My relationship to news, I’ve learned over the past few weeks, has changed dramatically. I currently believe that American media is extremely biased, unreliable, and has hidden agendas. I personally think that anything having to do with world news that is shown in America is not at all accurate, and is misshaped to make Americans ignorant about how the world truly feels about the country. Scare-tactics are also used, and I think that totally undermines journalism and makes it inept as a field. That’s my own politically-charged opinion about American journalism.
I believe that news does not generally capture my attention, including my generation as a whole, because news does not mean anything. America is fed on a diet of capitalism, advertisements, celebrity gossip, and pointless reality shows, which are all IN THE NEWS. That stuff isn’t news. It’s artificial jargon to plump up media airtime and further decay the American brain.
News, to me, is something interesting, but it’s incredibly vague. It can be anything, or everything, but it can’t be everything. Otherwise it wouldn't be relevant enough to call it news - obviously. It has to be interesting, cool, and mystifying, but it doesn’t have to be a forest fire, or someone dying in a car crash. I’m not saying it has to be important, but I personally hate the typical baby-and-pet-left-in-the-car-story. Yeah, it’s tragic and shocking, but is that all that matters? Sure, that contradicts my point from before as to why my generation does not care about news, but I feel like general information regarding mankind as a whole is what makes news, well, news.
To elaborate, a volcano blowing its top in Italy would be news. So would learning that the sun is going to become a white giant in 2.1 billion years. Or that Global Warming is proved to be a hoax, or that blue whales are going to be instinct. You get the idea. I think that telling the news in a compelling and creative way is also one of the most important factors to journalism. To be a journalist is to be a magnificent story-teller, whether it be orally or through print. Thus, the inverted pyramid style of news writing does not suit the purpose of being creative. It is boring, old-fashioned, and does not measure up to modern day standards of writing. But, that's just me. To be frank, it's just about being informative on all sorts of information.
When I was a kid in elementary school, my mom always had the Today Show on. I loved growing up with their way of telling the news. It was extremely entertaining, informative, and compelling. They told news-breaking stories in a professional manner, yet kept an element of enjoyment. I also liked, and still admire, watching CBS’s 60 Minutes. It’s a fantastic, and an extremely reputable and reliable program. The correspondents ask all the right questions and hold nothing back. It’s quite frankly the most phenomenal journalism at its finest.
Journalism could better satisfy the needs of myself as well as my peers by remaining objective as well as relevant to worldwide society. I’m sick of biased fluffy jargon! The future of journalism in all its glorious forms should be held to an exceptional and extraordinary literary standard that rivals mainstream media. It should be accepted as an informative art, not some overrated "story" that we want to throw in the face of the audience to capture their attention.
But then again, what do I know? I’m just an opinionated and amateur “journalist” with a lot to say and little experience.
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