1st Blog

    One of the things that I learned for the past three chapters is that not everywhere in the world you get free media where you get to say what you want to say. Majority of other places around the world are Authoritarian where owners of mass media are supporters of a regime. There may also be Communist media where the government determines what gets reported and whats not as to convey communist beliefs. There is also the United States where we use Libertarian media in which individuals are capable of making sound decisions for themselves, and the government rarely intervenes. Here in the United States we have rights and one of those important rights is Freedom of Speech which is the first Amendment. It enables us to express our opinions about anything including if it is against the government. Other nations though do not have that as anybody that tries to speak out against a regime or government is immediately killed or is sent a waning. Personally I think we take our rights here in the US for granted because we are probably so used to it, but we have to remember that in other nations people don't have this, and they are persecuted for their beliefs and their opinions.

   During one of the class days we went over something that was very controversial in which the instructor put up a photo of caskets of dead soldiers that have died in the War on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was very controversial as the class was pretty much divided on weather to show it or not. When the war fist started in 2003, President George W. Bush passed a law that banned all photos of the dead from the war to be shown in the media. It was not until President Barack Obama was sworned in office 2009 as he decided to change this. Overall my personal view was that I think photos such as that should remain private and not be shown out of respect to the victims families. Now I understand what other people think in that this photo showed Patriotism, and the sacrifice that these brave men and women have done for us and this is the least that we could do for them. I still think that we need to show privacy and let the Victim's families heel during this difficult time for them. I think privacy is a big issue in media as to where to you draw the point especially during the time of war. A photo can mean a thousand words and many people might interpret it differently. I still think that people deserve their privacy especially soldiers that put their lives on the line for us every single day.

   The last thing that i will talk about will be National Security and the media. One of the major things that we talked about was the New York Times vs the Pentagon papers. This whole story came about when there was a leak from the government and the New York time were able to access critical information about the Vietnam War. The United Sates government of course did not want want them to publish the papers and took them to court. Unfortunately for the government they lost and the papers were published drawing amid protest and anger from the American people. I personally think that the papers should have been released because people have the right to know. The government however defines it as "clear and present danger", however though I don't think they can lie to the American people especially about a war that took the lives of 58,000 Americans. What the Pentagon Papers did was damage the reputation of the government even more, as they did not have a huge approval rating at the time because of all the protests that were being held all over the country against the war. After the war was over the government blamed the media for the US not winning because it was giving away key information to the public that the government did not want them to know. I personally think that the media did the right thing in publishing the papers because people have the right to know especially during a time of war. In 2003 the US sent embedded journalist in which they traveled with a unit and reported what was happening. Obviously since the Vietnam War many restriction have been placed on the media as to what they can report and not report.