Newspapers Today

Review Questions

    Newspapers play a important role in democracy today. Newspapers are the people who are on the front lines and do the actual work for researching and reporting as the first source. Even as more people turn to the big TV outlets for their news, the newspapers are the first source that the TV news uses as their sources to inform others on current events. Newspapers shape the digital media outlet with less funding in most cases, and do the actual reporting. Without newspapers, TV media would have to put more resources towards front line reporting. Newspapers get the facts and leave it to the readers to decide their own opinions on the stories. Leaving the opinions to readers also includes the TV media that can and will shape the story to fit their own agenda in some cases. With recent reporting on the Black Lives Matter movement, the world is able to see how not only black citizens are treated on a daily basis, but also how opposition to police from peaceful protesters of all backgrounds are treated for voicing their own opinion.

    Newspaper journalism is immensely different from mass media outlets due to the fact that newspaper journalism does the actual investigating. The mass media outlets generally have an agenda and will site the newspaper journalists to report their own version of the story. At times, the mass media outlets will take bits of a full report of a journalist to use and present to their viewers and shape the opinions of the viewers. Purposely leaving out parts of a report can leave out important information that can help viewers understand what exactly is happening. This vast difference leads to viewers from different mass media outlets see the world in a different view and both tend to be misinformed and not have all the facts. Even people who use the mass media outlets and do their own research will not be able to convince people of all the facts due to the lack of information presented to the regular mass media viewer that they believe is all the information they need.

    Media deserts are large areas of rural places that do not regularly get information from newspapers and mass media outlets. The media deserts are important because people who live in these areas can be blind to current events for a period of time and do not have the resources to find information outside of their local news source, if they have access to a local source. The local news source can also shape their opinions of current events especially if they are the only source in the area. The lack of information due to the lack of resources will lead to misinformation in the public and effect their ability to understand what is happening in the world based upon facts rather than an agenda from the local media that they may have.

Comments

  1. SBartonArtFilmJune 28, 2020 at 1:42 PM

    Great post, thanks. I like how you outline the problem and really follow it through with a cogent bit of context, and you are right in your analysis of the factual state of affairs. Things that stick out from the discussion are the neutral, objective format of newspaper stories. By trade, newspapers have 'editorial' sections where it's clear where opinions lie. In fact, using paper to limit the amount of text a story carries, this became in hindsight a natural bias editing component of the process. Now, where 24-hour cable news talks endlessly about 'news' that may be past or present, may be fact, fiction, context, history, analysis, opinion, sarcasm, earners or propaganda, who knows, the lines are too blurred. Less is frickin' more and I hope more can see it clearly and soon before the hate and division grows too large. Cable and online news streams, from whatever source they are originated or shared, must be regulated. I like how you discuss media deserts in the rural context. While this is definitely true, I would argue smart phones HAVE made it accessible to almost everyone, the oldest and youngest generations of course excluded. That said, MANY, maybe a third? choose NOT to read news, NOT to seek out facts vs. consensus bias spin or fiction, and NOT to progress/evolve. "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." -Mark Twain

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