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Freedom of the press (or '''press freedom''') is the guarantee by a Government of Free Public Press for its Citizen s and Their Associations , extended to members of News gathering Organizations , and their published reporting. It also extends to news gathering, and processes involved in obtaining information for public distribution. In the U.S. this right is guaranteed by the First Amendment To The United States Constitution . Not all countries are protected by a bill of rights or the constitution pertaining to Freedom Of the Press. Australians have nothing in their constitution nor a bill or rights that suggests anything to do with Freedom of the Press. With respect to governmental information, a government distinguishes which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public based on classification of information as sensitive, classified or secret and being otherwise protected from disclosure due to relevance of the information to protecting the National Interest . Many governments are also subject to Sunshine Law s or Freedom Of Information Legislation that are used to define the ambit of national interest. BASIC PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA In Developed Countries , freedom of the press implies that all people should have the right to express themselves in writing or in any other way of expression of personal opinion or creativity. The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights indicates: ''"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers"'' This philosophy is usually accompanied by Legislation ensuring various degrees of freedom of Scientific Research (known as scientific freedom), publishing, press and printing the depth to which these laws are entrenched in a country's legal system can go as far down as its Constitution . The concept of Freedom Of Speech is often covered by the same laws as freedom of the press, thereby giving equal treatment to media and individuals. Besides said legal environment, some Non-governmental Organization s use more criteria to judge the level of press freedom around the world. Reporters Without Borders considers the number of journalists murdered, expelled or harassed, and the existence of a state monopoly on TV and radio, as well as the existence of censorship and self-censorship in the media, and the overall independence of media as well as the difficulties that foreign reporters may face. Freedom House likewise studies the more general political and economic environments of each nation in order to determine whether there exist relationships of dependence that limit in practice the level of press freedom that might exist in theory. So the concept of independence of the press is one closely linked with the concept of press freedom. The media as the fourth branch of government The notion of the press as the fourth branch of government is sometimes used to compare the press (or media) with more important far than they all". The development of the Western media tradition is rather parallel to the development of Democracy in Europe and the United States. On the Ideological level, the first advocates of freedom of the press were the Liberal thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries.They developed their ideas in opposition to the Monarchist tradition in general and the Divine Right Of Kings in particular. These liberal theorists argued that freedom of expression was a right claimed by the individual and grounded in Natural Law . Thus, freedom of the press was an integral part of the Individual Rights promoted by liberal ideology (see the ''History'' section below). Freedom of the press is a necessity to any democratic society. Other lines of thought later argued in favor of freedom of the press without relying on the controversial issue of natural law; for instance, freedom of expression began to be regarded as an essential component of the Social Contract (the agreement between a state and its people regarding the rights and duties that each should have to the other). STATUS OF PRESS FREEDOM WORLDWIDE Worldwide press freedom index Every year, the Reporters Without Borders organization establishes a ranking of countries in terms of their freedom of the press. The list is based on responses to surveys sent to journalists that are members of partner organisations of the RWB, as well as related specialists such as researchers, jurists and human rights activists. The survey asks questions about direct attacks on journalists and the media as well as other indirect sources of pressure against the free press, such as pressure on journalists by non-governmental groups. RWB is careful to note that the index only deals with press freedom, and does not measure the quality of journalism. In 2003 , the countries where press was the most free were Finland , Iceland , The Netherlands and Norway . In 2004 , apart from the above countries, Denmark , Ireland , Slovakia , and Switzerland were tied at the top of the list, followed by New Zealand and Latvia . The countries with the least degree of press freedom were ranked with North Korea having the worst, followed by Cuba , Burma , Turkmenistan , Eritrea , China , Vietnam , Nepal , Saudi Arabia , and Iran . Non-democratic states According to Reporters Without Borders , more than a third of the world's people live in countries where there is no press freedom. Overwhelmingly, these people live in countries where there is no system of Democracy or where there are serious deficiencies in the democratic process. Freedom of the press is an extremely problematic concept for most non-democratic systems of government since, in the modern age, strict control of access to information is critical to the existence of most non-democratic governments and their associated control systems and security apparatus. To this end, most non-democratic societies employ state-run news organisations to promote the propaganda critical to maintaining an existing political power base and suppress (often very brutally, through the use of police, military, or intelligence agencies) any significant attempts by the media or individual journalists to challenge the approved "government line" on contentious issues. In such countries, journalists operating on the fringes of what is deemed to be acceptable will very often find themselves the subject of considerable intimidation by agents of the state. This can range from simple threats to their professional careers (firing, professional Blacklist ing) to Death Threat s, Kidnapping , Torture , and Assassination . ''Reporters Without Borders'' reports that, in 2003 , 42 journalists lost their lives pursuing their profession and that, in the same year, at least 130 journalists were in prison as a result of their occupational activities. In 2005, 63 journalists and 5 media assistants were killed worldwide.
