EDITORIAL - Press freedom also under threat from within

Freedom of expression is a heady kind of freedom. It intoxicates those who bask in its broad application, including those who, as the joke in the industry goes, went off on an errand to buy vinegar and came back a reporter.

Cognizant of the pitfalls that attend such a broad application of a "dangerous" freedom, responsible practitioners of the press have, over the years, laid in place a great deal of ethical standards by which true professionals of the trade abide.

Unfortunately, we are now very far removed from those times two centuries ago when it was quite easy to stand up and declare pompously that "I may not agree with the things you say but I will defend your right to say it."

Today, freedom of expression stands on very shaky ground, a likely precious casualty of the advances of modern technology that allow people to post, anonymously on the internet, just about anything under the sun, including unverified information or outright lies.

The right to free expression comes increasingly under question in light of the increasing incidences of scurrilous transfer of information meant for no other purpose than to willfully deceive, if not to blatantly harass or terrorize.

The world cannot, for instance, remain callous and stay assiduously defensive of a right that has come to be expropriated for the most devious of purposes such as terrorism. What value remains attached to a right that a terrorist can easily avail of to signal a bombing on the net?

Of course we do not advocate the curtailment of the right to free expression just because there are those who use it for evil means. But those who legitimately exercise that same right must not take these abuses sitting down as if mesmerized by a beautiful sunset.

In fact, so pervasive has licentiousness in media become that misuse by terrorists is but a far away alien example. Here in our midst we see hypocritical angst among those who ache over the curtailment of press freedom and yet are the same ones who demean such a freedom.

Not too long ago, a whole bunch of supposedly professional journalists dressed up in black to silently protest the outcome of a celebrated impeachment proceeding. In effect, they dove into the lake of what they were reporting and emerged dripping wet.

Yet this is the very same bunch that is now spewing fire and brimstone over threats to press freedom. With a bunch like this, and alarmingly many more out there, who needs terrorists to blast apart such a cherished freedom? We can just sit and die without knowing the difference.