Key Word!!!

We all know that Freedom of the press is something every country should have. Actually freedom is a word necessary in every country. People need to know that what they think and what they have to say is important, people are suppose to trust each other and be able to share with other their feelings and opinions about whatever subject they feel like talking about. Of course there is something we call common sense, and there is a place and a time for everything.

Being in a country and coming from a country that have Freedom of the press I feel like sometimes people don’t actually appreciate this. We take this for granted. Here we can right most opinions and thoughts in magazines and newspaper. We can write what we actually want, although sometimes, there are some people that maybe don’t to hear about a particular subject. Here and in Brazil you can talk well about the president, but if you just don’t like what he is doing in the cabinet you can just say that. There is a difference thought between saying your opinion and what you think about a subject and blasphemy. It is okay to say you believe something might be true, but from the moment you affirm that you know with absolute certainty that something happened, you better have evidence or else people can sue you and just give you a really hard time, and I completely agree with those actions.

Last semester I was in a class where we had a student from Zimbabwe, and out teacher used to ask her how was television in our home countries. She said that her in her country the government controls whatever goes on TV. The situation there is really really bad. Nowadays Zimbabwe lives a nightmare. Their president, Mugabe is a dictator, and whatever goes on TV need to go through a filter before, they try to filter any shows or news that have something that is not of their liking, not only national material but also international. Although the country has a constitutional act that protects the freedom of expression, the people in charge of this specific area of the dictation ship have an extremely hostile attitude towards the whole media and whoever tries to go over the “law”. They even obligated every journalist or media involved companies to register in a Commission so they could analyze their material and decide if they could or not publicize or air one or more subject. TV networks and publishers had their license denied. Other countries that also suffer from the lack of freedom in their press are, Russia, China, North Korea, Angola, most countries in Asia and Africa have a flawed freedom of press, in the American Continent only Venezuela has the press controlled by the government.

I believe that it is of most importance to have freedom of the press. That is definitely one of the things that would determine me visiting or living in this country. We should all have the right to speak, to live and to be free.

Very interesting website called freedom house.