Tuesday, November 16, 2010

It's Your Right, Exercise it!

As I considered this topic there are two sides to the issue concerning the idea of corporations infringing on the freedom of speech .  These two sides are corporations that run the media and then the rest of the corporations that are separate from the media.  I consider these two different sides of the issue because media is the watchdog of the government and the voice of the people.  The moment media is no longer the voice of the people, then there is ample opportunity for them to infringe upon rights and not allow for the freedoms of speech that a person is entitled to by the Constitution.  The second side deals with corporations outside of media.  These should be entitled to control outside content in any way they see fit.  Both of these ideas I plan on elaborating on throughout the following post.

I do not believe that corporations can infringe upon someones freedom of speech.  A corporation has every right to not endorse or drop someone based on their behaviors.  The individual in question represents the corporation to a degree.  So if that person would bring negative press to the corporation, then the corporation has every right to censor that individual in how they reflect on the corporation.  I do not think that this takes away a person’s freedom of speech in any way, corporations are required to abide by employment laws, but these don’t cover someones speech.  If a person is deemed a harm to the corporation, then the corporation has every reason to be rid of that individual.  Just like should a person be a positive voice for the corporation they may choose to hire them to endorse their products.

However I believe every person is entitled to their own opinion.  I believe that if you say something outside of your workplace, that is coming from you as an individual you should not be fired for that.  I am directing this example towards NPR’s firing of Juan Williams after he said that he felt “personal skittishness over seeing fellow air travelers dressed in Muslim garb.” Seeing as he said it was his personal feeling, and did not reflect anything on NPR, then I do not see any reason as to why he should be fired.  The only reason why he should have been fired would have been if there was something in his contract stating that he could not share his personal views with other media outlets.  That should have been the only weighing mechanism in whether or not he should have been fired over his television interview. NPR firing him may even violate the National Labor Relations Act, which allows employees to talk freely outside of work, which he was doing by being on television in the interview. This is a prime example of a group censoring someone in a way that I see as absolutely absurd and uncalled for.

NBC even noticed the error in their ways when they suspended Keith Olbermann for supporting people running for political office outside of his job.  Even though in this instance he did breach contract, NBC realized that as an individual it is his right to support who he likes, regardless of if he is a popular figure or not.  They ended up only suspending him for a day and not completely firing like Juan Williams and the NPR incident.

A person should be fired though as mentioned above if they are going to be cause the corporation a drop in sales or negative press.  But they should not be fired if their personal views do not line up with the corporation.  This is something that is trying to be covered in the employment non-discrimination act that is trying to be passed through congress at the moment.

With examples like what was presented in our book of corporations censoring people who have no direct correlation with them, I see no problem with that.  If a corporation feels that that person is going to bring a negative light to their business as I stated above then they should have the freedom to keep that person or group from doing so.  People have to know what market they are marketing themselves to (in the Crow and Dixie Chicks scenarios) if they are going to say things that might offend people, then they must realize the consequences of their actions.  Because corporations that sell their items, venues that book them, can choose to not book them if they are going to have off colour remarks about different issues.  This can lead to their loss in sales, but really they brought it upon themselves.

However, people being avoided purposefully can pose a problem within the media sector.  American media is now owned by major corporations.  With news being owned by corporations, they are the gatekeepers of what news they report and what they don’t report.  

The media is called to be a watchdog over the government.  If they choose what is the best interest of money (which they do at times) then they are in turn not doing what the founding fathers originally wanted the media to do.  They are instead doing what is in their best interest.  News could be avoided because the media sees that what the news represents could hurt their ratings because people don’t care about it. Doing so though could result in media no longer being a watchdog over the government, thus allowing things to happen in the government to happen without the public knowing about it.  Media corporations could be doing this to make money, either unknowingly because they think the news would hurt ratings or knowingly being paid to avoid the news so that things could happen without public knowledge.  

If it was just a singular person being avoided, even though they had solid news in relation to something, then this could lead to a persons First Amendment right being infringed upon. A situation like this could only happen though, in my opinion, if more than 50% of the media refused to carry that person’s message.  Of course all of this would only be relevant if what was happening was true, hard news.

So a corporation is free to do what they want, as long as it’s not discriminating against a person.  However a corporation that controls media should be held to a different standard because they are expected to work at a higher standard.  This is what we are taught as journalism majors, if that common standard is missing and a media corporation does not work as the proper watchdog because they are more concerned about money, then we miss the entire point of media.  People sometimes miss the fact that media is supposed to be a watchdog and simply view it as a convenient way to know what is going on in the world.  Media is supposed to watch after the people, be their voice.  However today they end up being the voice of the corporation.  When media becomes the voice of the corporations, this is when there is the slightest possibility of them beginning to infringe on the rights of people, as well as going against the high standards set for journalist.

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