Should Government Censor Newspapers?

Articles

Should Government Censor Newspapers?

By Jack Lepiarz
Jan. 31, 2005

I recently read an article that said provided some very disturbing figures. It said that 36 percent of high school students believe that newspapers should have more restrictions and have a government approve their stories before they go to print. WHAAAAT?! 36 percent! That means that almost two-fifths of our high school population believe that the government should censor newspapers.

The article caught my eye as I was signing on to look through my ever-expanding pile of junk-mail, letters addressing articles here, and letters from on-demand publishers. I immediately noticed an article asking "Is the Press too Free?" Slightly intrigued, I read the article, immediately faced with those shocking figures. 36 percent of people my age think that our press should be censored! Now, I do recall a certain FIRST AMENDMENT in the Constitution that prohibits censorship. Furthermore, there is a reason that we have free press. It is to keep us informed of what is actually going on so that we are not fed propaganda. If the government is allowed to censor any articles that they want, then we can be led into a completely false idea of the world. Think about it. If that were the case, then the government could specifically not inform us of anything in Iraq. They could tell us that Iraq had been turned into a paradise. Nobody would be able to say otherwise because the government would not allow any newspaper or press source to report those factual findings. We would never have found out about Monica Lewinsky, and we would have never found out about the atrocities in Vietnam. This is America, the home of the free, where we don't allow that to happen.

Besides that, I am utterly shocked as to why anyone outside of the government would actually want to NOT be completely informed by the press (not that they're doing a great job, but that's another subject altogether). It's one thing if you don't want to know what's going on in the world. That's your choice. But it's a whole different matter when you say that other people shouldn't have access to all of the facts. As to why anyone would want to sacrifice their own personal freedoms to give the government is beyond me.

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About the author: Jack Lepiarz is a Junior at Madison High School in Madison, New Jersey. Now 16 years old, he has been writing avidly for the past 5 years and has a completed novel (but unpublished), Spencer. He currently trades between two houses in his town, spending time living with both of his divorced parents.

Email: Jackwuzhere42@aol.com

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