There is an apparent if not desperate need of responsible writing today. Journalists have the terrifying power to defame or destroy a person in one sentence or paragraph. There was a time when mere speculations were simply discussed in articles but were never blown into headlines. These days, leading or misleading questions are made into banner headlines. What is whispered in the coffee shops, barber shops, and beauty salons whether true or false is amplified in screaming blueprint.
Freedom of the press does not mean that journalists can write or the newspapers can print only what they please or only what they want the public to believe. Freedom of the press does not mean freedom to foist misrepresentation and deceit upon the readers, distort their sense of values and cater to their lower inclinations.
Precisely because some people depend on internet, newspapers, and magazines for enlightenment and entertainment, journalists must write within bounds. Journalists worth their salt realize their awesome responsibilities to the public. They do not forget that their right to write comes with duties to their reading public. In most countries, freedom of the press has been glorified and glamorized that journalists tend to abuse this right. What has been eclipsed in this glaring process of glamorization are the obligations of the journalists: the obligation to report the truth and not to withhold facts, to be fair, to respect privacy whenever possible, to be temperate even when angry, to criticize only when one has checked the facts.
Newspapers and online news should make money and the journalists therefrom, why not? They need to live too. But they should not do so at the expense of justice, fair play, and truth. Since man’s sacrosanct preserves are frequently placed in peril, it is tremendously important that those responsible for reporting and analyzing events and happenings should do so with utmost restraint.