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Katie Ribstein Composition 211: Section B006 Professor Cremean 15 December 2011 Current, Yet Cautious

At a time when information is readily available, one would likely conceive that our world would be gravitating towards an open society, consciously aware and understanding of its 7 billion members. For thousands of recorded years the material world has turned nearly unchanged, while the people inhabiting Earth are altering the ways in which we use and interact with our surrounds at a blinding pace, towards what? Though we all differ in many ways, the natural expression of curiosity, and thirst for knowledge are traits that all share, and taking into account that there are thousands of diverse cultures, laws, and regions all populated by one, intelligent species, it is essential for us to stay current among topics of worldly concern. For the greater extent of our known existence, communication was achieved effectively on a much smaller scale, but the turn of the century marked a magnificent change regarding how we receive our information. The dawn of wireless transmission paved the future for how different parts of the world would communicate ideas, events, warnings, and education. Fast forward Eighty years and we encounter a population steadily increasing its replacement of newspapers and radios for a box that displays motion picture programming, thus marking the age of mainstream media, and news on the television. News is defined as previously unknown information, which has a specific influence or effect. Americans receive and search out for news to better stay

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informed and up-to-date with the current happenings of our World. Viewers can go about this in many ways, whether it is reading newspaper articles, reading internet inquiries, listening to news on the radio, or viewing it on one of the popular television networks. The most popular among our American culture though, is receiving news by watching it on television. This is thought of as a wide ranging problem, as it can be noted as the most ineffective way to learn of what is actually occurring (Mackey 9), as the goals of the big news corporations are in many ways skewed. When the news tells the viewers of America what is important, popular, and real, it shapes the way Americans generally think, thus creating and strengthening the status quo. For important news to be received more often through one source, namely television, I argue that we are failing question the truths of news production, television in particular; We need to arm ourselves with the ability to decipher between reality and entertainment, critically think about any and all information we receive while keeping its intended effect in mind, and take note of damaging events our world has encountered in relation to its victims and bystanders information sources to ensure we can live a more harmonious life. In Bonnie Andersons book titled Newsflash she speaks about her experiences as a journalist and how as time passed she began to see the corruptness involved with the entire ideology of broadcast news. She saw people who were selflessly risking their lives in order to inform those sitting opposite of the screen, for big companies or corporations only to view these individuals as a dollar sign. Bonnie reflects on time that she heard the head of Turner Broadcasting say to her, we need younger, more attractive anchors (male and female) who project credibility. (Anderson 2). There are two problems with this statement. First, the overall message that he is relaying to her, that journalists are merely

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contestants of a televised beauty pageant, rather an individual asset that should be of upmost talent and skill. The second problem lies within his selective word choice project. He doesnt want his journalists to actually be credible, no. He would rather them be youthful and nice to gaze upon, and just to attain the overall essence of being credible. Anderson goes on to say, project credibility. Not to have credibility, earned through years of training and experience (Anderson 1). The problem of the matter is that by erasing the credential, time and effort, to become a skilled journalist, the news broadcasters were often found to place seemingly credible journalists to do a job theyre not qualified for. This says a lot about big corporations. Who do they have in mind? The answer is actually not those most devoted viewers that rely on them for becoming informed and that the corporations rely on for their progress in the business. It is in the people who will be paying that head of Turner Broadcasting, and companies alike, millions of dollars a year to hire the attractive journalist instead of the one who would be the best suited for the position? Anderson instills, news and entertainment in which hooking the viewer with Hollywood-star-looks, provocative lead-ins, snappy editing, sensational, often titillating, stories is more important than delivering news the way it should bestraight up, no chaser (Anderson 8). News was never meant to be flowery and leave you feeling like you just enjoyed yourself immensely during the viewing process. It is meant to inform us of truth, traditionally. Unfortunately, the first option is what tends to be hitting the air around us and I agree that it should be delivered the way that it was discovered, honestly, and focusing less on keeping the American viewer constantly stimulated. Amidst a world facing over a decade of increasing tension, I whole heartedly agree the primary function of the news should not be to entertain (Anderson 5). Yet Americans

