[Vision2020] RE: 36% say Newspapers Need "government approval"

[Donovan Arnold]

Yeah, and 51% voted for Bush. Which is more abhorrent?

DJA
>From: Tbertruss at aol.com
>To: donovanarnold at hotmail.com, vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: 36% say Newspapers Need "government approval"
>Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:57:30 EST
>
>
>All:
>
>Many people in the USA don't appear to understand the absolutely critical
>role played by one of the fundamental institutions in our culture, the 
>"fourth
>estate" of the media.  If this branch of our democratic system is not
>functioning as it should, as "the guardians of democracy, defenders of the 
>public
>interest (see bottom of this post)" then we do not have a democracy.
>
>Consider the shocking results of this recent survey:
>
>Some U.S. Students Say Press Freedoms Go Too Far
>
>By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
>
>One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more
>restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper 
>stories before
>readers see them, according to a survey being released today.
>
>The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get
>"government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be 
>able
>to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.
>
>01/31/2005 07:04
>
>http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050131072009990029
>
>---------------------------
>
>Over a third of high school students in the USA think the government should
>control newspaper content!  If true, this is a colossal failure of our 
>culture.
>  These results sound more like the Soviet Union than the leader of the
>"democratic free world."  While we are ostensibly spreading democracy at 
>the end of
>a gun barrel to other nations, we are failing to educate fundamental de
>mocratic values in the USA.
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>
>The Mass Media as Fourth Estate
>
>http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html
>
>The mass media are often attacked by left-wing critics: from within the
>broadly Marxist vein of critical theory they are criticized for reproducing 
>the
>dominant bourgeois culture; from within the 'political economy' vein of 
>research,
>they are attacked for representing the interests of those who own them 
>(see,
>for example, Chomsky's 'propaganda model').
>
>Carlyle's definition of the fourth estate
>
>However, from the perspective of those researchers who see the media as
>situated within the model of a pluralist liberal democracy, the mass media 
>are
>often seen as fulfilling the vitally important rôle of fourth estate, the 
>gu
>ardians of democracy, defenders of the public interest. The term fourth 
>estate is
>frequently attributed to the nineteenth century historian Carlyle, though 
>he
>himself seems to have attributed it to Edmund Burke:
>
> > Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the 
>Reporters'
> > Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all. 
>It is
> > not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, ....
> > Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is 
>equivalent to
> > Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. ..... Whoever can 
>speak,
> > speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of 
>government, with
> > inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters 
>not
> > what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is 
>that he
> > have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is 
>requisite
> >
> > Carlyle (1905) pp.349-350
>
>Carlyle here was describing the newly found power of the man of letters, 
>and,
>by extension,
>the newspaper reporter. In his account, it seems that the press are a new
>fourth estate added to the three existing estates (as they were conceived 
>of at
>the time) running the country: priesthood, aristocracy and commons. Other
>modern commentators seem to interpret the term fourth estate as meaning the 
>fourth
>'power' which checks and counterbalances the three state 'powers' of
>executive, legislature and judiciary.
>
>-------------------------------------------
>
>V2020 Post by Ted Moffett