The only reason I write a blog entry on this story is my continuous surprise at the increasing clout of political correctness over freedom of speech. I assume there are multitudes of opinions over this debate but I am just amazed if one cannot express one's opinion freely on a talk show then it marks the death of freedom of speech. Yes, I am referring to the latest Dan Immus incident! After that incident the last frontier of free expression is blogging.
But I am predicting the censorship, code of conduct, enforcement rules for the blogsphere space in the near future. It is a matter of time when due to the blogsphere influence, reach and access, there will be so these called controlling forces establishing a modus operandi. The world of blogging will change forever. It will be strangled, initially by moral code of conduct and later by a representative elected body. Then there will be this significant mass of blogging community and organizations that will align with these protocols and regulations and choke themselves to the death of their purpose. Yes, there will be still a handful that will continue to be unconstrained. These exceptions will be ridiculed as outcasts in certain quarters of the society. But there will be a handful of loyal followers and believers in these exception blogger/blog sites . Yet these sites will die a natural death. Well Don Immus paid a penalty and his case of termination and demise from CBS reflects poorly on our social maturity. Till someone strikes on my blog site, I vouch to express my mind and not worry about political correctness.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I disagree with your assertion that Imus was fired because of a degradation of free speech. I think free speech is alive and well. He did nothing illegal; he violated no law, regulation, or policy. I believe he was fired because of a free market and a slow news period. The market spoke, expressed outrage, got results, and moved on.
The words he used are uttered every day in music lyrics, movies and in the halls of schools by our children. How can this not be free speech? All Don Imus is guilty of is being a bigot, having poor ratings and being old.
I think what is more interesting is the ability of so called moral zealots like Al Sharpton to be so hypocritical and have the mainstream media fawn over them. Today it is okay for white people to be called crackers and other ethnic groups to be identified by derogatory labels. Where is the outrage, where are the results? Why doesn’t GE pull its ads from Fox who airs shows that use otherwise offensive language. The answer is not because free speech has been limited, but because the market does not demand so.
Post a Comment