The latest Reporters Without Borders published report ranked the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the bottom of the worldwide index of press freedom. It made me inquire about the issue trying to identify the deficiencies and defects in our media, searching for solutions that meet today’s revolutions and advancements. We live in a world that is shaken by the political, cultural and technical changes occurring by the hour. And we’re obliged to keep pace with the rest of the world’s events and advancement.
In the beginning, a rhetorical question must be asked to uncover the struggle between the idea of concealing and hiding the truth used in certain cases to preserve information or protect the awareness of the public and the importance of transparency, freedom of the press and discussing issues openly and clearly.
To have a better and clearer view of what I’m talking about, we can consider the pros and cons of other countries’ experiences that preceded us historically in the field. Let us try to examine the outcome of their experiences in freedom of the press. Countries that believe that restricting the flow of information to a certain group of people helps in controlling how people, also think that human beings must be confronted with force and controlled. They believe in leading people’s lives and the way they think without giving them the right to having their own views or individual thinking.
On the other hand, countries that deal openly with information, giving people an equal chance to know and understand without being threatened by this approach, are danger-free countries. They have no problem dealing with people because no matter how advanced or developed a country is, it is still run by humans who make mistakes and sometimes have shortcomings. That’s why it’s very important to have people observing and correcting these errors so we can live according to the highest standards.
Let us take the Americans and Israelis as examples. Media outlets have the freedom to broadcast and disseminate information after proper reporting and investigating without being controlled by the government or at least not in a very direct way. The American media was the first to publish the information about Guantanamo prisoners being abused and tortured and on other issues and cases that in reality show American policies in a bad light.
The result was that the American government accepted and never denied these observations and then investigated the incidents, handling its affairs with reason, without violating the system or being threatened as many people expected them to be.
The public and governments are used to mistakes happening continuously. They believe that the media is a witness to this reality and is a support system that helps the government and the country by highlighting deficiencies. Therefore, there is absolutely no problem in revealing the errors, but the problem lies in being irresponsible or careless with the facts that leads to errors and inaccuracies to occur. Guantanamo’s problems were partially solved because there was a body responsible for solving such problems. We also witnessed a number of individuals and committees winning different cases against foreign newspapers and magazines especially the British ones because these newspapers have published stories that contained inaccurate information.
But we have to point out an important logical fact that “absolute” freedom of the press is impossible for a very simple reason. People have their own desires and urges that can be separated partially but can’t be eliminated form influencing anything humans do. People publishing, supervising, obtaining, or sponsoring the news have a tendency of direct or indirect influence on what they are publishing to achieve their desires or at least not to oppose their personal interests. Exploring ideas or opinions needs to be connected to focusing on people’s work and not their ethnicity, religion or any other given facts that people have no power or control over.
What is meant by freedom of expression in media is to be able to let go of the restrictions that control the media and people working in the field. We have to understand that there is a huge difference between media freedom and columnists and writers’ freedom. Both are governed by different social rules. Freedom of the press doesn’t mean that we write whatever we desire attacking and criticizing people, believing that we can get away with it. We would like to have transparency, openness, and clarity in tackling different issues, which is something we lack in our local media. People nowadays trust outside resources to acquire information and these resources are not hard to find because of the easy interaction and communication tools we have.
Censorship can be very difficult and let us take for example what happened a few days ago when Saddam Hussien was executed on the first day of Eid. A flood of emails and phone text messages were sent from everywhere: Some where threatening America and some were mourning the death of Saddam. These messages reached our phones and email accounts without our permission and without any sort of censorship or supervision.
I believe that we can face our reality logically without illusion, given old facts and expertise that had been there for many years. The world today is different than it used to be ten years ago. It’s only reasonable to meet life’s changes including those in the media and communication outlets. It’s not a shame to mention and try to fix our own deficiencies because when we work on our shortcomings, we’re trying to change for the better and become more positive towards creating the best for our country and its citizens.
