Posted by Ethan Friedman.
With all of the chaos occurring in the world, it is important for the world to recognize and be aware of the Russian invasion on Ukraine. This important task to spread important world news is made responsible by news sites, tv channels, journals, etc. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, recently brought up a censorship law that rescricts the press’s ability to spread information to the public. In the article, “BBC, CNN and others are suspending operations or halting their broadcast in Russia after Putin pushes ‘fake news’ law” written by Yelena Dzhanova of Business Insider, it talks about how this law can impact news companies and journalists due to putting out invalid news about Russia.
According to The New York Times, the journalists who said that the invasion by Russia to Ukraine was a “war” would face jail. This caused big news companies such as CNN, ABC, and BBC to stop their broadcast from Russia and caused The Washington post to remove writer recognition from specific articles to protect staff from potential punishments. In the article it says, “Under Putin’s new law, which could go into effect as early as Saturday, anyone who spreads what the Russian government considers to be “fake” news about the country’s military operations could face up to 15 years in jail, according to The Committee to Protect Journalists”(paragraph 3, Dzhanhova). The quote is saying that Putin’s new law states that if the Russian Government considers any of the news to be fraud of “fake” could face up to 15 years of jail time.
In my opinion, I dont see this as being a main issue in the world right now considering there is a lot of conflict going on all around the world. The news should be able to cover whatever it wants due to having a big platform and making people aware of what is happening and what could happen. The news’s job is to make the world aware of everything around the world and everything that could potentially impact the world in the future. I dont see how the news companies are wrong here by making people aware of what Russia is capable of and what they could potentially do. Now these news companies can’t do their job due to not covering important information about the world because they can potentially get locked up in jail for it. This law is just protection by Putin to hide warning information to the world, which makes Russia an event bigger problem in the world.
Ethan is a business major (undecided), at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2025.