Friday, March 4, 2011
Losing the information war
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound? Think about the commercials I showed yesterday--blame was assigned to the right or the left. But no one gave good information about the whats and the whys and the choices. It used to be that the media would do it. But I agree with Hilary Clinton: the US media is falling down on the job. See here. Contrast your favorite news network (CNN, MNBC, Fox or whatever) with this Al Jazeera broadcast.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I don't really have a favorite news channel and a big part of the reason why is because I think a lot of it isn't really "news" as Clinton put it. There is always some sort of debate or finger pointing and people just defending their political stance. The short clip from Al Jazeera didn't have any of that. It seemed like a simple interview with someone who is giving their honest opinion and truly interested in what is best for his country.
ReplyDeleteNothing is free from bias. I feel like there is no longer news but strategic arguments aimed at the most fervent audiences. Commercial News is run by media conglomerates,meant to sell advertisement time which targets specific audiences. So we end up with harsh biases. Can this be considered a market failure of some sort?
ReplyDeleteI also don't tend to watch the news because like Dave said, todays "news programs" aren't really "news" at all. What bothers me to is that whatever station you are listening to you hear one side of the store, or whatever it is that they want you to hear. We never truly hear what is actually going on, nor what the underlying problem may be. Simply put, everything is subject to opinion and that's not "news". In regards to Ashley's question, I absolutely think that this can be considered a market failure because we are NOT hearing "news".
ReplyDeletethe primary form of news I follow is probably the Daily Show with John Stewart.. I'm sure even this is somewhat biased, but at least it's entertaining. It really shows how political the news is depending on the station. looking from station to station, we see the same arguments being formatted to strengthen both sides of the arguement.. It doesn't make sense!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matt and Jeff. It is a market failure since it restricts information from reaching the masses and also that half the people I know at K college (which does comprise of all the Americans I know) get their bit of news from either the Colbert report or the Daily show. And as Jeff said, these are probably biased as well but the people find it better to listen to these liberal sources rather than Fox etc.
ReplyDeleteI personally do not listen to any American news sources but follow foreign news sources. Al Jazeera does have a pretty big following in Pakistan and people do, mostly, trust it.
Just as it has been iterated above, the news you get is completely dependent on the station you watch. Whether you want some sort of Republican or Democratic twist is going to matter which channel you watch. It is fun sometimes to watch the same news story on two different media channels and see the difference that they are portraying the same facts. And yes, a tree makes a sound if it falls in the forest.
ReplyDeleteEven ol'faithful NPR leans to the left. People need to get news from a scope of sources, not just the Daily Show, and make an education opinion of the news for themselves
ReplyDeleteI 'like' Laura's comment :D
ReplyDelete