We talked today in class about journalistic integrity and not allowing personal opinions to interfere with news reporting.
In today's cable news world, the bias has grown to such an extent that certain networks have developed reputations for having a particular viewpoint. Fox News has become known for favoring conservative opinions, while MSNBC has recently emerged as a liberal counterpart.
Fox News has been accused of not covering certain issues that may negatively reflect on Republicans, conservatives, and owner Rupert Murdoch. Recently, Murdoch has come under fire in the UK for a phone-hacking scandal, a story that has been broadly covered ... except in media outlets that he owns. There have been reports by the Associated Press that while Murdoch's outlets, such as Fox News, have covered the story, it has not been nearly as regularly discussed as it has on other networks.
With this example, and the release last year of a University of Maryland study that found that the average Fox News viewer is less well informed on many public policy topics as viewers of NPR, PBS and MSNBC, it raises an interesting question as to the value of some of this news.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts on what you think of this and whether or not you feel the development of cable news has had a positive or negative impact on [objective] journalism.
Related link:
Article on the coverage of Murdoch scandal: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=14084376
3 comments:
I feel that cable news networks are definitely a positive step forward for journalism as a whole. If we look at the evolution of the field using the timeline we made in class, it is obvious that people are slowly becoming more immersed in events from around the world. At first, all we had was text and we had to envision what was happening. Although this puts one's imagination to the test, it can also spark different interpretations of the same story which made news inconsistent depending on how you viewed it. When radio came into the newsroom, we could begin to hear things going on and people reacting to the world around them which is really the definition of journalism altogether. Now we have television, which shows us what's going on. It's thrilling to see the Apollo 11 take off to the moon and frightening to see children crying on the streets of a war-torn country. This delivers what a lot of people miss out on in news, pure emotion and storytelling. The fact we can look in a screen and see things happen before our very eyes is a huge leap forward for the study and gives us high hopes for a brighter future.
As was stressed in class last Wednesday, the primary concerns of every newsroom should be accuracy and fairness. Therefore, by openly aligning themselves with a political party, many cable news networks ultimately compromise these critical factors, especially fairness.
It is easy to believe that Fox has not covered the Murdoch tabloid scandal to the best of its ability – after all, he still owns the network. But that is no excuse for Fox’s limited coverage of the scandal. As a “watchdog,” Fox needs to be willing to expose the wrongdoings of Murdoch to the public in order to convey the news accurately and fairly. In fact, I came across a study done by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism which found that Fox dedicated one-fifth as much time to the Murdoch story as MSNBC and about one-sixth as much time as CNN. (http://www.journalism.org/commentary_backgrounder/fnc_trails_far_behind_rivals_murdoch_coverage)
While Fox is most definitely guilty of aligning itself with the Republican party, they should not be the only network under attack for doing so. As you mentioned, MSNBC has recently began a "Lean Forward" campaign which embraces its left-wing leanings.
I believe that a possible reason why many stations choose to politically align themselves largely depends on the human element. Viewers prefer when the news is presented to them in a way that favors their personal ideologies. Conversely, many are angered when certain media outlets are overly critical of public officials of their own party.
However, a positive aspect of cable news bias is that the public is presented with a vast array of ideas and viewpoints which may help citizens to better form their own opinions on public officials and current events.
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