Becki+m

There Is Such a Thing as Censorship There are a substantial amount of people who do not want to accept what is happening in our world today. There are an equal amount of people who are blind to the facts that have constantly been hidden from us from day one. There is information that has been withheld from us. Censorship has been happening ever since anyone can remember, but what some people do not want to hear is that it is still fully applied in our world today. Since 1812 more than 1400 journalists around the world have died from reporting from the front line. This is because they have no protection, weapons, or anyone to look after them while they are in the line of fire. They face tough climates, physical danger, determination to balance the public’s right to know and at the same time respecting the governments right to secrecy. Many reporters have died on the scene reporting from Iraq because they do not have the protection that the soldiers have. They are constantly put in danger and have no guide to lead them and show them how to defend for themselves. The military is closely controlling what information the media gets on the success of the bombing raids, choosing which few, selected photos to release and whit information to process to forward to the public. One example would be that one side of the war, as in the United States, says one thing and the other reports a different story. Such an example would be that our government will report the loss of casualties of a certain week. They will say that it was a low amount. The Taliban will contradict what we say and report that it was as high as it’s ever been. No one knows the truth. They block out some of the vital information because they do not want to cause a panic or they wish to keep the people on the United States’ side, wishing us to believe that we are doing a great job and nearing the end of the war. The press has lost the habit of independence in this country as well. Some people higher up in the government believe that whatever the president says goes, and they do what he tells them to do, even if it means withholding vital information from the public ears and giving us a false look on the war on terror. Some newspapers have forgotten that the right of free speech is still intact. One thing that makes censorship so big is bad publicity. If people see American troops going in and killing a substantial amount of people, mainly Iraqis, it looks bad for us and gives the Taliban a chance to make us look like we are the antagonists of the war. This is how censorship works: Public relations officers read all pool reports. The pool reporters are from the news organizations, the networks, and the big newspapers. The pool will go out, draw straws, and one reporter will go on the action. He'll come back and share all this information, so there is no competition allowed and each version of the pool report will have to pass censorship before it can be sent back to the news bureaus in the United States. When this information is given to the people who decide what to put out in the media, they worry about the secrecy the government still wants to keep, the welfare of the families of the soldiers fighting and who could perhaps have been interviewed in the information, and the videos that have been taken from the footage at the front line. We are ranked 48th throughout the entire world in terms of press freedom. Most journalists are victims of mass-censorship. They are afraid to say the politically incorrect thing because they don’t want to be seen as not supporting the victims of the war emotionally. It’s hard for them though because the main thing most journalists are worried about is telling the truth. They try and let the people decide how our democracy is and should be by their findings and the stories they write about and the facts that they provide. Journalists cannot report news that will endanger the lives of the soldiers or by alerting the enemy, but they have the duty to portray the truth whether the government wants to hear it and see it publicized or not. Reporting on death and atrocity can desensitize or dehumanize some reporters. Their privacy can also be interrupted by people who have connections higher in the government to dispose of any information they have accredited to their name and wish to put out into to public. A bill passed by the House of Representatives expands the power of the FBI to spy on wireless calls and the internet, to circulate info. Obtained by other countries governments and keep it to themselves, and to detain immigrants all without court review. “It is legal to express certain forms of hate speech so long as one does not engage in the acts being described or urge others to commit illegal acts.” Says John Macarthur, the publisher of Harper’s Magazine, and author of the book __Second Front__, which is about censorship in the Gulf War. (Censorship and the War on Terrorism, page 1) From researching all of this information and reviewing multiple videos, I have come to the conclusion that there is much that the public does not know about the war. As much as we do not want to believe it, there have been scandals going on behind our backs and information that has been destroyed for the purpose of the government not wanting the public to see the real deal of what is happening in Iraq. Before researching, I had thought everything was okay in the war on terror, but from all the interviews I have reviewed and the facts and pictures I have seen, I was very wrong. I believe everyone should be aware of what is happening in their country and who is at fault for what has happened as well, but no one seems to know because information is withheld from us.

__ [|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziZWTXvkIiA __VIDEO

Works Cited

<[|http://www.deanza.fhda.edu/faculty/williams/war_is_terror.jpg>.] Picture. Amitai Etzioni. "Censorship of War Undermines Public." . Patrick Martin. "Bush's War At home." . Gerti Schoen. "Censorship and the War on Terrorism." .

