Free Speech 4 - Media We Need

Analysis

BBC

News, Politics

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2016

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Timothy Garton Ash asks whether we have the media we need to really exercise our right to freedom of expression? He examines the diversity of voices across the media landscape and wonders whether the ownership structure of Britain's media industry is conducive to free speech. Are we able to understand what is happening in our government so we can exercise clear judgment on public policy? Are we being told the Truth with a capital T? With the advent of the internet, there is a plethora of ways in which we are now communicating, especially using social media networks like Facebook. But is the algorithm used for news feeds showing us only what we want to see, rather than what we need to see? Producer: Nina Robinson

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a BBC Radio 4 podcast for a special series on free speech
0:06.0	with the Oxford academic and author on the subject Timothy Garten Ash.
0:10.6	In the fourth of five essays he looks at free speech and the media and asks whether we have the media we need for democracy.
0:19.0	They didn't have any media in ancient Athens. you just needed a loud voice.
0:25.0	Who will address the Assembly? asked the Herald, and any adult male citizen could stand on a large
0:32.0	rock platform to speak his mind to thousands of
0:35.5	fellow citizens. Speaking freely, examining the facts and weighing the arguments,
0:41.6	the ancient Athenians decided to fight the invading
0:45.1	Persians at sea, not on land, and they won their battle.
0:50.9	Democratic deliberation produced a decision that saved the world's first democracy.
0:57.0	Order! Order!
1:01.0	Today our representatives in the British Parliament, male and female, enjoy the same freedom of speech.
1:09.0	And this lousy rotten tone problem, It was explicitly guaranteed in the 1689 Bill of Rights, a keystone of the Glorious
1:21.4	the Glorious Revolution. Occasionally we can ourselves a keystone of the glorious revolution.
1:23.0	Occasionally we can ourselves enjoy the ancient Athenian experience,
1:28.0	perhaps in a village hall meeting about a local issue,
1:32.0	but our countries are much too large for all of us to get together and
1:36.1	debate in person. So we have media.
1:40.1	Baby, you understand me now. Radio,
1:48.0	television, newspapers and online platforms all mediate our exchanges. But do we have the media we need for an
1:56.8	effective democracy?
2:01.8	Please don't let me be misunderstood.
	...

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