Political Pressures and the Media
How do we create a place where people can talk about issues without the fear of political pressures. We all know that all major media outlets that matter to the majority of US citizens are owned by Republican White Men. What's the big deal though? I mean we're all white males in America, so that's not a problem. This is not the major problem. This last week, a popular American weekly magazine called Newsweek received flak for publishing a false article. The article itself wasn't made up, but the source could not be 100% verified. The Government said that in all the reports they had they never saw a breech of the prisoners rights in Guantanomo Bay. We are all aware of the human rights violations we continue down there, but the Newsweek article that was written spawned riots, deaths and damage to many people. The magazine retracted the story, but one of the editors was quoted as saying that he spoke to top level officials and no one refuted the story. Only after the government saw a problem for their credibility did they say something. Stories are now surfacing that this has been reported before. Of course, this is the bias media and shouldn't be trusted. So where does this leave us? A magazine speaks out and retracts it quickly. Was this political pressure? Or a serious mistake.
We need a outlet that is credible, open and transparent. Without ties and having full transparency we can see through the grudges, we can see through the political pressure.
In a smaller scale, we can use Wikipedia as an example. In the past, most of us used Encyclopedia Britannica as a reference for information. One company? One place? How did we know it was accurate? How do we know it wasn't reported from a certain point of view? Step in Wiki. We have a source of information that is open and transparent to the public, the world can make comments and changes to the database. Our knowledge of the world itself is open to be corrected by everyone (verified people of course) for accuracy.
How do we fix the media? How many of your friends and family watch cable news and network news channels often? Most of my friends these days won't watch a second of FOX, MSNBC or some of CNN anymore. We lost all trust, and we feel like we're being sold news instead of being informed. We like NPR, and BBC, they are some sort of bastion of truth.
Who do you trust?
We need a outlet that is credible, open and transparent. Without ties and having full transparency we can see through the grudges, we can see through the political pressure.
In a smaller scale, we can use Wikipedia as an example. In the past, most of us used Encyclopedia Britannica as a reference for information. One company? One place? How did we know it was accurate? How do we know it wasn't reported from a certain point of view? Step in Wiki. We have a source of information that is open and transparent to the public, the world can make comments and changes to the database. Our knowledge of the world itself is open to be corrected by everyone (verified people of course) for accuracy.
How do we fix the media? How many of your friends and family watch cable news and network news channels often? Most of my friends these days won't watch a second of FOX, MSNBC or some of CNN anymore. We lost all trust, and we feel like we're being sold news instead of being informed. We like NPR, and BBC, they are some sort of bastion of truth.
Who do you trust?