As the three or so of you know that check this thing, normal updates are nearly impossible due to massive school work. It is going great. To make sure you still have a dose of my 'wit', here is an essay I did for a media class. Enjoy!
Its hard to know where to begin when talking about the media and its biases and foibles. For example, I stopped watching local television several years ago; it was on a much stronger decline than national news. Stacked with the same biases as their larger counterparts, local news somehow makes those biases more desperate than sensational. While the assigned reading material was on a national level, I think its important to point out the failure of the local level simply because they should be the first, best opinion for filtering what has essentially become white noise. Instead, their localized small failures are spread across the larger whole and only reflect the larger media problem as a whole.
The assigned reading material was, above all, four opinion pieces. None made any bones about which side it supports politically and all felt the media was the main bad guy. Its hard to argue in the medias defense. Television media is driven by ratings; paper, by readers. Both of these essentially translate into money and when money is the motivation, no person or organization can remain unbiased. While the media may claim truth is their goal, if no one was reading or watching the truth, they would be out of business and that would be that. This isnt to say bias is automatically bad. Claiming there is no bias however, is ignorant at best.
There were two things in the reading that reinforced my opinions or observations. The first was the idea that media has become simply a mouthpiece of the loudest voice, rather than a champion of objectivity. Media that isnt claiming to be opinion becomes simply a mouthpiece for the story being reported; a limited number of sources simply parroting each other. With access to more resources than any other point in time the ability to gather information and determine facts in stories should be easier than ever. Instead, news organizations feed off each others stories or simply repeat whatever general fact or statement offered first. Attempts to point out inconsistencies or look deeper into fact are cast aside; at least until used to sensationalize whatever agenda is needed to boost ratings.
A prime example of this is the story of George W. Bushs military record. One of the articles pointed out that the story broke in May of 2000. Most of us didnt hear about it, or more likely pay attention to it, until recently when it was repackaged as an attack ad. Similar to events fictionalized in All The Presidents Men, the deeper story is continually buried on back pages until it grows so big and so obnoxious that it has to be paid attention to. Compounding this is the unfortunate fact that we are bombarded with so much information its nearly impossible to filter it or give proper weigh to issue without some sort of media help. In a perfect world, that initial task would fall to local media, who theoretically have a greater connection to my little corner of the world.
My second observation ties into the first. Media chooses whatever point in a story that they feel helps feed ratings. One story pointed out a classic example in an exchange between Presidential nominee John Kerry and Tim Russert of NBCs Meet the Press. Russert tried to point out that a lot of Kerry assertions about war atrocities had been discredited. The argument became about the number of assertions that were true or false. Not the fact that atrocities did occur. The same thing applies to the document that recently surfaced alleging George W. Bush had favors done for him during his National Guard stint. The argument became about the document itself, not the actual accusations.
This is, of course, a disservice to all parties involved. It embarrasses the reporting media and makes them look inept, for trusting the documents in the first place (entirely on the word of one of their colleagues). And, the more they attack the document and not the actual issue, it makes them look biased. No real news comes out, no real truth comes out and it leads us away from whatever knowledge was there in the first place. Which is their point.
I wonder if this has always been the case. There has certainly always been so called yellow journalism, and there has certainly always been a bias in the media. You cant help it, unless news was generated by some magical fact-finding super-computing news robot. People are biased, and therefore how they investigate... even what they choose to investigate... is slanted by their own opinions or agenda. In the past those agendas or biases seemed more of a byproduct. Now, they are the product.
Me, I dont trust the news. Which is too bad, because it prevents me (and, Im certain, countless others) from being as vigilant and involved than I otherwise could be. I dont have the time to sift through the facts or the misleading language on every news story I see, so I choose to filter it out. As news ratings fall, perhaps that will be the driving force for getting news back on track. I would like to hope that the news industry hasnt jumped the shark and that the future of news becomes word of mouth or blogs. Both have their uses, but Im not going to trust a guy on the internet any more than Bill OReilly or Eric Alterman. And Im tired of being skeptical.
