Uncontrolled media

Development in mass media techniques has been so rapid and far-reaching that it is now uncontrollable. Owing to commercialization, subversive organizations may use the media for their own purposes. Contributors to surveys may restrict their own freedom. Despite censorship, alien propaganda may be spread by the use of sophisticated techniques, and where there is freedom of expression, monopoly of media outlets may restrict this freedom and issue unrepresentative information. Modern reproduction and dissemination techniques may facilitate copyright infringement.

The media was heavily criticized in the June 1985 hijacking of a TWA airplane to Beirut, due to the amount of coverage it gave to the hijackers and their demands. The leaking by the press of the pre-summit letter (in the Reagan/Gorbachev summit, November 1985) from Defence Secretary Casper Weinberger to President Reagan, necessitated the launching of an investigation, as this leak was accused of being an attempt to sabotage the peace efforts of that meeting.