Morality and the Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Morality and the Media - Essay Example In other words, just as Thomas Jefferson said, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The question is who gets to be in the place of the watchman. In Victor Clines essay, he approaches the topic of free speech in media, even when it crosses lines which are traditionally held by moral peoples, in a manner that attempts to strip the moral issues from the essential freedom of speech. Cline approaches the issue of free speech within the media, and the question of setting boundaries on this free speech when it crosses these accepted moral limits, as if the people themselves set the moral boundaries within which they define acceptability. The argument insists that if one group of people feels that this particular expression of pornography or violence is morally wrong, and therefore should warrant censorship, then another group should be able to choose that the same expression is acceptable, and allowable within the boundaries of free speech. And so the argument continues. Media producers have, in my opinion, been allowed to hide behind the veil of free speech by court decisions which have attempted to approach a moral issue from an amoral framework.