How much freedom should the press have?

Great Debates
1

OK, this article, Student newspaper files court motion, got me thinking (the article has to do with Dale Earnhardt’s autopsy photos). As much as I hate pictures of dead people or mutilated bodies (which because of certain sites there is no shortage of), I think if people want to see that kind of stuff, as long as it is “newsworthy” (what exactly does this mean?) then they should have that right.

I’m currently kind of split on this issue. I don’t think we should limit the freedom of the press, but at the same time, what good will seeing Earnhardt on an examiner’s table do? He’s dead and the pictures, obviously, won’t make him any less dead and I think pictures like that are gross. I wouldn’t want anyone to see me dead and joke about how gross/weird/disgusting/cool it is.

Just because some people want to see something does that make it newsworthy?

Discuss.

2

I’m not sure that link is working the way it’s supposed to.

In any case, just because people want to see something (like autopsy photos), doesn’t mean it has to be made available to news outlets.

No one should infringe on the 1st Amendment to keep the press from airing these photos, but that doesn’t mean they have a right to the photos in the first place.

Have the photos been obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request or something?

3

Should the press be completely free in time of war?

If the Civil War had been reported the way the war in Vietnam were reported, I suspect Northern voters would have been so horrified they would have forced Lincoln to end the war, and the South would have been allowed to secede. Not a good thing.

Is there a danger that the immediacy of the horrors of war (as reported by a free press) could obscure the importance of the cause for which a war is being fought?

(Man, I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a war monger. I’m anything but.)

So to get back to the OP, I am torn, too. Are there situations where freedom of the press should not be absolute?

4

Good question; I would almost be tempted to take the opposite position; that the press should report everything. The reason that the press exists is to make information available to anyone who wants it. I believe this original purpose has gotten lost and diluted along the way into presenting only the information that special interest groups want, and that will engender larger ratings/larger profits for the media industry. If the press were to have complete freedom of information as well as a responsibility to report everything, the public would have to shoulder their responsibility to use the information available to them in the ways that best suit each individual, rather than accepting their pre-digested diet of “information” that requires no thought or knowledge. This is pretty idealistic, I realize; just food for thought, perhaps.

5

If the American people are to be deliberately kept ignorant in order to further the interests of the government, then doesn’t that make a sham of democracy? I mean, the American people are the ones who are supposed to decide whether their sons should be fighting the war in the first place.

-Ben

6

**

Perhaps. There were war journalist who sketched some pretty horrific examples of a battle’s aftermath. To say nothing of the new uses of photography in reporting war. The truth is people back then were more used to seeing violent images in their news then we are today. Kill a famous outlaw and they’ll display his corpse for a few days and you could purchase photos to commemorate the event.

On another note the North knew exactly what it was costing them in terms of the maiming and death of their soldiers. There were some protest against the war for various reasons.

**

I doubt it. I think the US was pretty aware of the horrors of war during WWII and Korea. Especially Korea since the US had just gone through WWII.

As long as the stories are true I don’t see how you can restrict the press once they find something out. You can keep things secret for only so long. Once the press finds out about it they’re free to print it. Even Top Secret material.

Marc

7

First of all, the Orlando Sentinel is not going to splash the Earnhardt autopsy photos across their front page. They want to get an independant doctor to view the photos and determine if Earnhardt death could have been prevented by use of the HANS device.

Why does it matter? Well, for one thing, NASCAR is an extremely insular organization and it is doing its damnedest to control the spin on Earnhardt’s death. (And doing a damn good job of it too, I might add, one can’t beat a grieving widow for a sympathetic “victim”.) That Dr. Bohannon fellow who got all the airtime in the wake of the crash is employed by the France family, owners of the Daytona racetrack and NASCAR. One can easily imagine that he was leaned on by the NASCAR uppity-ups to state that Earnhardt would not have been saved by the HANS device to deflect blame from the NASCAR organization. And that broken seat belt reeks of the same stuff as Oswald’s “magic bullet”. The question is, was Earnhardt’s death preventable? Did his chin hit the steering wheel or not? Bohannon initially said that DE had no external trauma outside blood in his ears, a week later, he said the cause of death was Dale’s chin hitting the steering wheel thanks to the broken belt. How the heck could he have missed that?

The Orlando Sentinel didn’t suddenly become interested in NASCAR drive safety in the wake of Earnhardt’s death either. They wrote a series of damning articles about NASCAR’s less than proactive attitude towards safety in the days leading up to the race.

February 11: NASCAR idles while drivers die

February 12: NASCAR slow to learn from racing tragedies

February 15: Drivers pass on head/neck safety device

The race was February 18th…

Here’s an interesting little nugget from today’s Orlando Sentinel…

Earnhardt photos were not kept private

8

I firmly believe that the press has the right to print anything they can get their grubby little hands on. In this case (after having read what fiddlesticks wrote, I agree that they have a very good reason to want that information. In other cases, it may be only that they want to sell copies of their publication by having the grittiest dirt. In either situation, they are free to run their business and print their information as they see fit. If a crime is committed in the act of doing so, (i.e., libel) there are laws to remedy that.

