Thursday 21 February 2019

Media and the Abuse of Free Speech

In recent news we seem to see the media vilify the innocent, smear a person’s name and falsely accuse and all for ratings and being the first to get it out there in the cyber world?  What happened to doing a little bit of research before rushing to judgment. The media ruined the life of the supposed Olympic bomber by falsely accusing Richard Jewell.  Then there was the media falsely reporting that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower project.

In the case of Nick Sandmann where media, celebrities, and social media rushed to judge, threaten and condemned him as a disrespectful racist. It was entirely uncalled for and demeaning and demoralizing to the teen.  We have a right to free speech but to what extent does the First Amendment allow citizens to dehumanize another person with words.  Media’s aggressive use of free speech leads us to wonder where are we in the state of free speech. The press is to bring us news and tells us things we may or may not want to hear and may not agree with, but it should do so with the choice of words that no matter what the content it can be heard by all.

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