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seemed to have accepted a once balanced diet of news and entertainment, thats lost poise. of these companies in order to achieve success and high standing. According to a fact stated by Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, we learn that 51% of viewers could not recall a single item of news a few minutes after viewing it on television (Postman 152). The fact that they could not recall facts from the news makes me wonder what it is that they could recall, or more specifically what they were actually receiving from viewing it that was beneficial. Was it mindless propaganda about the newest items that are on the commercials during break? Or was it that the lead news reporter was having a bad hair day? This percentage of people is one of the reasons why televised news should be so discouraging to the many American viewers. Anderson says, Ive seen television networks and news divisions that once put the public trust above an obsession for ratings (Anderson 16). This is alarming to me because we live in a country where society strives for the best of everything. The best cars, jobs, clothes, gadgets, toys, you name it. Yet when it comes to something as prominent as the news, and the majority of our society relies on solely these means to remain informed, Americans do not demand the best even though they realize that it once was much better. Anderson adds, there is a stark difference between that quality of television news coverage and what were mostly being bombarded with today (Anderson 13). She spoke of how in the past of America, say going back fifty years and then stopping around the mid-nineteen seventies, the news was actually not making lots of money, rather losing it (Anderson 7). But that need to inform viewers drove them forward, even in times of regression. Now it is rather evident that the only thing really driving the big news companies is their paychecks. Anderson continues to express of her concern in regards to the dangers facing honest, unbiased, straightforward news

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coverage as a result of corporate buyouts of news organizations (Anderson 17). Not only should Americans be concerned with the quality of their current news, but also with the news of the future. Will we ever be able to measure the amount of sustenance in news? What is news?and what makes news good news?(Anderson 15) Now that everything on television is fused with strategies aimed at entertainment, how can we justify it as being actual news? The view I relate to is one thats not been fully experienced, but often read and hear how news was once delivered, in manner. Once news was the star; now the stars are the stars. And more and more on-air journalists are collecting multimillion dollar paychecks and being treated like celebrities rather than journalists. It is a little wonder that our moral and ethical compasses have a tough time finding true north (Anderson 10). The fact that our news reporters are viewed as celebrities poses a problem when trying to put the news into retrospect. Anderson also recalls a specific night which she was watching ABC that struck her as offensive. World News began the show with back-to-back stories about the deaths of country singer Johnny Cash and actor John RitterAnd, oh yeah, two more soldiers died in Iraq that same day. But the entertainment report came first (Anderson 8). The news about two people in the entertainment business made it first in the entertainment world. Was that a coincidence? This may in fact be a perfect example of how the news corporations treat an order of importance on news stories. The entertainers deaths are perceived as being more significant those who died fighting for the country. When all along, the news main purpose is to inform us about the very events occurring in our country, yet when it comes to a matter of dying with pride or dying famous, the famous persons memorial is honored first. Another example of the entertainment world leaking

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into what is our so-called news, is when OBriens 2003 interview with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck was given an entire hour of Dateline (Anderson 13). Upon viewing Datelines website, I read that they claim to be dedicated to investigative reporting, mysteries, and social justice (Dateline). Out of the three major subjects described, I fail to see how an hour interview with two celebrities of the entertainment world even merely begin to fit into any of the categories in the slightest. Or how about more currently after Michael Jackson died, news stations over the entire television spectrum ran and re-ran the story of his death and the doctor who prescribed him this and that, but where was the actual substance? Where were the current events? Michael Jackson, though an important figure of music culture, was the centerpiece of news across America for several weeks. The fact that his death was so dramatized on the television makes it seem as though all Americans should view the occurrence as a major cultural concern. But was it? No. Again, this demonstrates how the news we hear is only news that is perceived by those who want it to be news, in order to gain high ratings and popularity. The fact that an hour segment was wasted on informing Americans of two celebrities, and all those hours spent reviewing and repeating facts about Jacksons death and the doctor and the family should be raising questions in the heads of the American viewers. Americans should be able to choose whether or not they want to further investigate the personal lives of celebrities, not be forced into learning of it in excruciating detail because it is the main story on their favorite news station. Apparent to many, the mass media being overly concerned with mindless segments of celebrity news and entertainment updates forces an active mind to question, Of the news that we are actually receiving from the television shows, how much of it is of any real

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worth to the American viewer? Especially when it is presented in a way that is depriving that viewer of personal thought? To borrow a beer commercials line, television news today generally looks good, but is less filling (Anderson 7). I find this statement to be absolutely effective, and I think Neil Postman would also agree, as he speaks of how news now is all about keeping the viewers attention with pictures and word fragments. He says, Most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action (Postman 68). Another good point proven, that Americans are constantly talking with one another about what they heard on the news. The problem lies within the lack of actually searching out and informing oneself. An author of the article Double Standards, Susan Douglas reminds us, It is important to remember that the news media have the greatest capacity to shape peoples opinions when the topic being covered is more remote from most peoples knowledge and experience (Douglas par. 5). When people are getting all of their information about what is going on around the world from a news station, they are merely playing roles of a robot, blurting out the few facts and statistics that they actually retained from a news segment. But where is the knowledge? How many of these people hear something and then go on to further question in their minds, and follow through with their questioning by further investigating? In a culture often known for being lazy and reliant on others, it would be very easy to believe that many would hear the story and believe what they hear because it is coming from a mainstream news station. This shows how the news can make people think a certain way, as they go on to believe what they hear, feeling that it is truth when it is actually just one persons perspective or opinion on a matter. Even in the days of the telegraph, Postman saw the threat of the technological advances of news media, claiming,

