Area high school student wins essay contest on media's importance

In an effort to increase high school students' knowledge of issues in journalism and their importance, the Miami University chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) sponsors an annual Freedom of the Press High School Essay Contest.This year's topic was "Why are free news media important?"SPJ hosted the competition for first time for 9th to 12th grade students at Talawanda High School and William Mason High School.SPJ's executive board awarded first prize to 15-year-old Linda Yao, a sophomore from William Mason High School.Winners from the local chapters compete nationally for scholarship awards. The first place scholarship is $1,000 while second and third place are $500 and $300, respectively.Judging criteria includes material organization, vocabulary and style, grammar, punctuation, spelling, neatness and adherence to contest rules.Truck of Public OpinionBy Linda YaoThe power to shape public opinion, to be heard in society where people are too easily persuaded by the often ignorant mainstream thought, is a power the media must maintain for the benefit of society. American advertising executive William Bernbach declared, "All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level." Freedom of press supplies the flexibility of media to mold the public into a society of enlightened individuals, each aware of a fundamental right: the right to opinion.In the fervor of World War I, not everybody supported the war and its resulting 37 million casualties. However, during the war, the committee on public information was initiated as a wartime propaganda agency, claiming to provide facts but in actuality only publicizing the U.S. government's version of events. As propaganda infiltrated popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, readers began drawing opinions of only supporters of war without facts or contradicting viewpoints.The role of the news media is to combat propaganda by informing those who are unapprised of the facts and exposing the public to a multitude of opinions. The Saturday Evening Post, influenced by the government, was not a source of free news media. Only free news media provide an audience with the privilege of drawing individual conclusions from data and information. With its expression of opinion as well as a basis of facts, media can provide an audience with its own kind of power, the power to differ in opinion. Propaganda during World War I provoked Americans to abuse German sympathizers. It is the job of media to falsify biased claims, and this responsibility cannot be accomplished without media free in the sense that they are uninfluenced by any one person or association.Charles Schenck, an avid anti-war protester of World War I, created pamphlets decrying the government's release of propaganda by means of the media. His pamphlets warned people to maintain independence of mind despite government seizure of the press: "Do not submit to intimidation" and "Assert your rights," Schenck's pamphlets encouraged.In the Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States, it was ruled where a person's exercise of the First Amendment posed a "clear and present danger," it could be denied. Yet what was the danger which Schenck was accused of perpetrating? The danger of reminding Americans of their freedom of opinion? The role of media is to serve as a consistent reminder of the right to opinion and even the ability to disagree with the occasional bias evident in some press releases. When news media cease to be free, our society will be nothing more than people easily influenced by mainstream opinions unfounded on facts. Free media are a collaboration of facts, an acknowledgement of differing opinions. Free media are the trunk of facts from which the branches of public opinion protrude.