1. The 2008 Presidential race is well under way, and the hottest news is McCain's running mate Sarah Palin. How exciting is it that a women is on the GOP ticket, a first in history. But, now the news that her daughter is pregnant is flooding the media. Obama said this news should not be a part of politics. McCain said he knew about this before selecting Palin. Palin and her husband even sent out a press release pertaining to this matter.
Clearly both sides feel the need to focus on real issues. When most Americans have expressed that the economy and the war are most important, and hurricane Gustav is hammering the Gulf coast, why is the media going to dig and dig and dig at this issue until we're all tired of it? If the media is supposed to be the watch dog for the American people, why pursue something that clearly has nothing to do with politics -- or does it? Might Palin's gender play a role in this? Or is the media playing to the lowest common denominator: money? Share your brilliance, insight, and thoughts.
2. John Stewart of Comedy Central fame is the prime news source for many, many Americans. While he is often times overly satiric and less balanced than a news source attempting to maintain objectivity, he is wickedly intelligent and quite passionate about politics. The end of the following article gets to an interesting point: is the media giving the American people what they want or what the media thinks the people want? We are a scandal obsessed nation, eager to watch a tragedy before celebrating something amazing, but does that mean that the media should be seeking out those scandals and tragedies rather than valuable news? As young journalists, how do you see the news coverage of major issues and the balance of information being shared? Share your brilliance, insight, and thoughts.
SF Chronicle story
5 comments:
First of all, I am extremely biased on this issue because I am guilty of watching the Daily Show (as well as the Colbert Report). So, surprise....I couldn't agree with Jon Stewart more.
What he said about the 24-hour news channels was one thing I found to be right on the mark. While in Chicago this past weekend, I heard every waking second of news on Hurricane Gustav and Sarah Palin until I had to turn off the TV and pick up a book (luckily I had one or I would had to watch "news" until my eyes bled).
When Stewart told the hosts of Crossfire to "stop hurting America", he could not have said a more true thing. As I sit here watching Sarah Palin (WARNING this is my opinion here:) pander to a crowd in a fashion that can only be described as a pep rally of lies, half-truths, and stories about her family instead of issues, I could not agree more that FOX, and even my liberal MSNBC are both guilty or airing news that is not beneficial to anyone. People do not choose their candidates anymore, they make their decisions based on what the "reporters" say and how they spin the truth.
What's unfortunate for Jon Stewart is that he cannot be taken seriously. Hosting an incredibly popular comedy news show means he cannot be taken as seriously as he may please. Because of this, Stewart needs allies if Americans want news that doesn't tiptoe around real issues.
I agree wholeheartedly with Stewart's feeling that the media gets caught up with a certain "sound bite" or catch phrase they think will boost ratings and end up missing the entire point/facts of the story.
I find it a real challenge to find any sort of balance of information in news sources (whether they be in the form of newspapers, radios, television or the internet) because most have such biases (left or right-leaning) that make it hard to ensure that I'm actually getting both sides of an issue (or that they even mention an issue at all.) I think if you actually want to hear/read a balanced report of most politically charged issues you have to go to a variety of sources, something many people don't have the time or inclination to do. I'm guilty of this myself at times.
I think that the question about whether the media is catering to what the American public wants or just what they think the public wants is key and perhaps the answer is a little bit of both, resulting in a vicious cycle: the media thinks people just want to see "sensational" news stories, so that's what they report on, people watch them and get used to only seeing those type of stories, so that when they do to see/read an actual in-depth, well researched, unbiased news story, they are so used to the seeing/reading the sugar-coated versions, they don't understand it and tune out.
I think the media has an obligation to do a better job of covering a larger variety of stories and actually doing the necessary research to explain all sides of an issue. However, the public also must share some responsibility to look for different news sources, even if they don't always agree with everything being said.
- Julia
after reading what Julia said, I have to add something:
In my opinion you can go to as MANY sorts as you want, but you won't be able to craft an unbalanced report in your head. why? two reasons. "news" pieces on issues tend to be more op/ed-spliced-with-news. if it was TRULY news as its defined, then there would be no spin or bias. second reason: we ALL HAVE OUR OWN BIAS (sorry bout the caps, but there's no bold...). I can listen to "Billo" (bill o'reilly as defined by Keith Olberman) and i'll be sickened from the second he gets on the air. I won't interpret his "news" as i would Olberman's and for this reason: because i'm biased.
Like Josh and Julia alluded to, I also believe that Jon Stewart is correct in his assessment of the 24-hour news cycle and its shortcomings. A telling moment for me in this article was when Stewart was talking about the polls that people read so heavily into. Polls are essentially taking a tiny sample of a whole population and asking them so qualitative questions. These would be the opposite of quantitative, meaning that there is no way of accurately measuring them. Yet the public, and every major news outlet, seems to read into these polls as if they are the equivalent of an election Bible. Why is this so? Well, I think it goes back to what Josh said, "People do not choose their candidates anymore, they make their decisions based on what the 'reporters' say and how they spin the truth." I could not agree with this more. Why does everyone know about Sarah Palin's family troubles? Because the news is always covering it. Why is it that a minuscule minority of the people who know about Sarah Palin's family have any insight whatsoever into her views on the economy, the war, or aerial hunting? Because the news doesn't cover policy. This is similar to what Julia is talking about, the media thinks that we like knee-jerk reaction news, so they keep flashing it in front of our eyes to the point where we cannot see the meaningful news that lies underneath or beyond. A vicious cycle of misinformation and bias that comes out of misconceptions and misinterpretation. So here is my message to news corporations: I truly believe our society is smarter than you thinks it is. Give us the news we want, don't force feed us the the short attention span filler content. And here is my message to our society: strive for news that delves beyond the superficial, even if you are forced to dig for it, even if you have to spend more than 30 seconds looking for it. Basically, what I am trying to say in this long, convoluted message is that everyone should just watch the Daily Show. It adds some much needed depth and humor to the bland, surface-level world of the short attention span, 24 hour news media cycle.
In response to what John Stewart said, I believe that the role of newspapers is to give the people and society the answers to the questions they are looking for and have yet to find. I do not believe that this is an easy task or anywhere near as simple as i previously summarized it to be. In fact, i think this is a much larger issue that not only affects large scale newspapers but our own.
Do we really know what the community wants to read or are we feeding the faculty and administration? I ask this question because I have noticed that the MA Voice does not publish enough articles on world affairs and important news that is taking place in the world that may or may not affect our small community. In my opinion, many MA students are not as well versed in these areas as much of the faculty and staff are. Although publishing international news articles is difficult because our newspaper is published weeks apart, I still think students would benefit and enjoy articles of this sort whether the are informational or opinionated. I would love to talk about this in person if anyone is interested. :) Amanda
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