The Freedom Of Press Liberalism

Liberalism and the ‘freedom of the press’

Introduction

A media which is free is a basis or foundation of a functioning market economy and democracy. In our lives media plays an important role and more so with the fact that we can have access to a lot of media sources by using of the gadgets that are all available to most of the people in the world we live in today. This does not only mean the use of social media but also with the traditional forms of communication like for example radio, television, and also newspapers. Thus for democracy to prosper, it is important that the citizen has to have various sources of information and also should have access to forums which are properly conducted for an open and fair debate. The media itself plays

These institutions of power include the political power of the executive government and legislative, the economic power of the business sector, and the cultural and social power of institutions which diverse such as sporting groups and churches. This thus creates dichotomy, since as the consequence of this critical role, the media itself augment a massive amount of power, in that the media shapes and packages the flow of information. Thus the power to promulgate that key information is important to the freedom of the press, and it is the one which is guarded jealously and rightly so (Feintuck, M.

Thus it is a very serious deficiency in a democracy if the media fails to be accountable, as it is failure to hold the other institutions which are the sources of power in to account.

The freedom of press is the right that is jealously guarded and hence free speech is a vital tool in a liberal market economy and democracy. It cannot be unchained free speech and that is why restrictions are accepted for economic and social policy reasons. since freedom of press plays an important role in democracy then it has to be dealt with in a manner that privacy is given a lot of respect thus adequate accountability mechanisms should be put in place so that all these rights are exercised in a responsible manner.

There are some of the mechanisms in which the citizens can interact and hold the government responsible or accountable. these mechanisms include for example administration systems, legal remedies, nature of institutions, and the media. There is pluralism of the systems which are unequal and diverse. there are also the non-governmental organizations which are also the sources of power and have impacts on our lives each and every day for example corporations, social institutions which includes churches, sporting associations, trade unions which have different types of