HISTORY United States See Also: Freedom of speech in the United States John Hancock is the first person to write newspapers in the British Colonies in North America were published "by authority," that is, under license from and as the mouthpiece of the colonial governors. The first regularly published newspaper was the ''Boston News-Letter'' of John Campbell, published weekly beginning in 1704 . The early colonial publishers were either postmasters or government printers, and therefore unlikely to challenge government policies. The first independent newspaper in the colonies was the '' New-England Courant '', published in Boston by James Franklin beginning in 1721 . A few years later, Franklin's younger brother, Benjamin , purchased the '' Pennsylvania Gazette '' of Philadelphia , which became the leading newspaper of the colonial era. During this period, newspapers were unlicensed, and able freely to publish dissenting views, but were subject to prosecution for Libel or even Sedition if their opinions threatened the government. The notion of "freedom of the press" that later was enshrined in the United States Constitution is generally traced to the seditious libel prosecution of John Peter Zenger by the colonial governor of New York in 1735 . Zenger was acquitted after his lawyer, Andrew Hamilton , argued to the jury (contrary to established English law) that there was no libel in publishing the truth. Yet even after this celebrated case, colonial governors and assemblies asserted the power to prosecute and even imprison printers for publishing unapproved views. During the restricted Congress from abridging the freedom of the press and the closely associated Freedom Of Speech . John Locke’s ideas had inspired both the French and American revolutions. Thomas Jefferson wanted to unite the two streams of liberalism, the English and the French schools of thought. His goal was to create a government that would provide both security and opportunity for the individual. An active press was essential as a way of educating the population. In order to be able to work freely, the press must be free from control by the state. Jefferson was a person who himself suffered great calumnies of the press. Despite this, in his second inaugural address, he proclaimed that a government that could not stand up under criticism deserved to fall. Jefferson said: "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of the truth". In 1931, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in '' Near V. Minnesota '' used the 14th Amendment to apply the freedom of the press to the States. Other notable cases regarding free press are:
In Branzburg V. Hayes ( 1972 ), the Court placed limits on the ability of the Press to refuse a Subpoena from a Grand Jury by claiming Freedom of the Press. The issue decided in the case was whether a reporter could refuse to "appear and testify before state and Federal grand juries" by claiming such appearance and testimony "abridges the freedom of speech and press guaranteed by the First Amendment." The 5-4 decision was that such a protection was not provided by the First Amendment. Notable exceptions
IMPLICATIONS OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES Many of the traditional means of delivering information are being slowly superseded by the increasing pace of modern technological advance. Almost every conventional mode of media and information dissemination has a modern counterpart that offers significant potential advantages to journalists seeking to maintain and enhance their 'freedom of speech'. A few simple examples of such phenomena include:
Naturally, governments are responding to the challenges posed by new media technologies by deploying increasingly sophisticated technology of their own (a notable example being China's attempts to impose control of through a state run Internet Service Provider that controls access to the Internet) but it seems that this will becomes an ever increasingly difficult task as nimble, highly motivated journalists continue to find ingenious novel ways to exploit technology and stay one step ahead of the generally slower moving government institutions that they necessarily do battle with. SEE ALSO NOTES |
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