In life, everything requires a balance and so does information dissemination. This is because certain persons are hardly mature enough to handle some information and if such information gets to them, there will be unnecessary panic and pandemonium.
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The citizens most definitely have a right to know what is going on in their country especially as it affects day-to-day living and survival, however, certain information needs to be withheld from them at the same time.
The citizens for instance are not supposed to be aware of some high-ranking security secret. They are not even supposed to be aware of the location of certain people in the country for security purposes.
But they should have information on how their money is being spent, what the government is planning on doing to make their lives better, and how the country can move forward.
While the government is trying to be diplomatic, they should also try to be honest, not spilling the entire content of the pot, but being transparent with the amount they've decided to spill. If the government refuses to tell the citizens when there is a crisis or a threat to their lives, such a government has become irresponsible and will lose the trust of the people if they ever were to find out.
It is important that the government has the trust of the people so the government has to be accountable to the people. The citizens have to know what's going on, day in, and day out. This is where wisdom must be applied to all that the leaders and the press are doing.
Whatever information has to be passed must be appropriately structured to avoid misinterpretation and miscommunication. Certain disheartening news can even be passed in such a way that it does not provoke panic, yet the message is received clearly.
For example, if there is a public health risk, I would inform the citizens completely of what they are about to go through or what is coming ahead of them. This is so they can take the necessary precautions needed to survive in such a situation.
But when we are talking about information belonging to a high-class criminal for instance, it is best to keep such situations private because it may bring a lot of problems if every classified information is released to the public.
This being said I stand with the fact that while it is good for the citizens to be told everything going on in their country, they shouldn't be exposed to every single bit of information available. Sometimes, the less they know, the better.
If the government had told everyone everything that had gone under the bridge in this country, many things would have gone wrong or the country would have possibly fallen by now.
Another reason I wouldn't advise that the citizens know every single information available in the country is that the blame would automatically go to the government. If something is not going as it should, the government would be blamed even if they don't have a hand in it or even when there's nothing they can do about it.
This means that for peace to reign; peace in the government and peace among the people themselves, a lot of classified information needs to be withheld from the masses. This should not be done from a place of dishonesty, rather, it should be a means of protecting the people, especially from what they cannot do anything about.
It would be better that they do not even have certain of this information than have it and cause more problems for the country.
Even certain good news should still not be shared with the citizens. This is not encouraging the government to become dishonest or unaccountable, it is just dealing with different people that has made me come to these conclusions.
It is why, like I said before, the government and media need to master and know how to employ diplomacy by giving out information. Or else, the country would be in more trouble than it was before some information was circulated.
If not that withholding information itself could cause unforeseen or negative consequences, it would be best to feed the citizens only with what they need to hear. But not in a world like ours today.
In conclusion, certain intolerable actions such as looting, riots, and negative remarks or reactions can be avoided if the wrong information does not walk into the hands of the wrong people. This is why the people in government have to be tested and trusted men, who would not take certain information to be used for their own personal gain.
The masses deserve to know what's going on, but not so much because there is a saying that goes, “What you don't know cannot kill you”.