Juice 15, 2/19

“The media are part of the event, they are part of the terror.” Today I feel this is as true as ever. It is interesting to watch and see how our media dictates what we hear and see. Sometimes we may get the full story, or maybe certain parts are left out, it is hard for us to really know. Stories that occur in the Middle East are the stories that come to mind when I think about this. For one, there are not that many reporters over there and we can’t be sure if we are getting the full or truthful story since we were not there to view it ourselves. The military or government could very well be in control of the publicity that occurs and that in turn keeps us from getting the truth. I remember hearing stories about how the media always played the war out to be necessary and played it out to be that we were winning, but as we see today, nothing productive has seem to occurred, and seems that the media was either forced or influenced by some other.

Other then major corporations and government controlling or influencing media I sometimes feel that stories are put on or played up just to increase the ratings. Stories that are newsworthy today seem to be only negative ones that involve some kind of killing or downturn for the world. I don’t necessarily like to watch the news anymore because it is almost depressing to hear about all the things that are wrong with this world. This competition between news organizations to get the higher ratings or more readerships is another flaw that seems to be affecting the news we are receiving.

All this seems to tie back into what is considered real, or what we perceive to be real. CNN is normally thought to be the most trustworthy news station but has been caught up on a few different occasions. What it comes down to is what is listed under the objectives of this class, never to watch media non-critically again.