The news media has developed an addiction to reporting, and it’s hard to keep up. It seems as if they must report something every day, or else something bad is going to happen. It almost becomes a treadmill of events, with the news reporters breaking something down to the minute, and then the rest of the world just sits and waits, never making any real conclusions or changes. In a free society, this would be called manipulation of the masses for profit, but in a country that claims to have a free press, this seems pretty normal.
Still, there are plenty of bad apples in the apple basket, and anyone who give news coverage that is consistently bad shouldn’t be given much credit
The reality is that most news coverage is Predictable. The same stories will come out over again, and pretty much always the same angles. In fact, the same sources will almost always get the same news coverage. While this does tend to create a bit of a bias, especially when it comes to outlets like Fox News, which seem to always have their own opinion, it’s all pretty much the same.
This news coverage, while it’s pretty much controlled by the media, is unfortunately not given nearly enough credit. Sure, there’re plenty of criticism aimed at the media and their perceived liberal bias, but there’s also plenty of blame to go around. For example, certain outlets hardly ever mention the War on Terror, and while they may not always show it in their reporting, it’s usually pretty well hidden. Other outlets, like CNN and MSN, make sure to mention it many times. It’s almost as if the people who criticize the media don’t want the public to know about all the great things they’re doing.
Of course, there are plenty of good things that the news can do. Keeping people informed about natural disasters, emergencies, and even world events is often a wonderful service to society. Still, there are plenty of bad apples in the apple basket, and anyone who give news coverage that is consistently bad shouldn’t be given much credit.
Sometimes it’s hard to decide just what exactly makes a news story worthy of your attention. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch something that’s completely out of the ordinary and incredibly newsworthy. Other times, you’ll end up reading a story that is nothing more than news hype, designed to bring in a new reader or to get the latest scoop. And then there are the truly awful pieces that just plain take the story in a completely wrong direction, and are just bad from every angle. The latter type is certainly newsworthy, but not often in the way that you’d care to hear it. So how do you know when to stop listening?
It’s important to remember that most news coverage is pretty good. There are obviously going to be mistakes, as there’s always some kind of human error involved. But when it hits the front page of every newspaper and television station, it’s got to be bad news. There’s no getting around it. You need to make sure you’ve seen enough of it to make an informed decision.