Freedom necessitates vigilance . . .
. . . even in the newsroom.
Why do you only hear the same news from the same newsroom?
Why is freedom of the press and freedom of speech so important?
Watch our Truth in Two to find out (full text below).
Defending freedom includes the defense of all voices to be heard.
Subscribe to “Truth in Two” videos from Comenius (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), hosts a weekly radio program with diverse groups of guests (1 minute video), and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).
Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, Snappy Goat
FULL TEXT
During the run-up to Nazi control of Germany from 1921 to 1934, a group called the “brown shirts” seized control of Germany’s public square. Hitler’s enemies, anyone who stood in the way of Nazi domination, were overcome by the use of bullying, threats, and violence. Economic tyranny, burning and looting storefronts, was a principal means of coercion. At the end of the day, the effort to shout down and shut up opposition paved the way for Hitler’s power.
As reported in The Wall Street Journal in June
“The editorial page editor of the New York Times, the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the editors of Bon Appétit magazine and the young women’s website Refinery 29 have been forced out by the staff and owners of their publications for offenses regarded as, at odds with the beliefs of the current protests”
If you don’t say or publish the right thing, your opposition voice will not be respected but will be silenced for lack of conformity. In our day, media censorship runs, from shutting down free speech on social media to simply not reporting rival perspectives in main stream media. There is a reason why the framers of the U.S. Constitution focused on freedom in the First Amendment: freedom of religion, the press, peaceful assembly, and freedom of speech.
Freedom demands negotiation between parties. Tyranny demands adherence to one party. Maximilien Robespierre, early architect of the French Revolution, demanded adherence to what was publicly popular. But within three years he fell out of influence, silenced for the very thing he stood for: what was publicly popular. Silencing the opposition is always the first step toward tyranny.
Twice, Proverbs 28 forecasts, “When the wicked rise, the people hide themselves” [Proverbs 28:12, 28]. Brown shirts, cultural revolutionaries, or media censors have the same goal: silence the opposition.
For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-medias-self-censors-11591829694