U.S. students say press freedoms go too far
Historically, our children, regardless of generation, have always been known for their subversiveness. How should we adults react when our children begin to think that there is too much press freedom? I don’t know about y’all, but this scares the hell out of me.
Apparently, life in post-9.11 BushWorld has convinced the younger generation that this whole First Amendment thing can be dangerous if it is allowed to get out of hand. So who should determine if freedom of the press is getting out of hand? Why, the government, of course.
The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get “government approval” of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.
Asked whether the press enjoys “too much freedom,” not enough or about the right amount, 32% say “too much,” and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.
The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers.
The findings aren’t surprising to Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. “Even professional journalists are often unaware of a lot of the freedoms that might be associated with the First Amendment,” he says.
The survey “confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time,” he says: Kids aren’t learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes.
This is what happens when we don’t teach our children about the First Amendment and about why freedom of speech and expression is so vital. If you aren’t taught the importance of something, how are you supposed to miss it when it’s gone? If we count on the government to protect from those voices we find disturbing and incovenient, how long will it be before we begin agreeing to allow more and more of our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to be nibbled away?
Dissent and the expression of unpopular are as American as apple pie and baseball, and yet more and more Americans seem not to understand the significance of the First Amendment. I wonder if the 36% of children who think that “government approval” should be required in order to publish a newspaper story have any idea what they are advocating. Think of all the government scandals, missteps, and outright lies that would not and could not have been exposed if “government approval” had been required. Who be available to act as a watchdog if all news had to pass through a government filter? We’d never have known about Watergate, Iran-Contra, Bush’s lies about WMDs in Iraq, and a whole host of other issues. Is this what we really want?
Of course, given that our children are clearly not learning about the Constitution, I suppose these attitudes are understandable. It should scare the hell out of any of us who didn’t vote for George W. Bush. If you think the current American electorate is ignorant, self-absorbed, and reactionary, wait until you see what’s coming down the pike. We have nothing to fear but the ignorance and prejudices of our own children.
