I come to all of you bloody bloggers today with another post about something. That something of course, is how 2 news stories about the same event, reported by different news outlets have subtle differences that expose the various bias and angles found in the supposedly unbiased news media. (SHOCKING!)
The news story in question of course, is the Walk out of UN delegates during a speech by Ahmud Ahmadinejad.
Here's one from everyone's favorite, BBC news!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11402101
And in the other corner, its middle eastern counterpart, Al Jazeera!
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/2010923184345332707.html
Right off the bat, you cant tell that Al Jazeera Focused more on Iran and its funny leader, than the BBC did. Both news outlets discussed the walkout, the 9/11 conspiracy speech, the sanctions and the Obama speech. However, BBC went into more detail about Mr Obama's speech. BBC choose to emphazise the commitment of making peace between Isreal and Palestine.
The BBC also mentioned the other topic's involved in the UN Meetings, such as the issues in Somalia, Sudan, Climate change, and UN reform, and touched more on the UN's commitments.
Al Jazeera, on the other hand, only mentioned a small portion of Obama's speech, and did not discuss any of the broader issues in the middle east. Their primary angle focused on Ahmadinejad's speech, the effects on Iran, and the reaction by senior US officials. Al Jazeera also mentioned the protests taking place outside of the UN building by people of mostly Iranian origin. The protests themselves involved fake scenes of hanging and stoning, along with people stained with fake blood. One could almost say they were having a good old violent BBQ. Jokes aside, this example lends credit to the idea that different news organizations and their reporters take different angles to similar stories, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does blur the line between opinion and fact in the Mass media.
Thanks for tuning in!
PS. if you made it this far, here's and extra treat for being awesome!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBA_lxUiwSg
Later you sexy people!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
American News Media...lolwut?
EPIC BLOG ENTRY FUN TIME!
Yep so this is my first ever blog, entry, whatever you can prefer to call it, and because of the standards set on me by a certain Human Communications Professor, it is restricted to being related to something called modern news media, if such a thing exists (sorry study of wumbology!). So here we begin our foray into the ever so bizarre world of the BREAKING NEWS! Well now that the formalities are out of the way, we can actually begin speaking about the topic at hand, the state of American news media.
For all of you who live under a rock or prefer too, American news media is widely considered to be laughable, and/or cute, depending on your perspective. From what I can tell, American news tends to be misguided, ratings based, and full of idiots who prefer to scream their incoherent babble into our precious ears. I believe American news lacks substance, sources, and an understanding for what is really considered news. American news also misses the important issues in society, misrepresents the facts of the story by letting bias and non-journalists meddle with the news making process. American news also allows censorship to be practiced under our Nations facade of free speech, sacrificing the necessity for questioning power for profit or positions, and worst of all, committing genocide to the idea of intellectual conversation in an informed society. So then, why do we let them get away with it? Why do we let news be misrepresented, sensationalized, and used as propaganda? I'll tell you why, its all your fault, you fools! You need to learn to not take everything for face value, be curious, and look for the facts of the story, lest you be fooled into believing something thats not true. For example, if a news outlet like CNN said wine was giving you herpes, would you look into it further? would you see who said this, and what proof they have to give credit to this concept? Or would you accept it as fact without a second thought? Maybe we'll find out after these commercial breaks, where later they can tell us what drugs we can buy or what counseling we can take to save ourselves from this horror.
Alas, I digress...
Now ,from what I had learned as a wee boy, news was supposed to give us an idea of what was going on in the world. It was supposed to expose the injustices in society and at the same time, be the force that pushes people in the right direction. However, news media these days focus on entertaining us, rather then getting us informed. They feed us fluff, rather then providing us with vital nutrition. The monopolization of Independent news outlets is one of the key factors that furthers the severity of the situation even more. But why is this bad? Because if we are only getting news from several sources, then we only hear a small portion of whats going on, from only a few perspectives, and whose to say these perspectives are all balanced and fair, like FOX prefers to say? I mean, come on, why is it necessary to be so focused on one issue like a certain celebrity trail or one hostage situation at one particular Discovery channel HQ (epic cameo) while the rest of the of the world moves on without us...Its just absurd if you ask me (and not in the good way either :O). Instead, We should be following everything around us, not one drama in a small part of the world. Because, (brace yourselves)The United States of America is not the only place in world where shit goes down...OH SNAP!
Now, one last thing before I go back to playing Starcraft 2 (you should too). I want to briefly touch on the issue of journalistic integrity. which of course, is not an oath that journalists take when they begin their career. Its more like promising to be honest, sincere, truthful, thorough, and unbiased in your reporting. Which of course doesn't really happen, I mean why would you want to ruin your fruitful association with a certain interest group, in order to expose one of their ugly truths? I mean hell, I like my complimentary "company retreats" and "compensations" like the next guy, So why care about journalistic integrity? I mean come on, like any smart economist, the rewards far outweigh the risks, and whose going to keep an eye on me anyway? No one thats who.
