How Free Is The Press
How Free Is The Press : DOROTHY LEIGH SAYERS (1893-1957), essayist, playwright, poet and writer of detective fiction, was educated at Somerville college, Oxford. In 1915, Sayers became one of the first women to graduate from Oxford University. How Free Is The Press
Her published works include clouds of witness, Unnatural Death, Lord peter views the body, Nine Tailors, Gaudi Night. She has edited Great Short Stories of Detection and published a Competent verse translation of Inferno.
In the essay ‘How Free is the Press’ She writes with clarity of thought to make a strong case against misreporting by the press or against the misuse of the freedom of the press.
Freedom of the Press
There is no doubt that there can be no free people without a free press. Of course the government imposed restrictions on the freedom of the press in time of war, but they remove those restrictions when peace is restored.
Freedom of the press means that the press is free from control and censorship by the government. In the respect, the author feels that the British press is free. It is free to criticize the policy of the government to conform to will of the people.
As a whole the press reflects all shades of public opinion. But the same is not true of individual organs. Truly speaking it is not the censorship of the government that restricts freedom of public opinion as the unofficial censorship of the press. The press does not as much reflect public opinion as it creates it.
Editorial Policy
Truly speaking, the press is not free. Two factors control the editorial policy of a daily newspaper. Firstly, by the vested interests of the advertisers, and secondly by the wealth of the person, of the company, that owns it.
Every daily with a large circulation depends on advertisers for its revenue. If it wants to increase its circulation to justify its high advertising rates, They force it to sell its copies at much lower the cost of production. It does not earn sufficient revenue from advertisements, it will go bankrupt.
So no daily can afford to support any policy of the government however much in national interest, if it is against the vested interests of its advertisers.
This means cheap daily paper with large circulation is less free than the more expensive magazine which draws a higher proportion of its revenue from sales.
Secondly,The wealth of a man, or company determines the editorial policy of a newspaper , which is the source of its revenue. The policy is largely determined by the whims and ambitions of the proprietor.
The subtle censorship of the press
The press controls news and public opinion in a more subtle way than the individual papers. This control rests upon two basic assumption about the public –
i) that they do not have the intelligence to distinguish truth from falsehood,
ii) that they do not care if a statement is false or true provided it is titillating. The result is that the press no longer cares for accurate reporting. Its reporting’s are careless and even biased because they assume that readers can be made to believe anything.
The author outlines the various ways in which the press controls and distorts news and statements to influence public opinion. She illustrate each point with examples from her own experience.
Sensational headlines, False Emphasis, and Suppression of content.
The author says that at a conference she read a paper comprising 8000 words dealing with theology. But the press picked only 250 words which they believed their readers capable of understanding.
The impression was that the passing allusion contained in the 250 words formed the whole subject matter of the speech- when they brought matter to the notice of the editors, they denied having anything to do with the publication of the report.
How Free Is The Press
Garbling.
The author tells us that Garbling is a special accomplishment of the press interviewer. Once during the production of one of her plays, they asked what her future plans were. She replied that though novels paid better, she preferred writing plays.
If anyone commissioned her to write a play, she would write it. But the reporter distorted her statement. He reported that she said that she would write no more plays, except on commission. This kind of interviewer’s playful habit makes the reported interviews unreliable reading.
Inaccurate reporting of facts.
The writer gives an interesting example how they distorted and changed the matter. Once, while she was at King’s garden party, burglars broke into her house. There was a report in the paper after a few days. They changed the date.
It also said that she was at Oxford at that time, and she had come in time to disturb the intruders. In fact, the news boy disturbed intruders . The incident report was true, but they changed all the facts to make the report sensational.
Plain Reversal of facts.
Once the writer received a summon for unshaded light . She explained to the court that her servant had drawn the curtains carefully, but where was defect in the curtains. The local paper reported, Miss Sayers said that her servant had forgotten to draw the curtains.
Random and Gratuitous Invention.
A paper, without consulting the author, reported that two of her favorite hobbies were gardening and keeping cats, In fact, these two pastimes she most disliked. It was reporter’s own invention.
Deliberate Miracle-Mongering.
The author delivered a speech that consisted of 8000 words. The reporter had the text of her speech. But he reported that she had delivered some 20,000 words in the space of an hour and a quarter. They reported her to have a miracle because it was an impossible task.
Flat Suppression
The author points out that it is next to impossible to secure either a correction or an apology from the editors. Letters of protests may be written but they are usually ignored.
Sometimes they are printed in full or in part, accompanied by an editorial comment that the words reported were actually said but the speaker must not expect to monopolies the whole of paper’s valuable space.
Sometimes they privately answer which does nothing to correct the false impression left in the public mind. Rarely they send a full apology and correction. It is difficult to get any misleading statement corrected. A public person is subtly made to feel that if he offends the press, he will suffer for it.
In fact, the slightest effort to hinder the irresponsible reporting is greeted with a concerted howl. This is a threat to the Freedom of the Press! Indeed there is no effective remedy against the censorship imposed by the press to mould the public opinion.
Questions Answer How Free Is The Press
Q. 1 What do free ‘people’ take for granted?
Ans.- All free people take for granted that without a free press there can be no free people. It is a reality.
Q. 2 What do you mean by the term ‘free press’? or, what does ‘The freedom of the press ‘ mean?
Ans.-We usually mean freedom of the press in a very technical and restricted sense namely freedom from direction or censorship by the government. In this respect the British press is under ordinary conditions, singularly free.
Q. 3 Who is the master ‘the state or the people’?
Ans.- In real sense, between the state and the people-people are master. State is but the people’s servant.
Q. 4 What does the unofficial censorship seek to do?
Ans-Indeed, we may say that the heaviest restriction upon the freedom of public opinion is not the official censorship of the press but the unofficial censorship by a press which exists not so much to express opinion as to manufacture it.
Q. 5 What are the two basic assumptions about the public?
Ans.-The two basic assumptions about the public are:
(a) That they have not the wit to distinguish truth from falsehood
(b) That they do not care at all that a statement is false, it is pleasantly stimulating.
Q. 6 What is supposition of context?
Ans.-The supposition of context is that the press would be free and fair. There would be no any censorship either by the government or by unofficial.
Q. 7 Why do books rarely criticize the press?
Ans.- Books rarely criticize the press because they may unfavorably be noticed silently ignored by the readers and the purpose would not be served.
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