Freedom of Media

Media is the fourth pillar of democracy as we know it. Media is meant to be a bridge between common people. In simple words, media is the most important medium through which people can express their opinions and views and through which people gain information and get aware about the recent happenings in locality as well as around the world. On the other side, freedom can simply be defined as the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved or to stay in a state where one is unconstrained. Now, can media be considered as free? Is media, on a global scale, free to perform its duties and responsibilities without any pressure? Does someone control what goes through media and reaches to common people? Is media constrained to some specific organization or is bought openly?

In practical world, it is to be noted that the freedom of media is an important aspect in the society. If there is anyone who can raise voice against wrongs, corruption and malpractices in the society, then it is media only. But, today we can say that media is deprived of freedom in democratic countries. Media can help destroy orthodoxy and create new ideologies in the society but that is not possible unless and until media is completely free. Then again, a question rises that whether media should be completely free or only partial freedom should be allowed because today in new media we can see that many impartial and fake news/ information are circulated among the common people, may it be to create tension in the society or to harm the living of an individual. It doesn’t mean that the media should be deprived of its freedom because, also to reveal the truth or oppose any wrong in the society, media needs to be free from all the social evils who try to stop media from doing its actual work that is showing and telling about the truth to common people because that directly relates to common people and is in public interest.

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“The press is the only tocsin of a nation. When it is completely silenced, all means of a general effort are taken away."

- Thomas Jefferson

One of the founder fathers of United States of America

These two lines state all the reasons at once about why media should be free in the working society. When we talk about relationship between media and government, the most important role of the media is its ability to perform a watchdog role that is monitoring and criticizing government behavior because when the media performs this function it can act as an independent part of the society. Freedom of media around the world is different, depending on the type of government and the current situation of the county. Developed countries have a better state of media freedom than developing and under developed countries. Freedom of media freedom is directly related to economy as technological advancement ensures media freedom and on the other hand politics is a major reason behind curbing freedom of media. In India, most of the newspapers are controlled by businessmen. Such newspapers, therefore, promote the interest of their owner by given fake news. They pay no attention even to the genuine problems of the workers, farmers, artisans and other weaker sections of the people of the society.

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The most important part of democracy is the existence of free and fearless media but the censorship of the media is a crucial and sensitive issue in democracy. The question of freedom of media is a debating issue that goes on still unsettled on the point whether the media should be allowed to enjoy absolute freedom.