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The telegraph is suited only to the flashing of messages, each to be quickly replaced by a more up-to-date message. Facts push other facts into and then out of the consciousness at speeds that neither permit nor require evaluation (Postman 70). Postmans fear was ahead of its time, and still remains relevant today. The speed at which we are being exposed to information is putting Americans at an unfair advantage, as it deprives them of the time necessary for evaluation and critical thinking. Feeldont feel. Thats what the pace, structure, and ever changing footage of the news shows encourage (Douglas par.6). The segments are aimed at reaching out to the viewer using pathos, showing them gory clips and videos of war and plunder, but what we didnt get was an overview of the political, economic, and cultural contexts that had produced such images (Douglas par. 6). By presenting news this way, they can create an emotional reaction in the viewer, which is their goal. But by doing so, they are swaying the way that the viewer feels on a subject by tangling with their emotions. Douglas makes a good point when she says, by continuing to reduce and simplify coverage of foreign affairs, the news media help cultivate American isolationism and ethnocentrism. To expect the average citizen to have every detail of war time mapped is a bit unrealistic. However, by placing, for example, a general of the military on the screen bolstering our patriotic fight against terrorism and spread of democracy, the viewer is easily able to assimilate with the word patriotic, if we are placing this historically fulfilling term with war related stories, the message can be misleading in the fact that it has already drawn out a conclusion for you. In this face of rising dearth of information, Americans become slaves to partisan mythologies, and remain pinioned between messages that tell us we must intervene in the face of hideous injustice, and yet insist we shouldnt and cant (Douglas par. 8). Without an initial desire to process

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incoming information, we are subject to extreme influence towards what to think. By viewing the nightly news, Americans are subjecting themselves to partial stories, and stories that fill them with preconceived ideas, rather than allowance to hear all the information and then make a judgment of their own based on what they have concluded. While attempting to avoid being condescending towards our current occupations of countries, for better or for worse I feel it necessary to refer to treachery in foreign land throughout history, and how media played a role. While it was not necessarily television during these periods doing damage, familiar tools are evident in how current wars are sold. Take, for example, the German people and the Nazi Regime throughout the 1930s and 40s. I find it unfathomable that without the tool of media, and propaganda that came with it, the people of Germany could have allowed into power such an unforgivable tyrant, Hitler, and his governing minions. In fact, the ideals from that time period were not all that different in nature from our own. It was a clear and widespread notion that Germany was facing imminent demise from groups of people that differed from themselves, namely Jews, Gypsies. The call for eradication was eerily slow moving, until the people were finally united under causation, the most popular of methods being through cinema, and news reels, of entire national security allowed Jewish Ghettos, Concentration Camps, and the spread of a Nazi regime that would not let any country get in their way. Richard Taylor, an author whose book Film Propaganda, asserts The cinematography film is today one of the most widely used means for the amusement of the public at large Its potentialities for shaping the ideas of very large numbers to whom it appeals are almost unlimited. Now, I assure I am far from drawing similarities of intent from Nazi Germanys horrid acts against humanity to our current global affairs. However, the unification measures in which that

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regime conducted under should be noted. Though we often view ourselves as the greatest nation on Earth, I strongly encourage our citizens to remember what makes us free, and not lose touch of what we were freed from. Oligarchies, Monarchs, Dictators, and Kings, who were corrupt in every sense of the term, litter our history books. In order to see that history is not repeated I view it as essential these facts are held dear. Without overstating my position or understating the possible misfortune stemming from a medium in which so many get their information, I fully understand the purpose of a broad system of information centered around helping to go about our daily lives; Although I question when and if a line should be drawn, based on a logical evaluation of the distributers of our news. Though the mainstream media does do what it says it will, by giving American viewers news, too many people accept what they hear without asking questions. My main concern is that the mainstream media has too much power over Americans thoughts and ideals. As it stands, how can Americans listen to what is said without asking questions, when they know that the power invested behind these corporations is so plentiful. The mainstream media often covers issues that will not stir unrest, aside from the entertainment world, leaving most in the dark about whats driving the world. In standing idly by while the number of major news corporations shrinks to 5, I not only believe there is a detrimental effect on the amount of checks and balances, but this number has a direct correlation on how individuals decide on their world view. Our important duty as citizens of any and all nations, to stay informed on topics that are making a difference in our daily lives, it is crucial that the intention and effect of each news program is properly defined. Furthermore, it comes at great disservice to us to stray from

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being persistent critical thinkers, aware of how easily stories can become manipulated or presented in a certain fashion, thus altering our perception.

Works Cited Postman, Neil. Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business. New York: Penguin Books, 19861985. Print. Taylor, Richard. Film propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. London: Croom Helm ;, 1979. Print.

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