Thoughts to you from yours truly - ( 80 ) - July 18, 2011

Thoughts to You from Yours Truly - ( TYYT ) - ( 80 ) - Poor Press Performance - July 18, 2011

It is generally common ground that a free press is a bastion of democracy and the conscience of society. An independent press operated on the freedom of speech will keep the government in line and ensure that public opinion is unambiguously voiced in a loud and clear way for all to hear. This is the ideal position but the best situation does not always materialize as anticipated.

Despite all the high ideals supposedly upheld by a free press all news papers and broadcasting organizations are nevertheless run on commercial principles. With the exception of a precious few government or publicly funded media corporations most of them are motivated by profit especially from the management's point of view. In all fairness any news paper or broadcaster must justify their own existence by a reasonable return on shareholders' investment. It is the greedy executives who are usually the perpetrators of evil and illegal schemes to fatten their own bonus packages. Mind you the CEOs and the like are mostly journalists or students of journalism who have moved up the ranks in these media corporations. This being the case one would expect some basic moral or ethical behaviour from them. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is many black sheep of the press are very often blinded by greed to undertake illegal ventures to increase their readership hence the corporation's profit accordingly.

Apart from gravely harming the reputation of the press such illegal and immoral schemes also jeopardize people's confidence in a free press. These detestable black sheep with their poor performance have grossly abused the trust placed upon them by society. They are under the mistaken impression that they are the uncrowned kings and queens of society to whom some kind of legal immunity has been granted. The law of cause and effect inevitably catches up with them and they are doomed. Tragically, they also killed the public's confidence in the press in the ensuing debacle. To avoid further mischief from these black sheep it is high time that the evil wings of the darkness in the media, namely, monopolies of capitalistic control over the whole cross section of the industry, be clipped. Most importantly, cross holdings of news papers, radio and TV stations should be outlawed to avoid monopoly in the media. Finally, effective and independent ethical committees with legal powers should be set up for the media sector to monitor and hear complaints on ethical issues before they turn into full blown crisis like the present News of the World tabloid scandal unfolding in the United Kingdom.

JKHC.