The News Media

9/24/13

As it stands, most if not all people get their news from some sort of newspaper or news source online. Whether it be the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or some other newspaper or news company, we all get our information from these organizations. Most of them are privately owned for profit enterprises which have a variety of writers to continuously churn out the news. As consumers, we are at the mercy of these news companies in order to stay informed with everything going on around the world.

One big deal with news companies is that they essentially construct our reality by reporting on the news of every day. The problem with this relies on the human aspect of news writing and sourcing. Most, if not all humans have some sort of bias one way or another on most topics. In the case of news companies, many writers have their own biases about the news they are reporting on. This can cause some half-truths or mislead readers into not knowing the complete truth. These biased news reports are clearly seen in mainstream versus alternative news sources (Like NYTimes versus Truth-out.org).

With news organizations, there are three (3) main criticisms that these companies must deal with. First off, there is the lack of balance or a phony balance between sources and coverage. For example, with climate change, many news companies have tried to show both sides of climate change (People who agree that it is happening, and people who don't) to provide a balance between two sides, when in reality there is no real dispute whether or not it is happening. This is necessary and provides the public with faulty knowledge of a topic. The second criticism comes from a news company either having a liberal or conservative bias. This can alienate a specific viewing audience, because people have different opinions. The final major criticism is from holes in coverage where some news companies will not discuss a certain topic either because it is controversial, or because of the bias from the second criticism.

Another problem from the consumer side of the news comes from if news companies don't report on something, then the public will probably be ignorant of it ever happening. This is important to note because it brings up the clear idea or notion that these news companies need to be held to high standards and are constantly demanding scrutiny in order to continue to provide the news.

Recently, the newspaper industry has been suffering greatly in terms of sales. Not only are less people buying newspapers, but more and more news websites are sprouting up allowing free access to the same news that they would otherwise have to pay for. This has caused many people to stop paying for the newspaper, and has also reduced the amount of advertisers who are buying ads in the newspapers. This is a huge problem because newspapers get roughly seventy-five (75) percent of their revenue from ads.

While there are downsides to having news companies constructing the reality around us, they are also an integral part of our society. Without them, we would not have any constant and mostly reliable news sources to learn about and discuss. If news traveled slower (We didn't have newspapers, or television stations or websites) and instead it was more like Game of Thrones, with carrier crows sending messages back and forth, we would not be nearly as educated as we are today about what is going on in the world. Most people have access to some form of news or another which helps keep everyone in the know about a wide variety of topics and countries. Being in a country obsessed with news about anything and everything, we have the luxury of choosing our favorite news provider or having a wide range of providers in order to keep ourselves in the know at all times. With this being the case, we must still be weary of human bias because it is still in most articles, even if it isn't apparent.

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." (Edward R. Murrow)