Thursday, August 25, 2016

Freedom of the Press

One of the things that is great about America is the freedom we guarantee the press.  Of course on of the things that is troubling about America is the fact that so many published or broadcast items are simply not true or at least not the whole truth.

It is the responsibility of the public to determine what is a reliable vs unreliable source and try to determine the truth.  Unfortunately, most of us don't have the time to do this and rely on sources that are in many cases entertaining but not comprehensive.

All the press whatever their political leanings or lack thereof has to "sell" their product.  In the current era this is generally selling advertising space of spots in order to go on.  The amount that you can get is dependent on the number of readers or viewers or hits you have.  If you simply report lots of boring items you won't have much of an audience, so you have to find something that can be turned into a headline to grab people's attention.

Quoting people who make outlandish claims is always a good way to report something attention grabbing without actually promoting a false story.

Now the press or media is able to uncover things that we should know about but a lot of exposes' aren't particularly informative.  They are trying to find something that will grab our attention and get us to read, watch or listen to the story they are promoting in order to make money.

Freedom of the press is a great thing and while it allows a lot of misinformation to get posted it is far better than censorship.


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