I'm really offended by this letter written to the Editor of our little town's local, weekly. This kid went to the same High School as my sons.
Another young mind being filled with bias (mush) by liberal professors at one of America's institutions of higher learning I suspect.
Being "informed" does not include watching FOX news.
M
“We the people” need to be informed about the world around us
Peter Doblar
Woodinville Class of 2004 and
currently attending Georgia Tech
Like the rest of America, the war in Iraq has heightened my awareness of what’s in the news. With that awareness has come the realization that the news outlets are no longer presenting simply the facts, but are often foisting their own opinions on the public. More and more, “spin” is being put on the news stories to shock a society in constant motion in order to gain their attention. The most appalling aspect of the current bastardization of the news, is the injection of the personal political beliefs of the news organization’s owners who now play a dominant role in their respective station’s news angle.
It’s most disturbing to know that a news group can bias a story’s true meaning and even blatantly distort the actual facts to ensure a story more accurately reflects the personal political beliefs of their outlet and/or its news staff.
Not only are these news organizations not telling us the whole truth, they are seriously misleading the American people. News has gone from being a half hour presentation of informative events to an entertainment-oriented program focused on sensationalism in an attempt to hold an audience’s attention and draw advertising dollars, all the while pushing a particular political agenda.
When people were asked in a recent media survey where they get most of their news, 19 percent said newspapers; while a staggering 80 percent said radio and TV.
The openly conservative Fox cable network commands about 30 percent of the TV news viewers, with CNN holding another 18 percent.
The survey also showed that Fox news watchers were three times more likely to hold to proven misperceptions of facts surrounding the Iraq war than those watching other networks.
While those listening to the more balanced PBS’s NPR news believed none of the misperceptions.
Further, 67 percent of Fox viewers had a misconception about links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, while only 16 percent of the PBS-NPR audience shared the misconception.
With regard to the existence of WMDs, 33 percent of the Fox audience has erroneous views, while only 11 percent for PBS-NPR audience made a similar error.
Finally, as to the world’s opinion of the U.S.’ action in Iraq, 35 percent of Fox viewers were incorrect, while only 5 percent of PBS-NPR audience made a similar error.
In all three cases, the misperception percentages decreased when moving from Fox to CBS to NBC to CNN to ABC, to print media, to PBS-NPR.
News stories are presented through a series of graphics, sounds, and visuals that distract the viewer from the story at hand. Everything on the screen is meant to draw the viewer away from what is actually being said. The more visuals on screen, the harder it is to actually focus on the story.
The more that a news show can “wow” an audience with visuals, the more impressed that audience becomes, believing in the story being seen, regardless of its validity.
In today’s news the race is not to become the best at finding and reporting the facts of world events, but rather to impress audiences with flashy images and snappy sounds. The news is no longer about reporting, but instead about entertaining.
Through this entertainment, network owners can push their own personal beliefs and agendas on their audience. It is time for the American public to wake up and realize they are being fed distorted and often incorrect information by ratings whores interested in advertising dollars as opposed to keeping “we the people” informed about the world around us.
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