ISSUE8

magiccolinUID: 2619731

TOPIC: ISSUE8 - "It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."

TOPIC: ISSUE8 - "It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."
WORDS: 451          TIME: 00:45:00          DATE: 2009/8/9 15:57:47

Political Leaders often in a dilemma whether if to inform the public or not. The author asserts this should be a neccesity is remains questioned. According to my understanding, concerning about the public's benefits, the decision shall be made depends on different situations.

Concerning about the politician's individual interest, some information regarding to his personal infurmation can be kept. Politicians are at all not pop-stars, too much publicity on their priviacy will ruin their normal life. Take our Mr. Wen Jia Bao, chinese most popular premier for example, his popularity results in public's growing interest for his family. If you typing "Wen JiaBao's daughter or wife, little information is poped out. Although we know little about his family, he stills considered as one of the most distiguised leader in China. In this case, withhold information won't harm damage the public interest.  In contrast, Mr. Bo guagua -- an excellent student and son of Mayor of chongqing city, his awards in Cambridage university as a promising future leader draws too much attention by chinese media. Over news news report related to the Mayor's Son put the mayor into a embarrassed situation, which casused public worry about his abuse of power. Thus, for infromation concerning about the pulicital leader's individual privacy, that may ruin their normal life, shoud be withhold to the public.

However, information concerning about the emergency of public accident  can not be withhold, and should open to eliminate the public's fear as soon as possible. Now the wide use of internet help the information to spread fast the imagination. Twitter, a typical SNS website can spread one message across the across the country in two or three hours. Recently a false message about the uranium explosion on a small cities appereared on a web forum and quickly spread across the city and caused wide public fear. No official information claimed if this message is true or not. The public was lead by the false information and begin to moved out the city --What a mess! Until fours hours later the official message claimed no such explosion evidence happened. It could turned into a tragedy if the message comes a bit later. On the contrary, on 2008 512 Wen chuan earthquake the government acted quicky and saved a lots of lifes. Thus, if political leaders doesn't understand the importance to convey the message to conquer the public affairs or angry, this can definetely turned out into disaster.

In sum, for information such as individual privacy, political leaders have the right to hold the information. While regards to the public interest, political leader shall made it know to the public without doubt, and even more, they shall act as soon as possible.