English Summary: How Free is The Press | Dorothy L. Sayers – Bihar Board 12th | 100 Marks English | by Malendra Sir
‘How Free Is the Press’ is an essay written by Dorothy L. Sayers.
The importance of freedom of the press is explained in this essay.
Dorothy L. Sayers says that free press is the true watchdog of democracy.
Freedom of the press means – freedom from government intervention or censorship.
But in today’s scenario, the press is not as free as it should be.
In fact today, the press is being controlled by two factors – the advertiser and the owner of the press.
Advertisers choose newspapers with maximum circulation to advertise.
So to attract advertisers, the press tries to reach as many people as possible.
Newspapers are required to maintain a low price in order to maintain a high number of circulation, it causes loss to the press. And this difference in price is met by advertisers’ advertising.
Thus both the newspaper and the advertiser are interdependent.
If newspapers refuse to listen to advertisers, they will soon collapse.
Therefore, no newspaper or news agency dares to go against them.
No press always expresses public opinion. They do not always publish the right news. They try to make it rather than garner news. And they publish similar news that benefits advertisers.
Sometimes these people misrepresent the facts as well.
Speaking of the ideal case, the press should be completely independent in normal times and censorship only during emergency and war periods.
But now this does not happen.
Through this essay, Dorothy L. Sayers tries to convey the message that we should not blindly trust any news. Before making any kind of opinion one must examine the facts and support those newspapers and agencies only which operate independently.
Very use ful sir