No Such Thing as Freedom of Speech

I've started reviewing our textbook, Communication and New Media, and comparing the lecture notes with the "appropriate" required readings for each week and I must say that I am completely confused. I'm into chapter five and looked over the lecture notes for week five and they don't match up. So, do I focus my review on the book or on the lecture notes?

On a completely different tack I was reading the bit on page 88 about poor Upton Sinclair. The passionate and disgruntled left-wing journalist who wrote The Brass Check in 1920. The basic idea running through the Brass Check seems to be the sell out (or prostitution as Sinclair implies) of journalism to big business. This brought to mind a talk I attended earlier this year at the Somerset Celebration of Literature. It was called "Freedom of Speech: The Highs and Lows of Journalism". It was led by journalist/writers Phil Brown, Karen Brooks, and Michael Jacobson. One of the first statements thrown out was "there's no such thing as freedom of speech as a journalist" which immediately peaked my curiosity and made me realise that my idea of journalism is too idealistic to be realistic. It seems Sinclair was right on the money after all. There were a lot of little journalistic philosophies given at the talk such as: "if it bleeds it leads" and "if in doubt leave it out" and repeated twice: "people should think about what they say rather than say what they think", but I found Karen Brooks' thought especially endearing. As a columnist, while she doesn't always agree 100% with what she writes, she sometimes writes an article to evoke thought and response. In my little idealistic world I think that's what more journalism should be about. Less propaganda and more thought provoking.

Perhaps the internet will help pave the way for this type of journalism - but will it put food on the table?

Anyway, back to the drudgery that is our textbook.