ABSTRACT
Media freedoms almost always are different in word than in deed. Almost all countries, even those considered to have intensive restrictive control over their telecommunications systems, have some degree of constitutional guarantees of freedom of the media. Not only are governments responsible for restrictions on media freedoms, but media practitioners themselves are often complicit in both external and internal censorship. Despite many codes relating to the freedom of the press and media, which proliferated after the World War II defeat of blatant dictatorships, many journalists and others in the media who developed and subscribed to such codes were among the first to break them when either the government, the media owners, the advertisers, or the public exerted any pressure. In the United States, for example, complete disregard for the guarantees of freedom of speech and thought in both the Constitution and in voluntary codes was the hallmark of the McCarthy era of the 1950s.
