Obstacles to press freedom

It is difficult for the press to remain free. The media, both print and electronic are controlled by some financial magnates and they have to voice the views of their owners. In some cases they are the mouthpieces of a party and must think the way the parties want them to think. Again, the activities of the government-owned media are highly restricted. Whoever controls those limits freedom according to his own needs and interests. In the US, the big newspapers are owned by powerful financial syndicates; in the United Kingdom, they are in the hands of capitalists; and in Russia, they are in the hands of the government. Of course, it is maintained for genuine reasons that a democratic government has more rights to control a newspaper than a private individual or a private organisation.  
The question is how to ensure freedom of the press? Legislation of course should guarantee the press against interference by the government; but apart from legislation something more seems to be necessary. Liberal editors should be picked up to run the newspapers, and they should be given all freedom to free expression of opinion and unhampered publication of news subject only to the limitation that they do not publish scurrilous abuses. But real freedom of the press can exist only where a free people can function freely in a real democratic environment. It may be asked why there is no freedom of the press in many countries? The reason is that common people do not have economic freedom. The press is controlled by big businessmen or they serve the interests of wealthy people. If the media people are guaranteed freedom from want and fear of losing employment, they can be fearless critics of misdeeds committed either by the government or by any individual or organisation.
It is rightly claimed that in a socialist country, as the people become economically free, the government acquires an increasingly representative and democratic character. Hence in these countries, the press should enjoy more freedom than in other countries. However, the danger may come from hidebound bureaucrats. The best way to ensure freedom is to collect all news from accredited sources, to allow free ventilation of opinion to all citizens through articles and editorials and to do away with all controls except in the interest of public safely and welfare.
At the end, freedom of the press should be a valued privilege, it is a sacred right which should be zealously guarded and protected. Governments should create all avenues to guarantee press freedom against all arbitrary interferences and also from vested bureaucracy or private proprietors. Editors owe this freedom to the public standing against party or class interests. And the people owe it to their country and defend such freedom as a priceless heritage, not to be withheld by the caprice of any individual or organisation, but to be broadened from precedent to precedent.
A free press is the symbol of the free people. An independent well- informed press is a powerful check on an arbitrary government and irresponsible administrators. The acts of injustice or oppression or maladministration that a government would otherwise have hidden away, get exposed thanks to the media that exercise constant vigilance against such ills and misdeeds.
The writer is Librarian at BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology
atik@bift.info