The filmmakers Andy and Lana Wachowski are probably best known for their Matrix trilogies, the sci-fi thriller famous for bending the laws of physics. But in my opinion, their film that carries the most merit and meaning is a film called V for Vendetta. The film follows a masked vigilante named V who fights against the tyrannical government of near-future England. This film shows the importance of the freedom of the press, a freedom that could be translated as the people’s right to know what is going on in the world around them, to know the truth. In V for Vendetta, V eventually sacrifices his life to bring down the authoritarian regime of government that uses its own private news channel to censor the information that the English people receive on their government, a government that suppresses them and takes advantage of them, not to mention locking up anyone that it deems too ‘different’ for society. But, because there is no freedom of the press, the English people don’t know the truth of their government.
I think that, to a lesser degree, this can happen in today’s society if freedom of the press does not remain intact. And overwhelming amount of Americans get their news from the internet, television, radio, or newspapers. If there was no freedom of the press, if all of these forms of media were censored to show only what the government wants its citizens to see, people may not know the truth about what’s going on in the world. If the press was censored, who knows if Upton Sinclair would have ever written The Jungle? If there was know freedom of the press, who knows if Jacob Riis would have made How the Other Half Lives? Those landmarks pieces of journalism, if you count The Jungle as journalism which I do, led to great reformist changes in America that improved the quality of life for all people, while exposing atrocities that the government was just letting happen. Some people think that freedom of the press can be dangerous, that it can be abused to hurt the country, that it is too risky and should be reigned in. But I couldn’t disagree more. I think that, because it is a great tool for good when it comes to the welfare of people in America and throughout the world, the freedom of the press is just too important to lose.