Its hard to know where to begin when talking about the media and its biases and foibles. For example, I stopped watching local television several years ago; it was on a much stronger decline than national news. Stacked with the same biases as their larger counterparts, local news somehow makes those biases more desperate than sensational. While the assigned reading material was on a national level, I think its important to point out the failure of the local level simply because they should be the first, best opinion for filtering what has essentially become white noise. Instead, their localized small failures are spread across the larger whole and only reflect the larger media problem as a whole.
The assigned reading material was, above all, four opinion pieces. None made any bones about which side it supports politically and all felt the media was the main bad guy. Its hard to argue in the medias defense. Television media is driven by ratings; paper, by readers. Both of these essentially translate into money and when money is the motivation, no person or organization can remain unbiased. While the media may claim truth is their goal, if no one was reading or watching the truth, they would be out of business and that would be that. This isnt to say bias is automatically bad. Claiming there is no bias however, is ignorant at best.
There were two things in the reading that reinforced my opinions or observations. The first was the idea that media has become simply a mouthpiece of the loudest voice, rather than a champion of objectivity. Media that isnt claiming to be opinion becomes simply a mouthpiece for the story being reported; a limited number of sources simply parroting each other. With access to more resources than any other point in time the ability to gather information and determine facts in stories should be easier than ever. Instead, news organizations feed off each others stories or simply repeat whatever general fact or statement offered first. Attempts to point out inconsistencies or look deeper into fact are cast aside; at least until used to sensationalize whatever agenda is needed to boost ratings.
A prime example of this is the story of George W. Bushs military record. One of the articles pointed out that the story broke in May of 2000. Most of us didnt hear about it, or more likely pay attention to it, until recently when it was repackaged as an attack ad. Similar to events fictionalized in All The Presidents Men, the deeper story is continually buried on back pages until it grows so big and so obnoxious that it has to be paid attention to. Compounding this is the unfortunate fact that we are bombarded with so much information its nearly impossible to filter it or give proper weigh to issue without some sort of media help. In a perfect world, that initial task would fall to local media, who theoretically have a greater connection to my little corner of the world.
My second observation ties into the first. Media chooses whatever point in a story that they feel helps feed ratings. One story pointed out a classic example in an exchange between Presidential nominee John Kerry and Tim Russert of NBCs Meet the Press. Russert tried to point out that a lot of Kerry assertions about war atrocities had been discredited. The argument became about the number of assertions that were true or false. Not the fact that atrocities did occur. The same thing applies to the document that recently surfaced alleging George W. Bush had favors done for him during his National Guard stint. The argument became about the document itself, not the actual accusations.
This is, of course, a disservice to all parties involved. It embarrasses the reporting media and makes them look inept, for trusting the documents in the first place (entirely on the word of one of their colleagues). And, the more they attack the document and not the actual issue, it makes them look biased. No real news comes out, no real truth comes out and it leads us away from whatever knowledge was there in the first place. Which is their point.
I wonder if this has always been the case. There has certainly always been so called yellow journalism, and there has certainly always been a bias in the media. You cant help it, unless news was generated by some magical fact-finding super-computing news robot. People are biased, and therefore how they investigate... even what they choose to investigate... is slanted by their own opinions or agenda. In the past those agendas or biases seemed more of a byproduct. Now, they are the product.
Me, I dont trust the news. Which is too bad, because it prevents me (and, Im certain, countless others) from being as vigilant and involved than I otherwise could be. I dont have the time to sift through the facts or the misleading language on every news story I see, so I choose to filter it out. As news ratings fall, perhaps that will be the driving force for getting news back on track. I would like to hope that the news industry hasnt jumped the shark and that the future of news becomes word of mouth or blogs. Both have their uses, but Im not going to trust a guy on the internet any more than Bill OReilly or Eric Alterman. And Im tired of being skeptical.
And if you want to see me writing a bit, check out my latest journal.