Television And The News Broadcasting System

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Today we live in a world of constant information and knowledge beyond any one person 's comprehension. The outlets of information are so limitless that it is nearly impossible to escape it. In particular, it is very hard to escape the news media, no matter if you walk down the street and see a newspaper or walk into a coffee shop with a television tuned into the news. Having such easy access to information is a wonderful thing and even pushes to better our society by keeping our people educated on what is happening in their communities, but there are flaws with our news broadcasting system. It is often that some of the American people will take what they hear on cable news station at face value and not try to delve deeper into the topics being discussed. The problem is that people do not realize what is being broadcasted as news and what is being broadcasted as opinion. News stations should abstain from opinionated broadcasting and only report on hard facts and solid evidence.
According the Pew Research Center nearly half of what is being reported on cable news stations is opinionated commentary (Jurkowitz). Opinionated commentary helps news stations get ratings and make money to stay on the air, however it is not always perfectly clear to someone when they are listening to news and when they are listening to opinionated commentary. Take the example of someone walking into a coffee shop and hearing “The war in Iraq is bad.” After a few minutes of hearing commentary on the Iraq war this person could now have a bad view on the Iraq war, but on what grounds. The same goes for the Iraq war being good. There is no factual broadcasting being done, but the listener takes what they hear as fact because they do not know they are listening...

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...ia. Another part of the study also shows that in younger Americans, ages 18 to 49, nearly 35 percent are trusting of the media. For being our nation 's primary source of information and current events, that is not a very high percentage Americans that actually trust our news sources. There have obviously been some in accurate reportings or events that took place to provoke this distrust in the American people.
All of these factors play a role in why our cable news media should abstain from opinionated broadcasting. Opinion is subject to change, but the facts do not. In order to establish a more reliable and credible news source, cable news should have a higher percentage of factual reporting and try to abstain from tabloid journalism. The shift from entertainment to credible information maybe a slow shift, but definitely one that we would benefit from as a society.

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