Free Press: Essential for Informed, Accountable Democracy - Essay Sample

Introduction

A liberated and an unconventional press is fundamental to keep a country's populace informed. It is also significant in ensuring the accountability of political leaders and candidates for the achievement of sustainable and reputable democracies with open and transparent elections. In its absence, the citizenries end up making uninformed decisions about their governance, and misuse of power and influence, inexorable in a given society, will not be uncovered and amended (Somerville & Aroussi, 2016). The freedom of the press has been diminishing across the world over in the recent past. According to reports by the Freedom House, the trend of suppression of the freedom of the media has taken new forms and is taking hold in open and totalitarian nations. Even in some of the most powerful republics around the world, democratic leaders have masterminded rigorous efforts to control the unconventionality of the press (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018). And while these intimidations to the independence of the media are real, the danger is posed by their effect on the democratic state of countries globally. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel as experience has shown. The media sector can regain its liberation when given a chance. The aspiration to have autonomous authorizations and access to transparent and information-based reporting can hardly be dowsed. The most vital right to search for and distribute information through a liberated media has been compromised, from the most surprising spring. Political leaders and candidates in several republics have made outright efforts to hush the press and instead enforced their public relations vents. This particular alarming trend to erode the independence of the media is an indicator and backer to the failure of many democracies (Eubanks, 2018). Although the media is not the first or the only organization to be compromised when the leadership of a republic resorts to antidemocracy, it is also an indication that even other civil and political rights are under threat.

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In the latest development, the freedom of the media has been compromised in the United States as the press has been experiencing an uncommon pressure. As much as major media houses remain resilient and consistently produce intensive reports of the elected in office, the President's continuous denigration of the press has hugely aggravated a current loss of public confidence in the media. For instance, Donald Trump has warned about fortifying libel regulations, annulling specific reporters' passes, and destroy other business investments of media companies' owners, among other threats. Even though the constitution of the US protects the media against such threats, the influence of President Trump on the independence of the media sector is recognized worldly. That is why reporters around the world have less faith in the belief that Washington will come to their rescue if the rights of the press are abused.

Attacks on the freedom of the media are often sequenced with a power grab by political leaders and candidates, or with the intention of efforts by current governments to destroy supposed intimidations to their advantage. And while such leaders pursue building and securing their control by subduing the media, time-honored despotic governments tighten the screws on rebels since they risk to be exposed in case of any infringement in their media control. Pieces of evidence to support these claims include when Russian officials blocked Telegram after the company declined to hand over their encryption keys. Also in Cameroon, shut down the internet in the Anglophone area late last year. This was in response to the protests rooting from bias against the majority of the Anglophone minority. Two Reuters' reporters were convicted for seven years after a prejudiced trial whereby the court did not acknowledge their evidence as sufficient. Their plain evidence was that they were deceived into stopping their investigation of the army carnages against the Rohingya minority.

In my opinion, the use of mock news by political leaders and candidates have more disadvantages than advantages. Even in states where there seemed to have more freedom in the media sectors, they have recently come under threat too. For example, new legislation on privacy has been passed in Nepal that constricts the gathering of personal information of anyone. The law is believed to abuse the legit concern of confidentiality to oppress the media inquiry of conflicts of interest by these leaders or even corruption. The Pakistan government warned journalists against coverage of taboo issues such as military atrocities. They even went ahead to direct how journalists were supposed to present particular political matters.

As earlier mentioned in the thesis statement of this article, there is light at the end of the tunnel in all these. The hope of media independence rebound is not completely bleak. The efforts by the media in some countries to break free from the chains of oppression by their government have borne fruits. The advancements they have made the only point to the importance of resilient and liberated journalism. In Ethiopia, for example, the media companies that had their operations overseas started operating from the country. In Malaysia, the political pressure experienced by journalists was lifted to allow the independent channels to bounce back from expurgation to produce servile news.

A liberated and an unconventional press is fundamental to keep a country's populace informed. It is also significant in ensuring the accountability of political leaders and candidates for the achievement of sustainable and reputable democracies with open and transparent elections. In its absence, the citizenries end up making uninformed decisions about their governance, and misuse of power and influence, inexorable in a given society, will not be uncovered and amended.

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