The Changing Purpose of News:
The most accurate and concise definition of purpose I've been able to mesh and mold from all of the explanations out there is that purpose is the reason a thing exists. Chairs exist to provide you with a place to sit, cars exist to provide you with a mode of transportation, food exists to nourish your body, and so on and so on and so on. Everything that is in existence has a purpose; if something no longer has a purpose it will cease to exist. The purpose of the news is supposed to be to provide people with accurate information as to what is going on in the community and the world. When news outlets fail to do this appropriately it doesn't mean they no longer have a purpose, it just means that their purpose has changed in some way. An example of this change would be some cable news networks reporting biased stories to inform in a specifically opinionated way in order to boost ratings. In this video clip which is part one of former president Bill Clinton's interview on Fox News, Clinton sets things straight on how things he has said and done have been falsely interpreted. Former president Clinton says, "You asked a question so you're going to get an answer." http://www.youtube.
News As An Endangered Species:
Few cable news networks are as sly as Fox which has several journalists setting their own traps. Time after time I've seen Fox News journalist go in for the kill in their interviews with presidential candidates. This next clip shows Ron Paul responding to what he considers a stupid question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8bPfzIF8Qg.
Really? When did news you can use turn into cable news blues? Sometimes watching cable news journalists is like watching a character in a play perform a soliloquy. Though I believe that fair and unbiased reporting still exists to a certain extent I also think it is on the endangered list due to a devouring beast called cable news. More accurate stories are broadcast on traditional network news programs. It is a must to have news we can trust, and it is pretty bad when the news becomes a fad.
Armed and Dangerous:
The question has been proposed by Professor Berchman, "Are we more informed and armed with more information or is it media overload?" I think the answer is a little of both. Citizens of this nation like you and I are armed by the news with the information reported by it. In this day and time we have news on demand by way of cable news and the Internet. News is constantly in front of our eyes with the click of a remote control and at the tips of our computer touch, the question is, "Is it too much?" Like I said, the news arms us, but is it placing the right weapon in our hands? Most of us are familiar with the Bible story of David and Goliath when the little shepherd boy took on the great giant. King Saul's armor was put on David for the battle, but the armor was too big and heavy for him so he took it off and still defeated the giant.
The armor we are clothed with is only good if it fits us properly; the news is only as good as the accuracy and truth it places upon us. With all the news available to us today we can find ourselves at times being overloaded with the attire composed of biased fact and opinionated fiction. Real people need real news they can use and not heavy fabrications highlighted with fragments of truth that will surely cause the blues. Some cable news networks may want to hire a violinist to play the sound of sad music in the background as they broadcast the stories that murder people's hope in the news media.
I do think that we have more non-useful and less useful news than we can use. We have become like camels carrying loads that will cause us to be spanked across our knees so that we fall down to gain entry to a city of reality threaded like thin rope through its needle-like eyes of entry. OK, maybe that last statement was bit deep and a tad bit dramatic. The simple truth of the matter is that information overload is ever so present in the realm of 21st century news. We instinctively gravitate towards the familiar while we progress along the pathway of the popular casting away the safety of insight in this god-forsaken news evolution. It is a shame to have to follow clues like Sherlock Holmes to get to the truth when it comes to reported news. Cable news is like an opera where we have paid the high price of sacrificed perceptions to view. With opera glasses in hand we view like an opera what we once turned on the TV to see in our own plain eyesight. If the news was Madam Butterfly it would be married to the hope to come of what it once was and then end up stabbing itself in the heart with the dagger of truth that represents what it truly is.
Does fair and unbiased reporting still exist? Yes. Is it harder to find? Yes. Are we products and/or victims of information overload? Yes. Will the news again become something we can use with trust, objectivity, and reassurance? I don't know.
Until next time Deneene Says...,"Stay informed, keep your options open, keep watching and reading the news, and go see an opera if you can to help you decipher reality from fantasy as the news has become a dramatic stage setting for the performance of real life dramatized." Keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming play Lady Sings the News Blues. (Not really)
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