My GP Blog

Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news.

Indeed, mass media today often manipulate facts they gather to produce articles without credibility at all. The press often fabricates stories, self-proclaiming their writings as words of sacred truth, but in actual fact, only bits and pieces are facts, hardly sufficient to prove their integrity at all.

Recent events are events that have taken place not too long ago, and are still valid as evidence for my stand of mass media creating news, instead of reporting them.

One recent event elucidating media manipulation is the conflict between Iran and UK. Apparently, the sale of stories partially falsified by Iran captives has been banned. Such atrocity leaves us with no bearing but to criticize the media for its negative purposes. Is this not a flagrant form of mass media creating news? Furthermore, these news earn them profits which they completely do not deserve at all! Such an incident is indeed a shame to the journalists who appreciate the positive uses of media. An elaboration of the whole article can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6538921.stm

Another recent event in year 2005 that has appalled me is that USA Today 's top foreign reporter, Jack Kelley, was discovered to have fabricated stories from around the world and invented interviews and witnesses from Cuba to Jerusalem. As such, I can now form my own conclusion as to how mass media, mainly comprising of the press and journalists create news to earn money and not report news for the general public to understand current situations. The media’s main aim of ‘reporting’ news is indeed to earn a living and extra profits. Hence they resort to using underhand methods to achieve their goals of having as many readers as possible and thus trying all sorts of ways to make their news juicier by adding bits and pieces of them storylines fabricated by themselves, with completely no concrete evidence at all! This article can be found in: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1418539,00.html

Another reason as to why media creates story is so as to propagate a particular concept. As such, a recent event to illustrate my point is when the Bush administration rejected an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, and
said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them. Comptroller General David M. Walker wrote that such stories violate provisions in annual appropriations laws that ban covert propaganda. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35010-2005Mar14.html ) Hence form here, it is evident that my deduction

posted by Phoebe @ 8:22 AM