The Struggle to Control Information

Lesson 2:3

The power of information to alert, to divert and to connect us has ignited battles to control it since the beginning of time.

It might seem implausible that a leader who rules thousands of soldiers and government officials would be afraid of a few words, but history is full of examples of that. Over 2000 years ago, Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who built the Great Wall of China, ordered the burning of thousands of books and executed more than 450 scholars who refused to surrender their libraries.

That desire to control information continues to this day. People in power often suppress ideas that threaten to undermine their authority.

The latest information revolution has given us both smartphones and social media, the combination of which has intensified the seismic shift of the media landscape. Information today can spread to millions of people across the globe in a heartbeat, making it far more difficult to control. But these new ways to communicate have only prompted people in power to increase their efforts to stop the free flow of ideas.

To bring the information they uncover to the public, journalists worldwide are often the most obvious targets in the war to control information.

Every day in every country reporters and editors must overcome threats and intimidation. The independent organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) tracks the number of journalists who have been imprisoned, kidnapped, harmed and killed.

According to CPJ, since 1992 almost 1,400 journalists have been killed just for doing their job.

These numbers are a grim reminder that the stakes in the battle over information are very high.

Among those journalists killed was Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge. Mr. Wickrematunge’s story is particularly poignant because he understood the risks he was taking. Just days before his murder, he wrote his own obituary. It reads in part,

“People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.”

Governments and powerful interests find many ways short of murdering or physically intimidating journalists to control information. In the United States, where the Constitution protects a free press, the Obama administration aggressively monitored the movements of reporters in order to find out where they obtained information for stories that dealt with national security issues.

We also see examples of how the press is vilified by politicians and other public officials.

Powerful business people in the United States have begun to back defamation and libel suits against American news organizations in an effort to influence their coverage.

Actions like this can have a chilling effect on journalists, intimidating them, making them think twice before they dig too deeply into a story that could challenge those in power.

Note: Due to the length of lesson 2, it's review is combined with that of lesson 3. Click the button below to move straight to lesson 3.