Column by Justin Lamb
I can’t begin to tell you how happy I will be once a final decision is made on the president’s health care plan — even if it is a decision I don’t particularly like, just so long as some semblance of rational and respectful discourse is restored.
I, like many other Americans, am sick of hearing both sides behaving like children. One might think that those tasked with the heavy job of fixing the nation’s health care system would be able to do so without claiming that the other side wants to kill people, but we would be wrong, I’m looking at you U.S. Reps. Michelle Bachman, R-Minn, and Alan Grayson, D-Fla.
Unfortunately, though, it seems this problem may be a little more systemic than just disagreements over health care. The downward slope of American discourse has been going on for quite some time now, but it’s difficult to pinpoint where exactly it began.
It’s obviously not just those in Washington that been pulling this debate in the gutter, many in the media are just as responsible. I’ve gone after the media in past articles for devolving this debate, but I think in the past I’ve been too narrow.
Yes, Fox News and Glenn Beck have affected this debate, but it is the whole of cable news that has fed into misinformation. The networks, at some point, decided to stop reporting the news and start playing the ratings game.
Fox News wants you to be foaming at the mouth, MSNBC wants you yelling at the television and CNN wants you to tweet them and download their new iPhone application. Unfortunately for the public, all of the methods these networks are using involve a bastardization of news and journalism.
To those who think I unfairly attacked Glenn Beck a couple weeks ago, let me make it perfectly clear that I think Glenn Beck is a symptom of the overall problem that exists in news today.
Another symptom of this problem is, Keith Olbermann. Even though I generally agree with Olbermann’s opinions on issues, it must be said that he is not a news man.
Neither Olbermann, nor Beck, or the scores of others like them on TV, radio, or the internet, are responsible, thoughtful journalists, and don’t deserve to be on the same networks that purport themselves to be news focused.
News and opinion are meant to be separate. That’s very clear in newspapers, where opinions and editorials are published in the back of a paper under a large banner proclaiming them opinions.
They are not held up to the same standards as front page news, and the readers know that. It’s very clear to those who read newspapers where news ends and opinion begins. On television however, there is no distinction. These networks operate under the banner of 24-hour-news.
Their viewers are constantly told by the networks that it’s all news all the time, or that they are “fair and balanced†or America’s number one place for news, but it can hardly be said that the shows Mr. Beck and Mr. Olbermann do are news.
When you lose the distinction between opinion and news it’s very clear the entire operation cheapens. All of the “news†on Fox and MSNBC has been tainted by opinion. Neither presents news as a statement of fact but rather as editorial masquerading as fact.
I don’t know that the same can be said for CNN because they come off more as needy than as biased, but CNN is probably another column entirely.
We can’t expect the people to be adequately informed when so much of their news is tainted by bias, and we definitely can’t expect politicians to act like adults when their ideologies are on display as fact 24 hours a day in millions of American homes.
It’s my hope that at some point we can separate news and opinion in all media, but until then, here’s to seeing this opinion piece published where it belongs, in the back of the paper.
Justin Lamb is a political science junior. E-mail opinions@kykernel.com.
Racism or Capitalism and Media Bias
I’ve been told Capitalism’s basic tenet is “Find A Need An Fill It” if you are a Media outlet this means find disenfranchised readers and engage them. You can’t sell stuff to customers you don’t have. If you are trying to engage “Black Readers” you do an expose on “Black in America” or some such, or “Latino” or any other group or subgroup you’d care to name. You also have to tailor the product to your customers. “The Customer is always Right” so you tell them what they want to hear. You don’t tell a Skinhead guy that “The “Black President Guy” went to Harvard and is a much more capable person than he could ever hope to be”…well not, if you want to Sell him anything! Even Nutcases are customers. Readers want to feel included and listened to, every media outlet knows this hence the “Comments” section after every “News” story. In this economy with everyone scrambling to keep their businesses afloat it seems that balanced reporting has given way to keep them entertained at all costs. If your readers are “White Rural Twenty Somethings” then is it racism to write about things that interest them? A three page article on sickle-cell anemia would
be a waste of space that could be better used to sell Gun and ATV advertising, likewise would “Black Urban Twenty Somethings” care about “How To Hunt Elk in Montana”? I think not. The need to “Keep our Phoney Baloney Jobs” seems to be a larger driving force in Media Bias than Ideology or racism. News is a business and it tailors it’s “Products” to it’s customers needs if they didn’t they wouldn’t be in business long. These days there is a media outlet for every Ideology and political view just Google it and within seconds you can find someone to tell you that you are included and listened to no matter how extreme your views maybe. I just wonder if the ” I’ll only tell you, what you want to hear. ” type of Business model is “aiding and abetting” the divisions in our country. I also wonder about the unintended consequences of this sort of “BUILT-IN” Media Bias?
Quorumforum * “Some Assembly Required”
What?