Nov 03 2008
What Happened to Journalism?
The polls and the political pundits on all of the major news networks anticipate an Obama landslide victory tomorrow. The national polls have Obama up anywhere from 5-9% ahead of John McCain. With election day just around the corner, has anyone stopped to ask what if Barak Obama fails to win the election? It is still a possibility that he can lose this election. If John McCain pulls off a upset in this election, this will reverberate throughout the media.
A McCain upset would cast a huge shadow over the journalistic integrity of American journalism today. One would have to question the major news networks ability to present neutral objective material. When did journalism become the mouth piece for political parties? It is a disturbing trend to see blatant political bias on news channel that claim to be non-partisan. Journalism is supposed to be about presenting the facts and letting the people decided who is right and wrong on the issues not the other way around.
I don’t like the pundits and the news anchors telling me what I should think. Who died and made them GOD? I believe that stations such as Fox News and MSNBC should be taken off the air for violating journalism code of ethics. I read the journalists code of ethics and I believe that many of these news station violate many of the tenents of the code. http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
Our democracy depends on free non-biased information from journalist to help people make informed decision on key issues such as health care, war, energy etc… It is the media’s job to convey this information to people in a way that is balanced. Without balanced presentation the media becomes a tool for state control of the people, instead of media being a tool to control government. I fear that journalism today is increasingly becoming a tool for the government to espouse their propaganda and mis-leading information. I hope a new generation of writers and news producers will wake up and see what how much damage has been done to the journalism profession and start to make some changes before its too late.
Perhaps I misunderstood, but how can the media be a tool of state control’ when it is privately owned?
Fox News is a subsidiary of News Corp. I don’t think that News Corp can be labeled as a tool of ’state control’. It is a global organisation with media outlets worldwide.
Fox news is a business – targeting a specific conservative segment in the American population. It is a product, manufactured to sell. There will always be strong opinions leaning to the left or right represented in the media, but isn’t it part of democratic society that we are exposed to this plurality of ideas?
If you want to discuss bias in the media, isn’t it more a question of commercial interests and the rise of ‘infotainment’ undermining journalistic integrity? The commercialisation of the media, not the government, should be blamed for the reduction in quality, unbiased journalism. This is a problem that stretches further than just the United States.
LMAO! Dude I just wrote the editor of the Arizona Daily Wildcat today because when I was reading it, every article was slamming McCain, and praising Obama. I wrote to them not because I disagree with their opinion, but they are supposed to be journalism majors. As a journalist, you are supposed to just report the facts, both for and against each side, and let their audience choose what stance to take on the issue. The Arizona Daily Wildcat does not do that. I wrote to them questioning their integrity as journalists, and asked them to reconsider how they operate as a newspaper. I’m not expecting a polite response, or any response at all. I assume they will just delete my email, and continue their unsatisfactory work. The outlook for your hope of a new generation of journalists doesn’t look good.