Freedom of the Press

Posted by Lorren on October 20, 2009

Patrick Henry by Hang_Em_All

Glenn Beck showed a video clip on his program yesterday where Anita Dunn, the Interim White House Communications Adviser, was talking about how they controlled the media (well, I suppose all except Fox News, who don’t seem to toe the line). Coincidentally, a group of Hollywood bigwigs decided that this week would be “service week”, where they would incorporate service into their television themes; this is occurring at just about the same time that the president is pushing service. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with service. I do a lot of things for my church. I’ve volunteered plenty of times before. I don’t think that all service is good – volunteering for Planned Parenthood wouldn’t be my idea of doing good in the world, for example. Much of the service that is being promoted is secular, godless service… well, all of it is secular.

My husband said that they were promoting service on Heroes. And people wonder why television ratings are down, why Reality Television is popular, or why movies aren’t as popular… perhaps some of us don’t care for Hollywood’s agenda? I think that I stopped watching non-reality television about the same time that Beverly Hills, 90210 ended. There’s nothing that I’m interested in watching.

Freedom of the press is very important, and so is freedom of the internet. You may not be a blogger and, for now, might not face the possibility of having your personal freedom of speech shut down, but you may read media like Fox News or people that could have their freedom of speech threatened. If the government takes away freedom of speech, how do Americans communicate about things that the government has deemed unfit? How will you know if the government is doing something that you don’t like if speech about that subject is banned? We are living in perilous times; I’m not sure what the answer is. Perhaps it is time to get real, and develop networks with likeminded people that live near us, in case the right to free speech over the internet is taken away. After all, freedom of speech disappeared in China, and isn’t China’s Mao one of Anita Dunn’s favorite political philosophers?