as309714@ohio.edu
As
I finish my first week of the Ethics, Media and Society course, I am feeling
excited as I read The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel.
Both the text and the course thus far have opened discussion - it’s primary
focus being the state of journalism. Throughout history, trust in the media has
fluctuated. More recently, however, there has been a decline in the public’s trust
in the news media.
It
is important to both examine why that is and also the importance of reporting
the news impartially. One such reason that the public’s trust in the news media
has declined is due to the rapid change in the way we consume information. Due
to constant access to the internet, we are able to get the latest news whenever
we want.
Sometimes though, that information is not always accurate. One such
reason for this, as discussed in The Elements of Journalism, is because of the
merging of media companies (Kovach and Rosentiel, 42). Media companies merged
because they saw an ability to increase profit through increasing in size. The
problem with this is that through doing so, there became less independent
voices and less of a focus on journalistic values (Kovach and Rosentiel,
42-45).
In
this blog I will dive more into this issue and further discuss the effects of
media conglomerates. In the link below from Washington University in St. Louis,
a piece written by Bill Moyers titled, “Essay on the Media and Democracy,” discusses the “Dangerous Implications of Media Conglomerates.” He explains that democracy
is being threatened and he shares an extreme and shocking story about a
controlling newspaper to illustrate his point.
The
person featured in the piece is a former New York Yankees pitcher named Jim
Bouton. He experienced the power of a media conglomerate first-hand. Bouton
lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and there is only one newspaper there. The
newspaper wanted to use $18.5 million dollars of taxpayer money to begin
building a new baseball stadium.
The
location that the newspaper wanted to build the stadium was on property that
the newspaper owned. The property was polluted and by building a stadium with
taxpayer money, the newspaper would be able to shift the responsibility onto
the public.
The
newspaper is owned by MediaNews Group. I chose this example to demonstrate the
power of conglomeration. When situations like these occur, journalism is
overpowered. In this circumstance, there would be no way to learn about the
truth of this story from reading the town’s newspaper. In fact, that would be
the last place to find out about the reality of the situation. According to
Moyers, situations similar to these happen throughout the country.
A
broader explanation of the overall problem can be seen in the video below.
The
video by “CrashCourse” titled “Media Ownership: Crash Course Media Literacy #8”
demonstrates how many of the household media companies we know are really just
owned by a few major conglomerates.
In
the introduction to this blog, I mentioned how it is necessary to report the
news impartially. The reason we must report the news in a fair and honest way
is because our democracy depends on it. People need access to accurate
information to go about their lives. Whether it is accurate news in the stock
market or in politics, we make our decisions based on the information given to
us. News comes in many forms and covers many areas. The problem is that
conglomerates can impede on the ability to get news out to the public
accurately. The image below by fortune.com illustrates the power of media
conglomerates.
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