen to and what we ignore is a dangerous challenge.
One way to control news is by elevating the level of political correctness. This is the worst form of press censorship and we do this to ourselves. University groups regularly bar or abuse visiting speakers that are not PC friendly. Try to give a guest lecture challenging climate change or Israel’s right to exist and see what kind of hearing you’ll get. Try to do anything remotely anti-PC at Toronto’s York University!
Students have typically been a potent force in our society and should remain so, but like the media they often seem to be grabbing at the low hanging fruit. If we don’t demand more from ourselves, our leaders, our journalists and our media, then political correctness will evolve into witch hunts and censorship as we are seeing in Poland, Turkey and the US.
Who would have ever imagined that an uber-liberal nation like Canada can have a reasonable state owned media? A media that knows the difference between news and entertainment. Makes one proud to be Canadian.