Journalism and/or the media - Essay Example

Despite this being the 21st Century and the time we expect the media to air its views freely, there are still some aspects that curtail this freedom. In many states in the world, various governments use legislation to regulate the media. This way, the governments limits what gets to the public domain, and what does not reach the ear of the citizens. The legal instruments in America impose strict penalties for the infringement of any provision. Thereby, the journalists cannot tell all stories as they like.

These governments face a lot of criticism, but the defense they use is that the information might cause disorder in the society if passed to the people. But here is the catch: is it not an infringement on the right to information by curtailing media freedom? If a society boasts of democracy, then the media should be let to tell the people exactly what goes on around them. The government should also not bar journalists from accessing areas that they feel might be the source of political upheavals.

The regulation of the freedom of the media in most cases is not meant to protect the citizens, but meant to protect those in the political field. It is sad that the journalists face physical attacks when they fight for their rights and the rights of the citizens (Imray and Torchia, 2013). In as much as the media houses would love to pass information to the people, the regulations are impediments. The media houses fear the financial repercussions that they would incur in the legal suits that would follow such pieces of information.

The legal suits instituted for defamation charges against the journalists and their respective media houses jointly stretch the finances of the media houses. Most of the people who give information to the journalists ask to remain anonymous (UNESCO, 2014). Therefore, even if the journalists know that the information that they have published is true, they do not have the means to prove that it is indeed true. In the world today,