In the case of war information leaking out to the enemy, we have that whole “clear and present danger” thing. But keeping wartime information from the public in order to keep them in the dark about what’s truly going on is probably the WORST first ammendment violation I can think of, insofar as it creates a situation in which it’s illegal for the press to cover certain things.

-L

9

Here’s the real kicker… is the Press composed of Individuals or Corporations?

If the former, then the Individual reporters should be allowed to report whatever they damn well please.

If the latter… well, the rights of a company shouldn’t take precedence over the rights of Individuals, IMOSHO. If Earnhardt’s family doesn’t want the autopsy photos published, they shouldn’t be published.

Although I, too, am wary of restricting ANYTHING mentioned in the Bill of Rights… which is why I, personally, favor the “Individual reporter” translation of “Press”.

10

MGibson wrote:

I’m not sure that’s correct. My impression is that coverage of World War II was pretty sanitized. At least you didn’t see pictures of mangled GIs in full color in national magazines, as was the case during Vietnam.

Oh, the press showed the horrors wrought by Nazis and Japanese upon civilians, but then those pictures bolstered the war effort.

11

Are you saying the press is slanted? Say it ain’t so, Joe! I thing this gets back to my earlier post, that the press should make an effort to report all sides of an issue, rather than just reporting what falls within their agenda and presenting it as the truth.

12

As much as I dislike to say it, the press does need to be very free because that’s where we get most of our news from. Yet, I have second thoughts when the press, in search of a major story to sell papers, by a reporter seeking a raise, notoriety, or status, deliberately ruins a person’s career, exposes national secrets or stretches or slants the truth.

Peewee Herman, being human, was caught whacking his Willie in a porn theater. So what? The lady reporter who found out knew that if she followed the story, she could ruin his career. She pursued and printed the story, which got her national recognition, and Peewee’s career ended.

For what? Other stars have gotten away with more, but Peewee had a reputation built up as a kid show icon, not that his actions in his private life affected this. The reporter was not interested in the eventual effects of her breaking the story, but the fame it would get her.

There was that little exposure of the presidential bunker years ago that really endangered national security and required another bunker to be built in secret somewhere else, in a less convenient spot at great expense to the public. The reporter exposed this secret for personal gain and not for any major newsworthy story.

Time and time again the papers have exposed national secrets, accused people of wrong doing who were later cleared, but because of the news stories, had their careers ruined, helped hype the public up into a panic or frenzy over things where such actions were detrimental to all and have been caught deliberately slanting the neutral news in one direction or another.

Papers are also very reluctant to print apologies or corrections and when they do, they usually hide them in the back pages.

Then if you look at the major control Hurst had over his papers, using them to manipulate the public views according to his desires, especially censoring information concerning his daughters involvement in the SLA, the abuse of power is obvious, and dangerous.

I think the papers need to be held to a stricter standard than the average citizen and should face charges if violating national security or go about deliberately ruining a person’s life for personal gain. Reporters should be charged for acting inappropriately, slanting the truth, or out right lying.

During WW2, had any newspaper exposed a national secret, that paper and the reporter would have been charged with treason.

There was a movie, the name of which eludes me, where Sally Field played a reporter, investigating a possible connection to organized crime, played by Paul Neuman, which clearly displayed how papers can take suspicion and innuendo and carry them to extremes, ruining innocent peoples lives in the process with no regard for responsibility.

The Press, in my view, has way too much freedom and too little in the way of responsibility.

13

I think this would be a dangerous restraint on the freedom of the press. Who knows what skullduggery is perpetrated in the name of “national security?” Would people who reported on waste in the military be prosecuted? Since it’s a matter of national security, wouldn’t the government ask for secret trials or at least trails where little information was released to the press? Would people who reported on Iran-Contra have been charged? These issues are matters I want to know about, and I feel that as a citizen, I have a right to know about them.

On top of that, who is a “reporter?” Just somebody who works for a newspaper, or anyone who can post information for the world to see on their website? This could be used to hold everyone to a higher standard.

Whether the reporter is right or wrong, I’d rather have the information out there, as is possible now, than have the government step in and hold the press to some higher standard.

I agree that most of the press shows too little responsibility for their actions, but IMHO, that’s true of almost everyone: People tend to avoid responsibility that could lead to negative consequences.

I vehemently disagree that the press has too much freedom. I think its freedom from the government is necessary and should be jealously guarded. Its freedom from wealthy masters is a different matter, as most of the mainstream press has little, but I’m not sure what can be done about that yet.

14

People were fully aware that Americans were dying or coming home in pieces. Their names were printed in the papers and almost everyone knew someone who volunteered or was called to duty. Maybe you didn’t see full color pages of GIs mangled but I think most people were fully aware of what was happening.

Marc