I want to learn! : )

Today was not a school day for me but I was in school from 11 am to 8 pm. Why? because I wanted to be exposed to new things (outside my normal classes) and hence...

I went for computer class in the morning. It was on Excel: Formulas and Shortcuts. I have always wanted to learn more about Excel functions coz I think it can be very useful in performing indepth numerical analysis. This is only one of the few classes that I will be attending. And I am looking forward to upgrading my computer skills. :)

Then I went for a lecture on Corporate Taxation. This is not one of the courses I have signed up for but I just want to sit in to learn more about the UK Corporate Tax system. The lecturer is again a QC! And he had this air of wisdom around him that made you want to listen to him. :) His presentation was clear and my main takeaways from the lecture are the concept of taxing true economic income and the interaction between domestic and international taxation of dividend. He will be talking more about the international aspect next week. Think I will sit in too!

Lastly, I went for another public seminar in the evening. The topic was: Protecting the Press of the People?

The speaker, Sir Christopher Meyer, had been a diploma for 36 years, He had been the Press Secretary for UK Prime Minister and also the ambassador to Washington. He is currently he chairman of the Press Complaints Commission.

Some interesting points he raised were:
1) Freedom of Speech and Expression is fundamental to any democracy. This entails freedom to offend and freedom to be offended.
2) The State should keep away from regulating the press. Since the Government has a clear comparative advantage over the press in the area of information, it is expected that the press will be probing and will try to dig for information.
3) The least bad way to balance the relatioship between the rights and responsibilities of reporters is to allow them to self-regulate. Instead of curbing the freedom of speech, allow people to debate on the issue and share different views.
4) It is unavoidable that subjective personal judgement will go into reporting. Hence, it is good for readers to be skeptical and read from different sources so as to get different perspectives.

He also mentioned the different between US and UK Press. The freedom of the US Press is protected under the US Constitution and hence they have better access to information and freedom to report. The style of reading is usually factual reporting plus commentary/editorial. In the UK, the press is not protected under the Constitution and the reports tend to be tainted with partisan views.

It's quite an interesting talk. Sir Meyer is witty and candid. What he said set me thinking: is absolute freedom of speech desirable? some remarks/expressions can be irresponsible, can hurt, can be discriminatory. Does freedom of speech means we can disregard other's feelings? And does the maturity of the society matters - must the readers be of a certain level of sophistication to see through the bias etc that will permeate in reports?