So in the end, are journalists the only ones who can have journalistic integrity? Actually, anyone can have it, from the blogger across the street or the anchor in from a massive news organization can have journalistic integrity in regards to bringing our attention to any sort of news, whether it would be in your local town or in a far-off place like kazakhstan (5 dollars to the person who can point that place out on a map). So long as that story has some real substance to it, and provides us with some insight into and issue or event of which we had no previous knowledge of, its news. Well theres my 2 cents into this, now go off and do something interesting, like inventing a cheap alternative for water purification. Or you can just sleep. Your choice, you lazy bumhole...
Martin Wilson
The local madman
Yep so this is my first ever blog, entry, whatever you can prefer to call it, and because of the standards set on me by a certain Human Communications Professor, it is restricted to being related to something called modern news media, if such a thing exists (sorry study of wumbology!). So here we begin our foray into the ever so bizarre world of the BREAKING NEWS! Well now that the formalities are out of the way, we can actually begin speaking about the topic at hand, the state of American news media.
For all of you who live under a rock or prefer too, American news media is widely considered to be laughable, and/or cute, depending on your perspective. From what I can tell, American news tends to be misguided, ratings based, and full of idiots who prefer to scream their incoherent babble into our precious ears. I believe American news lacks substance, sources, and an understanding for what is really considered news. American news also misses the important issues in society, misrepresents the facts of the story by letting bias and non-journalists meddle with the news making process. American news also allows censorship to be practiced under our Nations facade of free speech, sacrificing the necessity for questioning power for profit or positions, and worst of all, committing genocide to the idea of intellectual conversation in an informed society. So then, why do we let them get away with it? Why do we let news be misrepresented, sensationalized, and used as propaganda? I'll tell you why, its all your fault, you fools! You need to learn to not take everything for face value, be curious, and look for the facts of the story, lest you be fooled into believing something thats not true. For example, if a news outlet like CNN said wine was giving you herpes, would you look into it further? would you see who said this, and what proof they have to give credit to this concept? Or would you accept it as fact without a second thought? Maybe we'll find out after these commercial breaks, where later they can tell us what drugs we can buy or what counseling we can take to save ourselves from this horror.
Alas, I digress...
Now ,from what I had learned as a wee boy, news was supposed to give us an idea of what was going on in the world. It was supposed to expose the injustices in society and at the same time, be the force that pushes people in the right direction. However, news media these days focus on entertaining us, rather then getting us informed. They feed us fluff, rather then providing us with vital nutrition. The monopolization of Independent news outlets is one of the key factors that furthers the severity of the situation even more. But why is this bad? Because if we are only getting news from several sources, then we only hear a small portion of whats going on, from only a few perspectives, and whose to say these perspectives are all balanced and fair, like FOX prefers to say? I mean, come on, why is it necessary to be so focused on one issue like a certain celebrity trail or one hostage situation at one particular Discovery channel HQ (epic cameo) while the rest of the of the world moves on without us...Its just absurd if you ask me (and not in the good way either :O). Instead, We should be following everything around us, not one drama in a small part of the world. Because, (brace yourselves)The United States of America is not the only place in world where shit goes down...OH SNAP!
Now, one last thing before I go back to playing Starcraft 2 (you should too). I want to briefly touch on the issue of journalistic integrity. which of course, is not an oath that journalists take when they begin their career. Its more like promising to be honest, sincere, truthful, thorough, and unbiased in your reporting. Which of course doesn't really happen, I mean why would you want to ruin your fruitful association with a certain interest group, in order to expose one of their ugly truths? I mean hell, I like my complimentary "company retreats" and "compensations" like the next guy, So why care about journalistic integrity? I mean come on, like any smart economist, the rewards far outweigh the risks, and whose going to keep an eye on me anyway? No one thats who.
So in the end, are journalists the only ones who can have journalistic integrity? Actually, anyone can have it, from the blogger across the street or the anchor in from a massive news organization can have journalistic integrity in regards to bringing our attention to any sort of news, whether it would be in your local town or in a far-off place like kazakhstan (5 dollars to the person who can point that place out on a map). So long as that story has some real substance to it, and provides us with some insight into and issue or event of which we had no previous knowledge of, its news. Well theres my 2 cents into this, now go off and do something interesting, like inventing a cheap alternative for water purification. Or you can just sleep. Your choice, you lazy bumhole...
Martin Wilson
The local madman
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