According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, it has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for their efforts to safeguard FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, which is a precondition for DEMOCRACY and lasting PEACE.
The Nobel Committee said that Ms. Ressa and Mr. Muratov are receiving the Peace Prize for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and in Russia. The Committee also said that Ms. Ressa and Mr. Muratov are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.
They say that Ms. Ressa uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in the Philippines. She co-founded Rappler(www.rappler.com), a digital media company for investigative journalism in 2012. Mr. Muratov is said to have defended freedom of speech in Russia for decades under increasingly challenging conditions. He was one of the founders of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazeta(www.https://novayagazeta.ru) in 1993.
The Nobel Committee underscores that, without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time. The Committee declares that this year’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize is, therefore, firmly anchored in the provisions of Alfred Nobel’s will.
Alfred Nobel(1833-1896) was a Swedish inventor. He was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other more powerful explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes. Even though Nobel himself remains a figure of paradoxes and contradictions, Nobel Prizes are said to be the world’s most prestigious prizes for intellectual services rendered to humanity.
The First Amendment(Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is written as “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It is estimated that the First Amendment broadly protects the rights of free speech and free press. Free speech is said to mean the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government. Free press is said to mean the right of individuals to express themselves through publication and dissemination of information, ideas and opinions without interference, constraint or prosecution by the government.
There are famous cases in terms of these fundamental personal rights and liberties. Some of them are Bond v. Floyd (1966), New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), Chicago Police Dept. v. Mosley (1972) and so on. Those rights are not only guaranteed by the Constitution and laws, but also they are permeated American politics and culture. Those rights are the foundation of the architecture of American civilization.
Memphis is a city along the Mississippi River in southwestern Shelby County, Tennessee, United States. The borders of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi meet around Memphis, which was founded in 1819 on the site of a Chickasaw Indian village and a U.S. fort. Memphis was incorporated as a city in 1826. Its population is said to be about 633,000(2020) and the Greater Memphis area has the population of about 1,350,000(2017). Memphis is a regional center for the local level of business, commerce, economy, transportation, law, government, entertainment, tourism, sports, healthcare, education, art, and media for the local communities.
Memphis has more than several newspapers or televisions. Some of them are The Commercial Appeal, Memphis Daily News, Memphis Flyer, WREG, WMC, WKNO, WHBQ, and so forth. And there are muliple radio stations around the Greater Memphis area. There are some interesting internet-based media or websites in terms of journalistic activities. There are tons of websites and social media around this local communities.
Media are transportation of information. Media are vehicles of news, opinion, entertainment, knowledge, and social interactions. Local media are the fundamental and indispensable infrastructure of the local communities.
As the Norwegian Nobel Committee point out, the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of information help to ensure an informed public, which are crucial prerequisites for democracy. This message resonates especially when local democracy gets a serious illness. Free, independent and fact-based local journalism can serve to protect the local democracy and the local people against abuse of power, lies and propaganda by the local authorities or around the local communities.
MemphisTV is an independent, experimental, innovative, untraditional, insightful, and more importantly, inspirational media for the local democracy, for the local communities, and for the local people. We don’t have Memphis Peace Prize here in Memphis yet. If such award is established someday in the future, one of the local media can or should be awarded for the first prize winner. What do you think of that? And how about MemphisTV?
Published: October 18, 2021
[MemphisTV Editorial]
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