Government Censorship

Newspapers, news broadcasts, magazines, and tabloids all serve for the same function: to inform. However, the information being provided cannot always be everything that there is to know. Due to the censorship that occurs within news media, it is quite impossible to possess all of the straight facts of a particular social situation. The US government is held responsible for much of this censorship. Their fears generally concern upsetting the public and their own humiliation. The US government must set aside these fears and ultimately expose the truth in words and in pictures. They must stop censoring, stop classifying, and start disclosing information about the issues that can potentially affect its citizens. As in 9/11, it was proved that withholding such information can lead to disastrous endings. Americans should do everything in their power to prevent tragedies such as this one and demand the truth. After all, the truth is just as important to citizens as it is to the US government. A common issue that arises within news media is the mistrust of Americans when reading or listening to it. Because of this mistrust, newspapers have started to become unreliable sources of facts. It is quite frustrating to know that newspapers and news broadcasts are holding back tremendous amounts of information, while spewing out what may dramatically be called lies. In 2004 “American’s confidence in the media dropped ‘a significant’ ten percentage points... according to a recent Gallup Poll,” (Media Bias). Presently, “no more than 25% say they have a ‘great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of confidence in either newspaper and tv news,” (Gallup Poll). Without a doubt, this number will continue to decrease as the censoring in the news persists to exist. There will be a point in time when the news will be utterly useless. Much of the censoring that goes on in the news media has a lot to do with the government’s use of over-classification. Over-classification is a system that the