U.S. papers fight for your right to know
Print journalists these days seem to be called on to defend and uphold their craft. We are labeled "liberal," "biased," "outdated" and "obsolete," all while trying to create a product that informs, entertains and motivates the public to positive action.
Those who read the column about complaints in this space last week might have gathered that some callers have pushed the envelope a bit. The bottom line is that those who want to slam The Enterprise, or newspapers in general, won't get a meek and mild apologetic response.
Instead, I do my best to make sure people who might have nothing positive to say about this region's leading local newspaper realize what they might be giving up if they choose not to subscribe.
In most cases, they can get a bigger, fatter state or national newspaper, but do they actually think that newspaper is going to include stories about things happening in Southeast Texas?
A great example is The Enterprise's recent legal victory in a fight to make public the TAKS scores for students of Port Arthur's charter school, Tekoa Academy.
The newspaper had sought the scores for more than a year, arguing that they were public record. The school argued that releasing the scores violated student privacy. A judge granted The Enterprise's motion for summary judgment and has ordered the school to release the scores, which it has not yet done.
Similarly, The Enterprise continues to battle the city of Beaumont for the Beaumont Police Department's Use of Force reports, feeling the public has a right to know if any officers have a history of overtly forceful behavior.
That's part of our job, to protect the public interest and represent that interest in legal battles.
As we move through the calendar in the weeks between the patriotic celebrations of Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, it seems appropriate to celebrate journalism's contributions to our freedom.
*
Bloggers last week protested that Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia site, was stifling free speech and bordering on censorship with one of its latest decisions.
This week's Los Angeles Times business desk reported that the site blocked contributions from the Los Angeles headquarters of the Church of Scientology -- as well as contributions from opponents of the church that had been "locked in an editing war."
Wikipedia exists solely on the basis of contributions from the public, but in this case, according to the article, those contributions were becoming more a case of propaganda for both sides, depending on which contributor last edited the entries.
What the site is now doing isn't censorship; it's self-editing of the content of a platform it controls.
Their actions are no different than that The Enterprise might take if someone posted particularly vile comments on our Web site. We don't censor them, but we also don't allow them the use of our Web site for their comments.
They will have to take their opinions someplace else if they want to express them -- and it is certainly their right to do that.
*
Censorship, in its true form, involves government control of information. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle this week reported the Internet censorship of several Web sites by the Chinese government.
The crackdown includes Twitter, Yahoo's Flickr and Microsoft Hotmail and came two days before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident that involved military attacks on pro-democracy protestors.
For those too young to remember, those attacks involved tanks running over those protesters.
Yahoo's response appropriately included this statement: "We believe a broad restriction without a legal basis is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression."
Those thoughts certainly should make Americans want to celebrate, rather than criticize, the importance of journalism and a free press in our society.
Those who read the column about complaints in this space last week might have gathered that some callers have pushed the envelope a bit. The bottom line is that those who want to slam The Enterprise, or newspapers in general, won't get a meek and mild apologetic response.
Instead, I do my best to make sure people who might have nothing positive to say about this region's leading local newspaper realize what they might be giving up if they choose not to subscribe.
In most cases, they can get a bigger, fatter state or national newspaper, but do they actually think that newspaper is going to include stories about things happening in Southeast Texas?
A great example is The Enterprise's recent legal victory in a fight to make public the TAKS scores for students of Port Arthur's charter school, Tekoa Academy.
The newspaper had sought the scores for more than a year, arguing that they were public record. The school argued that releasing the scores violated student privacy. A judge granted The Enterprise's motion for summary judgment and has ordered the school to release the scores, which it has not yet done.
Similarly, The Enterprise continues to battle the city of Beaumont for the Beaumont Police Department's Use of Force reports, feeling the public has a right to know if any officers have a history of overtly forceful behavior.
That's part of our job, to protect the public interest and represent that interest in legal battles.
As we move through the calendar in the weeks between the patriotic celebrations of Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, it seems appropriate to celebrate journalism's contributions to our freedom.
*
Bloggers last week protested that Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia site, was stifling free speech and bordering on censorship with one of its latest decisions.
This week's Los Angeles Times business desk reported that the site blocked contributions from the Los Angeles headquarters of the Church of Scientology -- as well as contributions from opponents of the church that had been "locked in an editing war."
Wikipedia exists solely on the basis of contributions from the public, but in this case, according to the article, those contributions were becoming more a case of propaganda for both sides, depending on which contributor last edited the entries.
What the site is now doing isn't censorship; it's self-editing of the content of a platform it controls.
Their actions are no different than that The Enterprise might take if someone posted particularly vile comments on our Web site. We don't censor them, but we also don't allow them the use of our Web site for their comments.
They will have to take their opinions someplace else if they want to express them -- and it is certainly their right to do that.
*
Censorship, in its true form, involves government control of information. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle this week reported the Internet censorship of several Web sites by the Chinese government.
The crackdown includes Twitter, Yahoo's Flickr and Microsoft Hotmail and came two days before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident that involved military attacks on pro-democracy protestors.
For those too young to remember, those attacks involved tanks running over those protesters.
Yahoo's response appropriately included this statement: "We believe a broad restriction without a legal basis is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression."
Those thoughts certainly should make Americans want to celebrate, rather than criticize, the importance of journalism and a free press in our society.
posted by Sheila Friedeck at 3:58 PM
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