In light of the recent crackdown on whistleblowers and the impact this has on the media’s (mainstream AND alternative) ability to produce and distribute important, relevant, untainted information, I’ve started to question, as I do most days, the level of engagement and feeling of responsibility my generation has regarding these issues.
I encounter stupid amounts of students at my university who study journalism, and worryingly, I am yet to meet one who has a passionate political interest/awareness. And while its likely I just haven’t met those people yet, its also just as likely that I haven’t met those people yet because they just do not exist in the numbers you would expect. This is worrying.
I’ve heard many times that journalism is a ‘dying’ field. Journalism students would object of course – no one wants to admit the death of their field of study (sociology, and sadly arts more generally are most likely also in their dying days…) But I think that that is a closer reality than we would all care to admit.
We are experiencing unprecedented levels of censorship, on all platforms, by the very governments who are (at least in our case) elected democratically by the public. Why are we putting people in charge of us who do not have our best interests at heart? Probably because the majority of people do not think about what their best interests are. If more people understood the implications of filtering and hindering the free-flow of information, we wouldn’t be heading in the bleak direction that we are now. So shouldn’t it be our responsibility to stay informed and to push for the rights to know about world issues that the government feels the need to censor? Is the piece of hair covering Michelle Obama’s face really THAT important? I am Australian and even I heard the unnecessarily lengthy 5-minute news segment about that on MSM news.
How can our generation (and everyone, really) be so uncaring and unengaged. It baffles me.
I don’t think people think enough. Well actually, I’m sure they don’t. Or if they do, they’re thinking about the wrong things.
See: ‘Prosecuting Whistleblowers Instead of Criminals - Speak No Evil’ by MICHAEL McKEE,
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/30/speak-no-evil/
Great article, journalism might be being suppressed but there are people all over the world that always make the difference, despite any attempts of censorship and suppression.
Thanks! I do agree with you there. Really nice to hear some positivity – current events more often than not leave me feeling very cynical about the world. Thanks for the reminder