Flawed News And Public Opinions Essay - 947 Words

Flawed News and Public Opinions TV Journalism has been degraded to the point in which true factual and informative reporting free of bias has been replaced with short news bytes centered and focused on its entertainment value alone. Within the political process, this has mostly served as a disservice to both politicians and the general public audience. Edward J Epstein published a book entitled â€Å"News from Nowhere† in which he observed NBC’s news department and how decisions were made on what was news worthy. He discovered a decline in television network ratings and profits caused executives to change marketing strategies. This new direction in news reporting would be tailored to an audience low in sophistication with the network defining what would be newsworthy. Epstein wrote: â€Å"Dull and complicated stories would need to be of enormous importance to get on the air: but relatively trivial stories would make the cut if interesting enough†. (Edwards, p. 406). Supporting this observation Washington Post editors Leonard Downie Jr and Robert Kaiser argue that â€Å"Entertainment has pushed out information in the TV news business and that the history of TV news can be summarized in a couple sentences†. (Edwards, p. 406). An exception to this practice would be networks assigning their best reporters to cover major events or â€Å"Lead Stories† at well-established sources such as the White House, Congress, or the Pentagon. During the 1991 Gulf War, 50 per-cent of the stories came from theseShow MoreRelatedFahrenheit 451 Vs. Looking Backward1560 Words   |  7 Pagesfacilitating that very type of place. Everyone in this cookie cutter world that Bradbury describes is identical. He suggests that the solution to this would be to let everyone live the way they want, with the freedom to be themselves and express their opinions. Bellamy argues that in our society, many people do not have the rights that they deserve and the gap between classes is too large. He believes that people have to fight each other to get to the top, and only the top have everything. The two authorsRead MoreDefinition Of Conventional Thinking Is Wrong998 Words   |  4 Pagesobstacles to iconoclastic thinking which are flawed perception, fear of failure or public ridicule, and the inability to influence o thers. Out of the three obstacles of iconoclastic thinking, fear would be the one obstacle that presents the most challenges for me, specifically the fear of uncertainty. According to McKinney (2009), other individuals may not only be concerned with the fear of uncertainty but also may have to cope with the fear of public ridicule as well. Overall fear can be the causeRead MoreGun Violence And Social Media1510 Words   |  7 PagesWhile gun violence, or the incidence thereof, has risen, our reaction to it has been deepened due to our constantly, consistently interconnected state. Gun violence is rising, and the advent and perpetual use of social media, coupled with a 24 hour news cycle, and a thick atmosphere of political divisiveness are deepening the wound. Where It All Began Most Americans are ingrained, some even infatuated, with their constitutional rights, though few seem to create such a heated discussion as does theRead MoreAnimal Testing : Is It Beneficial For The World1106 Words   |  5 PagesJune 2015 Animal Testing: Is it really Beneficial For The World â€Å"Over 100 million animals are burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused in US labs every year† (11 Facts). Animal testing is a very flawed creation in today’s world. This innovation has caused much harm to many animals while also hurting the opinions of animal activists around the world. 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A problem that has rocked the boat on a public scale, but has never really been questioned would be the flawed double jeopardy law. The law that protects people from double jeopardy is a difficult one to undo because