Editorial Indipendence

In present context pluralism is widely accepted ideology. According to JS Mills there should be no restriction to any single person to express what one feels. He advocates on full freedom of speech. In many cases the thing acknowledged by the majority may not do welfare to the whole community. The expression of the minority may fit the solution of the problem. And another thing is that mere expression of the individual’s thought is not going to puss the cart, it is the action that roles and directs it. But is for sure that the expression of speech can help shape the action. And it is reliable that the cognitive human beings after having the audience of all the facets of the prevailing problem will more acurately decide for the good of society.
Here lies the root of press freedom, the freedom of expression. The freedom of information as a whole, is the modified form of freedom of speech, for it also includes the freedom of information of the general public who now is undoubtedly received as the source of state power theoretically.
But practically there are various hurdles for the press and do have certain responsibilities that restricts its total freedom. In many cases the government authority and press seems conflicting. The authority wants press to act as per its interest but the press, if we see its history find struggling to be independent from such restriction. Where the persons in the authority forget their source of power, the sovereignty of the people it is seen that there the authority presses the press. And in the opposite context where the freedom is given to the press, the authority committes various wrong doing but are letter corrected by court.
There would not be any impact upon the mass people by the speech of an individual but if it is covered by the mass media it certainly does. The degree may vary according to the situation. For this reason there should be self censorship within the press to exercise the freedom of the society. Its work is to smooth the unsmooth running society rather than distorting the trend of the smoothly running society.
These are the terms, conditions,and rules somehow establishing the freedom of press when we view the press as a unit in comparison to the other social units such as government, public organisation etc. As a part of society, as a unit of society now almost every people agrees on press freedom. But as an organisation its parts or the departments must have freedom to ensure the intended press freedom. If we view the press dissecting it to other sub units there again comes the issue of freedom under subjugation. Editor in context of newspaper should be given freedom to choose and give importance to particular news as the head of the news department in a media house.
Theoretically he had the total light over the newshole but is not happening in global context too. Here it is relevant to quote a quotation “who pays the piper tunes the pipe”. But the principle states all the responsibility of what appear in newspaper goes upon the editor so he should be superior in making decision what should appear in the paper and what should not. He should not be pressed from and by any other bodies within and outside the media house to shape the paper inclusive of the proprietor who owns the paper and may attempt to direct the paper for the economic benefit alone. This freedom of editor to deicide to shape the newspaper, to decide how as the radio-news should sound in news program and what the sound and the motion should be in television and news content in other form is widely known as editorial independence.