Bihar Board Class 12 English Book Solutions Chapter 8 | How Free is the Press | Go my class

How Free is the Press

B. 1.1. Read the following sentences and write 'T' for true and 'F' for false statements:-

i) Press is free everywhere. - False

ii) There is no internal censorship on the press. - False

iii) Proprietors have their personal interests as well. - True

iv) Advertisers contribute to the revenue of the newspapers. - True

B. 1.2. Answer the following questions briefly.

1. What do free ‘people’ take for granted?

Ans:- Free people take it for granted that without a free press there can be no freedom.

2. Are there restrictions on Press in time of war?

Ans:- Yes, there are restrictions on Press during the time of war. In fact all liberties are restricted in time of war.

3. What do you mean by the term ‘free press’?

Ans:- By free press we mean that the press is free from direction and censorship by the government.

4. Who is the master the state or the people?

Ans:- The people are the masters. The state is the servant of the people.

5. What does the unofficial censorship seek to do?

Ans:- The unofficial censorship does not so much seek to express public opinion as to manufacture it.

6. Name two sources of revenue newspapers usually survive on.

Ans:- The two chief sources of revenue of a newspaper are

(i) advertisers.

(ii) the wealth of the company or the man that owns the newspaper.

B.2.1. Complete the following sentences on the basis of the unit you have just studied:

a) Accurate reporting has given place to reporting which is at best slipshod and at worst tendentious because it is assumed that public has not the wit to distinguish between truth and falsehood, secondly public does not care if a statement is false provided it is titillating. Both mean that public can be made to believe anything.

b) Sensational headlines, false emphasis and supposition of context are some of the ways to distort both fact and opinion.

c) Garbling is the special accomplishment of the Press interviewer.

d) The date in the newspaper report had to be changed to conceal the fact that the news was already ‘cold’.

B.2.3. Answer the following questions briefly:

1. What are the two basic assumptions about the public?

Ans :- The two basic assumptions about the public are : (a) that they have not the intelligence to distinguish truth from falsehood and (b) that they don’t care at all that a statement is false provided it is titillating.

2. What is suppression of context?

Ans:- Suppression of context is choosing only apart from the whole so that the meanings are distorted and give a different impression than what was actually intended.

3. Name two things that make the reports unreliable reading.

Ans:- The interviewer’s playful habit of making statements himself and attributing them to the interviewer makes the reports unreliable reading.

B. 3.1. Read the following sentences and write ‘T’ for true and ‘F’ for false statement :

i) The author was very fond of gardening and keeping cats. - False

ii) The author had delivered 20,000 words in the space of an hour and a quarter. - False

iii) To misrepresent a man’s attitude and opinion is no offence. - True

iv) To get misleading statements corrected is very easy. - False

v) Any public person is subtly made to feel that if he offends the press he will suffer for it. - True

vi) The press can make or break reputation. - True

B. 3.2. Answer the following questions briefly:-

1. Why do books rarely criticize the Press?

Ans:- A book rarely dares to criticise the Press because the press can either ignore the book all together, or publish sneering comments in its gossip column about it.

2. How do the newspapers greet the slightest efforts to hinder the irresponsible dissemination of nonsense?

Ans:- The slightest effort to hinder the irresponsible dissemination of nonsense is greeted by a concerted howl: This is a threat to the freedom of the press.

3. Name the seven charges the author makes against die Press.

Ans:- The seven charges the author has made against the press are

(i) False Emphasis, (ii) Garbling, (iii) Inaccuracy, (iv) Reversal of facts,

(v) Random Invention, (vi) Miracle Mongering, (vii) Flat Suppression