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How the media affects public opinion
Analysis of media bias
Negative influence of mass media on the public
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Former NPR personality Juan Williams was fired in October 2010 for a politically incorrect statement he made on the Fox News program The O’Reilly Factor. Williams was discussing with host Bill O’Reilly about his feelings on seeing Muslims on airplanes dressed in their garb. His remarks led to his termination at NPR, and sparked massive debate between some journalists and conservatives about whether or not Williams went too far with his comment.
Juan Williams served as NPR’s news analyst for the Talk of the Nation program, which he hosted for ten years. During those ten years of service at NPR, Williams was no stranger to controversial comments. However, those comments were never made on his NPR show, they were made on Fox News – a cable television news network – where Williams also acts as a contributing news analysts. Several statements he made on the station, including the supposed anti-Islamic comment, set NPR’s CEO, Vivian Schiller, over the edge. “The rules ban NPR analysts from making speculative statements or rendering opinions on TV that would be deemed unacceptable if uttered on an NPR program. The policy has some gray areas, they acknowledged, but it generally prohibits personal attacks or statements that negatively characterize broad groups of people, such as Muslims (Paul Farhi par. 7).” Schiller believed that Williams continually represented NPR in a negative light with his insensitive opinions made Fox News. Some journalists agree with Schiller and go against Williams’ decision to reveal his “fears” on national television. Greg Sargent explains, “the thing is, the idea that one should be afraid of anyone who "looks Muslim" isn't reality, it's silliness. He wasn't speaking some brave truth or making a personal confe...
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..."Juan Williams Fired: Pitfalls of the 'insta-opinion' Age." The Christian Science Monitor. 21 Oct. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. .
Sargent, Greg. "Should Juan Williams Have Been Fired?" Blog Directory - The Washington Post. 21 Oct. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. .
Swerdlick, David. "NPR Should Have Fired Juan Williams a Long Time Ago." The Root. 21 Oct. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. .
Williams, Juan. "JUAN WILLIAMS: I Was Fired for Telling the Truth." FoxNews.com. 22 Oct. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. .
Schmidt, Michael S. "The New York Times Log In." The New York Times – Breaking
Shepard, Alicia. “Deep Throat’s Legacy to Journalism”. NPR Books. 19 December 2008. Web. 14 November 2013.
Wemple, Erik. "Zimmerman lawyer to move ‘asap’ against NBC News." The Washington Post 14 July 2013. Web. 20 September 2013. .
In the documentary film, Page One: Inside The New York Times, the inner world of journalism is revealed through journalists David Carr and Brian Stelter as the newspaper company The New York Times, struggles to keep alive within a new wave of news journalism. The film is dedicated to reveal the true inner mechanics of what modern day new journalists face on a daily basis and leaves the audience almost in a state of shock. It broadcasts news journalism as yes, an old school method of news generation, but it also highlights an important component that reveals the importance behind this “old school” methodology. We often think that progression always correlates with positive products, but the documentary insists that within the case of modern journalism, the new wave method is actually a detriment that can reap negative consequences.
June 17, 2015, was a tragic day for many families. Dylann Roof killed nine people at a church in Charleston South Carolina, he was motivated by racist opinions. During the reporting of this incident, each News outlet is different. Some outlets such as NBC and the New York Times took a more emotion-based route, focusing on family issues and his childhood. Whereas The Washington Post took a rational route to reporting the incident, focusing on Dylann’s Roof’s confession and the incidents following his arrest. Overall the media is spilt on their rhetoric, some want the readers to sympathize with Roof and others seek to paint him in a negative light. Nonetheless, they seem to agree on not calling him a terrorist. Roof’s actions can be labeled as
Preston, Julia. “Lawsuit Filed in Support of Muslim Scholar Barred From US.” New York Times. Jan 26th 2006: A18
Theses and Professional Projects from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Paper 2. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/journalismdiss/2
Writers John Stossel and Frank Mastropolo, both working as a correspondent and journalist in ABC News, open their article highlighting the accomplishments of Bruce Marrow, a radio personality legend who “has been on the air for decades,” “Introduced the Beatles at the New York Shea’s Stadium,” and “was credited with helping push oldies station WCBS-FM to number one” (Stossel). However, the writers ended the paragraph talking about how legend Bruce Marrow, despite his endeavors, had been abruptly fired without any warning three years ago. They then continue to apply the same scenario to Kansas City DJ’s Max Floyd and Tanna Guthrie from 99.7 KY. The main reason why Stossel and his co-writer had decided to brusquely end the first paragraph of the article, it is not to embarrass Bruce Marrow or Max Floyd or Tanna Guthrie, but instead, to identify whether it is fair for people to get fired, even after they help build a company, just because they are getting old. The writer’s thesis starts off effective, but the bitter, harsh tone undoes its effectiveness.
The author provides a rough timeline of the objective norm emerging in American journalism, and explains the inner origin of these co...
38 Wilson, Clint and Felix Gutierrez. Race, Multiculturalism, and the Media: From Mass to Class Communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995: 44.
Zheng’s research only further supports this suspicion of media’s role in raising public awareness of racism, or racially motivated violence. As Zheng notes, “...instances of everyday racism are only reported on if famous people are involved...The public has become...jaded with cases like these and the repeated media coverage of only high profile cases neither mitigates the everyday realities of racial profiling nor makes a difference in our society’s views on these issues (Zheng, Racial Profiling and the Media, berkley.edu).” Of course, the effective result of this is that the widespread influence of racism on American society, in its most common, every day occurences, goes unaddressed. Racism and the challenges of addressing it in the average American’s
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however what is considered beautiful by some is not considered as beauty when discussing diversity within the media. Society is based on criticism of judging one’s characters body, shape and or race/ethnics background. In the media the society only sees one type that is only focused on perfection to the mind; however within the United States, it is very typical in that the media lacks ethnic representation, cultural identity and gender inequalities. There are no ethnic representation when it comes to the media world and that the media has been trained to believe that the ethnic groups are not valuable. African Americans and Hispanics writers are the minority group when it comes to a social group. According to journalist Prince and Television critic Deggans “CNN , let go one of its most high-profile anchor of color, Soledad O’Brien, replaced her with a white man, Chris Cuomo. Wolf Blitzer gave up one of his hours to another white man, Tapper. Though Zucker met with both National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalist to try and address their concerns, there has been no overt sign from CNN that it is bringing on any more anchors of color, ”(Mirkinson p.1).
During the Vietnam War, a rift between government officials and journalists emerged. The American government felt the need, for various reasons, to censor many war developments. In an attempt to act ethically, the press fought the censors, trying their hardest to report the truth to the general public. Despite claims of bias and distortion by several prominent government officials, these journalists acted completely ethically, allowing the general public to obtain a fair, informed opinion.
Most of the audience on this radio show were white and male. Most of the callers have spent their lives walling themselves off from any real experience with blacks, feminists, lesbians or gays. Rush Limbaugh tells his audience “what you believe inside, you can talk about it in the marketplace.” Unfortunately, what’s inside is then mistaken for what’s outside, treated as empirical and political reality. Most of the talks on the radio were racist against the blacks.
Wolper, Allan. “Ethics Corner: Did Critical Media Send Dean Packing?” Editor & Publisher March 2004: 25.