The Politics of US/UK Media Content Regulation in a Post-9/11 World - Essay Example

The encroachment on opinions which cross-media ownership causes is a mounting problem. It is important that the media remains to be pluralistic, transparent and the purveyor of a cross section of democratic debate. Regulators have devised a number of avenues by which the public interest will be served, and not severed by the single mindedness of economic gain or political expediency. The public deservers to be informed and not manipulated, they must be informed and not merely led. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, freedom and security have become competing virtues.

Expansion of one necessarily entails the contraction of the other. Security versus freedom: the underlying assumption is that the two can coexist only uneasily in times of national crisis. The loss of certain freedoms is the price paid for additional security. Some are eager to make that exchange, while others consider the price too dear. In the United States, freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Constitution, and this right is generally respected. Nevertheless, official restrictions on domestic press coverage, begun after the terrorist attacks, were expanded in preparation for U.S. military action in Iraq.

Unlike the United States, the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution. The British system lacks formal constitutional protections of many of the rights we consider fundamental as deriving from the constitutional text, structure, and history. Britain’s unwritten constitution does not enforce a strict separation of powers at the national level, nor does it have a federal system of government.