Britney Thayer, Charity Ward, Roque Sanchez,

Todd Hovey, and Anthony DiCarlo

Christopher Wyman
English 111
20 June 2016
How misleading do you actually think the media is?
One of the oldest forms of human activities is the exchange of news. The desire to know
brought people to many different places that helped pass information on topics ranging from
wars, economics conditions, and human interest. This obsessive urge is the fire in the torch
known as the news industry. In the minds of many, the news was supposed to be about simple
truth, but with the rise of multiple outlets, its purpose became altered. News media has become
filled with speculations, hyperboles, innuendoes, and strict nonsense that viewers are expected to
accept. Their new objective seems to be aimed for pure entertainment and higher ratings. The
critical issue is whats available now, and whats sexy or sensational. The long term impact of a
story matters not in a universe in which everything is forgotten by the next two or three news
cycles (Rivers 398). To accomplish their goal, the news industries hold back crucial data,
provide misleading information, emotionalized conversation and fail to report on tectonic shifts
in our country. From the collapse of the financial system to the truths about the dangers we may
face, an industry once thought as being honest and true has developed into a conglomerate; one
thats too often improperly communicated which creates a system of misinformation.
One of the primary and most pivotal reasons as to why the big name news companies are
losing trust from their viewers and projecting more and more misinformation is the fact that
emotion, partisanship, and politicization are an ever growing influence. By the competitive

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nature of the market of media outlets all fighting for the viewers time, it only makes sense that
news channels would try to pick out what aspects draw people to entertainment and graft them
into their news. This synthesis was the origin of the 24 hour news network. As a byproduct of
this, though, news became ever increasingly diluted and geared towards specific audiences to
nail down profitable demographics, leading to the so-pervasive appeals to emotion, pulling more
at the viewer's feelings than genuinely presenting news.
This focus on emotion and subservience to outside forces has done much to tarnish the
truthfulness and respectability of many news outlets. Caryl Rivers article, The New Media
Politics of Emotion and Attitude centers around the encroaching influence of emotion in the
news. In her article, Rivers bring up the example of Michael Dukakis, ex governor of
Massachusetts, dismissal, due in no small part to the news of an ex-convict committing rape after
being released being used propagandously in local news to smear Dukakis time in office (Rivers
349). This is just one example of the influence outside forces wield over the news sources we
take as factual and objective. Matt Welch describes even more blatant partisanship in his article
Blog World and Its Gravity, in which he displays the reasons for which applicant columnists
were rejected by the newspaper, The Independent Florida Sun, many of which revolving on the
writers right-wing sympathies (Welch 401). Examples like these go to show how politically
distorted our media can be.
Editors, a lot of the time, don't do their own work And it is true that the editors often did
no fresh reporting. Some editors follow the philosophy that the editorial should be logic driver
outgrowth from known facts (Partsch 416). By what Partsch is saying there could be some
problems there because they could misread the editors papers and write about something that is
not true. Someone could get on facebook and there might be a lot of different post talking about

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what is going on in the world, but how does someone actually know that it is true? Media news
can be altered by really anyone who knows how. Like youtube or even facebook, videos can be
set up and also could be altered to serve the author's needs. So the news always has the chance of
being edited or altered. That's why people are so skeptical on what they read and watch.
One of the primary and most pivotal reasons big name news companies are losing trust
from their viewers and projecting more and more misinformation is the fact that emotion,
partisanship, and politicization are an ever growing influence. By the competitive nature of the
market of media outlets all fighting for the viewers time; it only makes sense that news channels
would try to pick out what aspects draw people to entertainment and graft them into their news.
This synthesis was the origin of the 24-hour news network. As a byproduct of this, though, news
has become increasingly diluted and geared towards specific audiences to nail down profitable
demographics. Leading to the so-pervasive appeals to emotion, pulling more at the viewer's
emotions than genuinely presenting news.
Our world is very good at hiding information from the public. When a tragic thing
happens the media writes an article;and it doesnt always write exactly what happened. There is
always information hidden from the public; things the news doesnt want or feel is important for
the public to know. Sometimes authors write news stories to get the public's attention off from
what is actually going on. Media plays a lot in people's day to day emotions. Your day could be
going great and then you read the news and the day is flipped upside down. Media is what
informs us on what's going on in our world. There Newspaper, magazines, network, and radios
all can be misleading you. Can anyone really never know if it's all true?

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Works Cited
Partsch, Frank Unbounded Misrepresentation Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning
in the 21st Century. Mid Michigan Community College, Boston. 2013. Page 416. Print.

Rivers, Caryl The New Media Politics of Emotion and Attitude Exploring Relationships:
Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. Mid Michigan Community College, Boston.
2013. Page 398. Print

Welch, Matt Blogworld and Its Gravity Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the
21st Century. Mid Michigan Community College, Boston. 2013. Page 401. Print.