This term's short essay assignments are not journal entries. While these assignments require you to ...

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This term's short essay assignments are not journal entries. While these assignments require you to read and think about the assigned course materials, you are expected to put more time and effort into thinking about the prompts and drafting your essay. These assignments aren't fully developed term papers either. They are similar to the essays you would write for a take-home exam. You want them to be somewhat polished, but they don't require extensive research or a major investment of time. Each short essay assignment you complete this term should be about 2 double-spaced pages. No points will be deducted if you don't quite reach or if you exceed the page limit, but only writing a paragraph or two won't allow you fully develop your ideas.  Since this is an essay, not a journal, you are expected to have a beginning (introduction), middle, and end. Your paper should be organized with clear paragraphs and transitions between them. You should develop your own ideas and arguments, but you will want to  support these with evidence from our course materials, discussions, or research you've done on your own. Please make sure you cite any sources that you use. This is short essay, and you are not be given enough time for you to produce a polished piece of writing. However, you should revise your paper at least once for clarity and make sure that you proofread it for grammar, word choice, spelling, and/or citation errors.  Journalism and Democracy in the Philippines: The film One Thousand Cuts told the story of the journalists at Rappler who documented the extrajudicial killings that were part of Rodrigo Duterte's drug war. The journalists believed that it was their duty to document what was happening and to tell the stories of the families and communities who were impacted by the killings. The interview with Patricia Evangelista and the Orwell essay (The Politics of the English Language) that you read highlight the ways that language can be used to obscure the truth.  Write a short essay in response to one or more of the following prompts: What role do journalists play in a democracy? Why is important to have a free press? Should journalists be advocates for a particular cause?  Why should people be concerned about the persecution of journalists? What role did language play in Duterte's regime? How does language obscure authoritarianism? Can language be democratic or anti-democratic? How does language shape our ideas about politics?  Why are extrajudicial killings such a threat to democracy? What is the relationship between how the criminal justice system operates and the functioning of democracy?