media should have the right to expression

i strongly feel that media should have the right to expression as media is the network which enables us with the happening of the world..and if we are taking away the right to expression we are actually destroying the purpose of its existence.

It is hard for me to debate this, because I still debate with myself over this. Freedom of speech has long been a staple of American society, but somewhere along the way I think we lost hold of what exactly that is.

Let my opening argument be blunt. First of all, we all know the media is controlled by the government. For the sake of this debate, we have to pretend that it isn't, but in all reality this debate is pointless. There are some things that the public should not know. Let us say that korea had developed long range nuclear missles, and they had them pointed at us, us being America. (I am assuming you are American, but if not then please forgive me). If the press did catch wind of this, they should be censored. This kind of news would only cause panic and disorder at large, and would hinder our government from effectively dealing with the problem.

Also consider the way in which the media tends to lie. They lie and people buy all their crap. If this were not so, we would not have Sun mag, star mag, and etc. The nightly new is no different. A little reality mixed in with some crowd control, dressed up a little better than real world season 65 or wherever season they are at on that show now. People want to see fake reality, because real reality kindof sucks. The media is free to lie and manipulate because people want it that way. Freedom of speech I fear has been grossly misinterpreted, and I am sure that if the writers of the United States constituion were here today they would pimp-smack alot of people.

well,i completely read all that you wanted to say but if we take away this right from the media,whats the point of its existence.media is a connecting network b/w people and the happenings of the world..
First of all media does not create a panic,but alerts people..you said the news "korea aiming missiles at amricans"would create a panic,but what i feel is it will alert people and top of all none of us are dumb that we'll create unnecessary mess up for any news like that,instead everyone will be alert and atleast know what all is going on against or for his/her country.
All what media does is inform us,alert us and provide us with a good knowledge of what actually is going in the world and makes us face what reality is rather than making us live in fantacies..

No, not everyone is dumb, but alot of people are, and to quote Tommy Lee Jones in M.I.B. "You get a bunch of people together in masses, they become stupid".

I don't think the media should be censored unless it is either for national security reasons, or if the media is infringing on someone elses life. Britney Spears, for example...why is she even in the news? She didn't releast a cd, didn't get married, she simply has a personal life and personal problems and the media is harassing her and driving her even crazier than she may already be. Or the media could be lying...is she bi-polar or not? That is another thing, If I were to publicly say that you have AIDS or something, you could sue me for defimation, and if it werent true, slander. So why the media can say whatever?

I understand you are coming from a different angle, that the government should not censor something just because it may be bad for the government, but if it is bad for even one persons life, let alone an entire nation...censor away.

media does not say anything without proofs..even if they are printing a small article of 5 lines against or for someone they have proofs for it..and please dont talk of celebrities ,all of them need exposure and always want to be highlighted and thus keep on doing such things to remain highlighted in newspapers.. they themselves need media to speak about them and their personal lives.
say for example rakhi sawant,she slapped her boyfriend on valentines day just for the sake of media exposure because after 2 hors everything was allright and she was singing songs with him.she did that only to remain highlighted.
so finally i will say that media should have freedom to speech otherwise we will never get to know abot the actual things happening around us and will keep on living in a world of fantasies created by cruel politicians as well as celebrities..

Maybe that is how it is in India, and if that is the case, then I wish that our media was more like yours. Here, they say things they can't prove all the time, and if it ends up not being true, they just stop talking about it and it goes away...everyone forgets except maybe the person they lied about. Most of the time you wont even see a retraction, or an "oops we were wrong"...

You say your government openly censors the media, and this has a negative effect. I say my government refuses to censor, even when the effect is also negative. Kind of strange, no? In any event, this has been a pleasure. :-)