Free speech has never truly been free, but the mark-up in other parts of the world is far greater than in the United States. Americans pay at the pump. Foreigners pay at the stump. Be careful what you say. Today, the price of dissent in Tehran is steep, as academics and average Jafars are detained, isolated, maimed or murdered for their independence.

For decades, the consequences of candor in the Union of Myanmar have been equally costly and more gravely ignored. However, an intrepid, outlaw band of reporters has captured snippets of taxed speech and non-violent protest and broadcast these images and outrages to the rest of the world while risking their lives. These journalists' brave and tragic tales are recounted in BURMA VJ, an award-winning documentary by Anders Ostergaard, that immerses viewers into the country's cloistered culture and recruits sympathizers for the unlikely revolution spurred by the nation's typically apolitical monks. As significantly, BURMA VJ dramatically reminds Westerners that The Fourth Estate comes with a mortgage and forewarns that should we continue to neglect our debt, our governments will foreclose on us. The power of the press is its autonomy, its ability to check and re-balance. Undermine the authority of the press and everyone's speech becomes cost-prohibitive.

See BURMA VJ for the geo-political indoctrination. Then, ask what you have done to protect your local and national press outlets and what you have done to demand they uphold their professional responsibilities. The incompetence of the press — whether headlined by Jayson Blair's shameful inventions or Judith Miller's war-mongering misrepresentations — is not only heinous, it's treasonable. Before we can speak Truth to Power, we need reporters to do some of the legwork for us. In Burma, newsmen would sooner die than sacrifice their integrity. Here, too many of our ink-stained wretches and tele-prompted wenches would sooner sell their souls for their own shows than risk access to a staged reading of the day's presidential talking points.