Saturday, June 27, 2020
Are American journalists the worst journalists?
A Room for Debate article I recently read was "Media in the Age of Trump", which focused on President Trump's actions towards journalists and American journalism as a whole. There were different opinions in the debate. Some argued that journalists should unite against attacks by Trump and other politicians to avoid being silenced. Others believe that journalists overreact to what Trump says because the news environment promotes whatever stirs excitement in Americans. This made me think of Neil Postman's arguments in Amusing Ourselves to Death. He argues that the media promotes irrelevant information for the purposes of entertainment. This has become a very relevant topic in recent times. I believe American culture has corrupted the integrity of journalists and newscasters to a point where they cannot be trusted. Journalists in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Mexico are actively putting their lives at risk to educate their people. It seems like conveying information as entertainment is an American characteristic. American culture favors journalists who entertain. Sensationalism is the prime form of journalism in America. So are American journalists and newscasters a reliable source of information? Are American journalists the worst journalists? Is the media to blame or are American people at fault for allowing this to happen?
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I believe it’s plausible to believe that American Journalist can be one of the least reliable sources in information. Many industries such as the news and journalist depend on the amount of people reading and watching what they make to be able to stay successful however, nowadays one of the only ways to attract attention to the people is through the form of entertainment. Because entertainment is such a simple way to avert people’s focus to one of their platforms, it makes sense that American journalist would want to focus on information that’s more entertaining than what actually needs to be seen in order to keep their numbers and ratings high in amusement. Considering that the people of American media mostly care more about the ratings rather than the people, it makes American Journalist very unreliable and possibly one of the worst types of journalist. I believe for your final question, both media and Americans are at fault for allowing their priorities to be focused towards how entertaining something is rather than the more important aspects of a certain scenario.
ReplyDeleteA reason I have stopped consuming American media is because journalists and newscasters are incredibly biased. Everyone will have a bias, but I am not sure if that should be present in the news. I do not have a problem with biased journalists, but rather with the way they portray their beliefs. They portray their biases as if it is the correct way of thinking. It seems that because everyone can voice their opinion, many feel like they absolutely have to voice their opinion. Do you think journalists and newscasters should voice their opinion, or should they remain more neutral?
DeleteI strongly agree that journalist and newscasters should remain more neutral when they are presenting debatable news. When it comes to politics, many news companies such as Fox tend to be very biased. When you have very biased news media, this leads to the shoving of people’s opinions onto your own and making it very difficult to choose which side you’re on. Such as you mentioned, the news often voice their opinions in such as way that they believe what they’ve said is correct and there should be no other bias however, I do not find that to be professional at all when the job of the news is to be able to inform people what they need to know, not influence them to agreeing with their own opinions. If there’s one thing I’ve learned at school, an informative essay should be a neutral one with no wrong or right side. I see people struggle to find sources from the news that isn’t biased and believe this incredibly disappointing considering the fact that we should be able to know the most neutral point of an argument and decide ourselves what we belive in rather than how the media adjusts it to fit their own beliefs.
DeleteI like your idea that the news is like an informative essay. I never considered how similar these two things are. I don't agree with your statement about shoving opinions down people's throats. I don't think forcing opinions on other people makes it hard to form an opinion on something. I think it would be the exact opposite. If someone is constantly being fed information from a biased source, their opinion about the information will be formed very easily. It is very clear they will probably think like the source rather than question the source's motives. By forcing opinions on people, I believe the media is directly influencing people's opinions, not making it difficult for people to take sides as you stated. Also, could you give an example of debatable news? I did not really understand what you meant.
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