In The Problem of the Media, it states that "democratic theory posits that society needs journalism to perform three main duties: to act as a rigorous watchdog of the powerful and those who wish to be powerful; to ferret out truth from lies; and to present a wide range of informed positions on key issues" (McChesney 57). I agree with that statement, however, I think that journalism is far from performing these duties today. Professor Janeway of Columbia University believes that today’s journalism falls more along the lines of infotainment. Inquisitive and perceptive information is being compromised for scandals and entertainment. Whatever happened to educational, truthful journalism?
Everyday people are always the first to scene of an event. It is the media and journalists that come next to the scene and tell their spin on what happened to society. Media and journalists broadcast the event in a way that has an entertainment value to it, which is sometimes far from the truth. The only people that know the truth are the ones who witnessed the event firsthand. They were the ones who perhaps got the first recording of the scene with their phone camera. It is important to be aware of what is going on in our world and to do our own research before believing every single word that we here from reporters, or believe everything that we read from journalists.
It is apparent that many journalists today merely code and broadcast lies through their writing. It seems that their only concern is that get the world’s attention the quickest way that they can think of: entertainment. In order to change this, we need a law of transparency and an ethic of openness. Until we know that we are reading the truth from journalists, it's our responsible to find out what they do not want to share and to seek out the truth.
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