Media Censorship

The advantage of having the First Amendment here in the United States is that we have the ability to know what is actually happening within our nation and across the globe, and the freedom to provide our say on these issues without restriction. Other nations, such as Iran, Eritrea, Cuba, and China, do not have such liberties, however. In Ukraine, for example, censorship of mass media and denial of human rights were a problem throughout the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, when beforehand, as a former Soviet nation, it was very little of a problem.* The nation even went so far as to arrest and physically abuse journalists for criticizing the government. Those acts of censorship violate the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Rights.
Even with the First Amendment in use, there have also been some questionable cases of media censorship in the United States. As stated by James Turnage of Guardian Liberty Voice**, there are two reasons why news agencies fail to report the truth in their news reports throughout the country. One is that major news agencies depend upon government sources for exclusivity in reporting. There is an agreement between the two sides that information not approved by the government will be publicized, so nothing happens until an actual scandal breaks. The other and most obvious reason is money. Sensational stories sell more advertising than mundane everyday occurrences; stories about young higher-class Caucasians going missing or dying in tragedies gather more attention than similar stories involving poorer children of color; and deaths, arrests, and terminally ill diagnoses of celebrities or other famous people attain widespread news coverage, when such horrible events happen to all other people to little regard. Turnage goes on to say that the news should go back to providing the facts on issues instead of relying on false information and letting the public speak up about what they believe.

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-hsieh/theres-something-wrong-in_b_5493917.html
** http://guardianlv.com/2013/09/censorship-in-the-major-media/