Censorship: An Illogical Practice

Censorship:

An Illogical Practice

Censorship is a practice of when one party edits or completely censors another person’s account or article to censor anything viewed as objectionable. This practice has been for a long although one of the more famous instances of its use has appeared in the days of WWII. Being used by Adolf Hitler, and more recently by the US with the Iraq War and the Vietnam War as well. War correspondents throughout history have found themselves victim to military or government censorship. They have a right to give the people an account of these events without anyone editing it to their tastes. Because then, the truth that society is watching or reading is the truth that the government’s version of “the truth”. But we need to rise to action, to demand the truth from our government to demand an end to the lies and the untold amounts of unethical actions caused by the military. Some may say that censorship to the media is a good thing but in certain cases the government tends to over use their abilities for unethical reasons. Partially because of the success that censorship has had with other countries. But one of the more famous instances and blunt uses was in WWII.

In 1934, Nazis seized the government of Austria; the first move they made was to occupy a radio station, not a government building. This symbolized the new importance the control and dissemination of information had in modern political life. Censorship of the News meant that they had been conquered by a successful authoritarian nation. This radio station had been used to quickly and effectively spread Nazi propaganda. But radio stations weren’t the only media outlets being manipulated, journalists found their mediums being manipulated as well. Also the Nazis weren’t the only ones using this. The US government had created numerous institutions to censor journalists. In War Correspondents Today by Allan McPherson, he has cited that the Office of Censorship and the Office of War Information forbade journalists from even showing pictures of casualties or devastating reports of battles fearing that the news might “stir up the masses.” Also not only were the journalists directly censored but also indirectly by rationing. Supply ships had been reserved to transport weapons instead of paper, this indirect approach had forced publishers to print smaller edition and they needed to use cellulose which was a raw material in paper, but also doubled as material for heavy explosives. And to this day there are still censors in the United States today, although they don’t act as directly as before but in a more subtle approach.

The George W. Bush administration had requested that news organizations not air unedited footage of Osama bin Laden’s taped speeches, “fearing that they contained coded messages to his followers.” The U.S. military justified censorship my saying that if the media would jeopardize the safety of our servicemen, and while that can be seen as a case doesn’t mean the government can do what it wants to cover up the entire truth .The U.S. Military still keeps many of it’s movements and plans secret, even after the execution of these plans. And this might even be the one of the bluntest messages to the media from the White House from White House Spokesman Ari Fleisher for the media to “be careful of what you say.” And Loren Jenkins, the foreign editor from the National Public Radio called this “the most severe information freeze that I’ve seen in 35 years of reporting.”

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