Freedom of the press is a relative term. In my opinion, firstly, the press should be unrestrained. Secondly, the press should be responsible to society and thirdly, the press should promote social stability and progrss. The three aspects are integrated, equally important and inseparable. It is harmful to one-sidedly strss only one aspect as this would cause some problems.

The united states once faced the situation: it had much sustain for liberalism at the very beginning. However, its undue emphasis on the society resulted an excessive abuse of the freedom of the press. This was the period of the development of the press theory. Later on, the America press perceived their own problems and therefore put forward the concept of the responsible press or the theory of social responsibility, bringing the development of the press theory into the second period of development. Now the world has entered the post-cold war period of peace and development. People all over the world yearn for social environment characterized by stability, progrss, and peaceful development. They earnestly hope the media will play an even greater role in promoting social stability and progrss instead of causing social turbulence and retrogression. This post-cold war period,I believe, characterizes the emerging third period of development for the press theory. In my opinion, china’s media is strving to put the three aspects I mentioned earlier into pratice.

Many of the reports on china by the media of the west are not acurate and sometimes very unobjective and very unfair. Reports on china’s development are rarely seen in weatern newspapers. They show littleconcer for china’s rapid progress but care only about the difficulties and problems. If one rely only on those reports and ignore the reality of china, the picture of china in one’s mind would be a society soon to callapse. But quite on the contrary, china is a very stable society and economically rapid growing country.