Module 5 Readings

This Module involving news biases and the impact media has on our brains was very interesting to me, especially since the significance of social media was starting to come up throughout our readings.  As Benjamin Radford described in his article, “The News Bias: Distorting Reality and Feeding Fears”, news biases distort reporting and change how we understand and react to the world around us.  As a result, the news media creates myths that come to shape our world (pg. 65).  Hearing his description of what news bias is and what is can do to our society, I could not help but think about all the controversial issues taking place around the world and how the news is in control of what we see and, ultimately, the true facts.

This concept was further shown within the three biases that are believed to be the foundation of today’s professional journalism.  In an effort to avoid controversies, news companies regard anything done by official sources as the basis for legitimate news.  This allows companies to tell viewers to point their fingers at government officials and prominent public figures rather than the news company itself.  To also avoid controversy, professional journalism will hide values conducive to the commercial aims of the owners and advertisers as well as the political aims of whoever owns the news company.  This is why we are lead to believe that certain stories about crime and celebrities actually matter while also never antagonizing people in power (McChesney, 2002).

Going back to Radford’s findings, he quoted journalism scholar Roy Peter Clark who told fellow journalists to “beware of stories that fit familiar patterns […] journalists sometimes go on automatic pilot when they report such events, relying on preconceptions and writing stories that omit or discount facts that don’t fit the mold” (pg. 66).  Radford continued to describe how the media profits by putting fear into what we are viewing.  Nothing gets viewers to tune in to a news program like fear: fear of war, fear of disease, fear of death, fear of harm coming to loved ones (Radford, p. 66).  These points really made me stop and think for a minute about all the stories that tend to fill our news lately and wonder if there is a reason why they are so familiar, for example, why are we seeing shooting after shooting after shooting filling the news?  And aside from fear of disease or death, the media is even using fear to cause us to go out and buy their products.  As Sternheimer described in her book Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture, even our youth is being consumed with the fear of being “uncool” should they be unable to have the latest and greatest item (pg. 246).  The idea that fear is what these companies use to control us really bothers me, but unfortunately it works so they are going to continue this technique until further notice.  But thanks to media literacy, hopefully we can start giving companies a run for their money and we’ll start seeing honest and true news and advertising being shown… a girl can dream, right?!