The Media and Free Speech - Questions

Hello world.

I haven't posted for a long time. I'm not sure if anyone reads my blog anyways.

I've been attending class and so on. My instructor for Intro to Mass Communication gave us a handout. We had to answer four questions and turn it in Monday. For fun, I thought I'd post my answers. Please let me know how you'd answer the questions and what you think of mine. I can take critisim well. If it's constructive.

Here are the four questions and my answers:

1. Doctors usually can’t testify in court about patients, lawyers about clients, priests about confessors. Is there a significant difference among these situations and journalists and their news sources? Explain; justify your answer.

In court, doctors, lawyers, and priests’ clients are not usually anonymous but in journalism a news source can be and has been anonymous.

How do you hold a news source accountable should their knowledge prove false if they claim anonymity?

With the other professions, you have someone present to account for but with anonymous news sources the information or perhaps the journalist is on trial and not the source.

2. Why can’t you libel a dead person? Can you sue for libel if what has been said about you simply hurts you feelings? Explain; justify your answer.

If I make a statement about a person and he/she sued me for libel then they would have to prove that it was a false statement. Dead people don’t speak.

In America you can sue for many reasons especially for reasons that hurt you like statements made verbally (slander) or in writing (libel). Winning is another topic.



3. Should advertisers have the same free speech guarantees that you do? Why? Justify your answer.

Advertisers seek to further their own goals through whatever method of communication they choose. Their main goal is to increase the bottom line. Commercial speech should not be given the same free speech guarantees that I have because their motives could entice them to sell at any cost.

4. Defend or attack this position: “The first rule of the media is to make money; ethical conduct is a by-product of luxury. If they go bankrupt, then their ethical conduct is irrelevant.”

What does ethical conduct mean anyways? Ethics is a belief system. Conduct can mean behavior or action. Ethical conduct together is what an individual or group believes is the “right way to behave”. Media companies who can’t afford to operate are “dead”. In order to behave in a certain way (right or wrong) you need to be alive first.

According to Wikipedia.com, “A by-product is a secondary or incidental product … and is not the primary product or service being produced.”

Media companies who have money can afford to be ethical. They can afford to print, air their shows, and stream their “by-product”.

The first intention is to make money to survive and the second is to be ethical.