Freedom of the Press

So while what I’m sure Fox has dubbed “War on Free of Speech” in Venezuela rages on, a similar “Attack on the Press” is going in Honduras. Honduran President Manuel (Mel) Zelaya is currently putting himself on air on every Honduras based radio and television outlet for 2 hours daily. This started last Monday, and is going to go on for a minimum of 10 days. (CNN Article)

Mel is doing this in response to what he considers a media that is overly critical of him. I haven’t been here long enough to gauge the accuracy of that, so maybe it’s true.
But as far as freedom of the press goes, I realized something interesting.
We are not willing to get news from people we elect, whose goal is (should be) the people. Yet we are more willing to listen to what a company, whose goal is to make money, and in which we have absolutely no say. This seems backwards.

I am definitely not advocating getting rid of a free press, and depending on the government for news. However, I think we have too much faith in the free press. Just as we see the vested interests in official propoganda from governements, we need to learn to see the vested interests of other news channels.

On a slightly different note, the rains of May finally arrived, on the last day of May. In the past, rains came much earlier, but due to deforestation and other ecological problems, rain has been coming later and later every year.
I’m just glad that there isn’t as much dust, and that the sky today is blue and free from the smoke (see my post on burning) and haze that has been making blue skies impossible to get in my outside shots. And it’s definitely feeling a lot less hot here.

Blue sky
Posted in Honduras 2007, old blog

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