Free media (also known as freedom of the press) is very important in our lives as it’s a basic human right. Actually written as the first amendment right, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”, written by constitution.congress.gov. In short terms, any news source has the freedom to speak on anything

Freedom of press is very important in both the journalism world and news. As people, we all rely on news whether it’s televised or an article. Being able to write about whatever without being told to stop.

So, to answer the general question on how we benefit from free media, the government doesn’t have the power to silence news and what’s being said online. Though this may sound like a positive thing; to have the freedom of speech/press, this often leads to inefficient news, which several people often believe. This creates a trend of spreading false information within the public.

Today I interviewed a senior from Pitman High, Conlin Yonano on the related subject.

Considering the fact that you are going to pursue your future career of being a History/Government teacher, why do you think this is important to teach?

“I think it’s important because ideas spread through the first amendment help people convey ideas that keep them in knowledge of what they can do as a person with natural rights… It’s important to teach soon-to-be adults what their rights are”.

How do you feel about freedom of the media? What is your personal opinion on how people benefit from it?

“The freedom of the press is the most important right in my opinion, the press can report anything, even about the government or political figures and as long as the news is truthful, it can shun light on things we may have never heard before; catching corrupt or scandalous ‘important’ figures”

Being in a journalism class, it is very important to us writers to be able to talk about what we think is important to speak on. Sometimes, articles can be uncomfortable to read but very important to be informed about.

I recently got to visit another place that releases online articles for their newspaper and they briefly mentioned how no one can really tell them what they can and should write about. Ideas are shared, but they are never forced. Writers have the freedom to write about whatever, therefore, if they were forced to write about a subject they didn’t want to write about or feel comfortable about writing, it would violate their right.