Journalism by definition gathering, processing, and dissemination of news and information related to the news to an audience in an unbiased truthful way. But nowadays journalism has fallen into the trap of business and has begun a slow yet steady decline. The days where the media was viewed as a valid source of information are no longer.
For example abc news recently released a special about the GamerGate controversy for those who don’t know GamerGate was a movement for honesty whithin the gaming industry but some of the vocal minority were very aggressive about their opinions and a lot of people thought GamerGate as a whole was a group of radical and violent gamers. And this was the angle abc had gone for they interviewed Anita Sarkeesian a person who is famous in the industry to be a radical feminist who doesn’t want gender equality rather a female dominant society rather than people who actually play and understand the gaming community and industry as a whole. And the worse thing was that they only showed on side of the story and for what? The views and the notoriety views mean more money and that is the reason they threw away their integrity money. Want a different example? Let’s take the program that almost every news station in Korea has introducing hidden gems of restaurants do you really think there are that many good and not well known restaurants to sustain that kind of show for long? The answer is no you may ask “Then why don’t they simply end the program?” the answer? Again money they receive money from the restaurants in exchange for giving them publicity don’t believe me? There was a program that tackled this very problem a few years back it was a parody of the Trueman Show called the TrueFlavor Show (Æ®·ç¸À ¼î) it documents newspeople not only instructing the shop owners to make novelty menus just to make it as if the restaurant was a one of a kind just to drop that menu within a week or month of the program airing but to hire actors to overreact to the novelty menu as if it was the most delicious thing in the world. These are not isolated cases nor is it the only bad trend when famous people do even the smallest good deed or when something negative comes up about something or someone famous every new outlet will rush to publish something about it while when police arrest a priest for helping homeless people it only gets a small corner on the internet.
I am appalled by this lack of integrity and professionalism from journalists and news outlets of today. Not only does this go against everything journalism stands for it also feeds misinformation to the general masses who won’t care enough to actually look into the information they’re given. It is my firm belief that this should not be tolerated nor excused and should be changed for the better swiftly and efficiently.
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Journalism by definition is the gathering, processing, and dissemination of news and information related to the news to an audience in an unbiased and truthful way. However, nowadays journalism has fallen into the trap of business and has begun a slow yet steady decline. The days where the media was viewed as a valid source of information are no longer.
For example ABC news recently released a special about the GamerGate controversy. For those who don’t know, GamerGate was a movement for honesty within the gaming industry, however some of the vocal minority were very aggressive about their opinions and a lot of people thought GamerGate as a whole was a group of radical and violent gamers and this was the angle ABC had gone for. They interviewed Anita Sarkeesian, a person famous in the industry for being a radical feminist, who doesn’t want gender equality, who wants a female dominant society rather than people who actually play and understand the gaming community and industry as a whole. Even worse was that they only showed on that side of the story and for what? The views and the notoriety views mean more money and that is the reason they threw away their integrity money.
Want a different example? Let’s take the program, which almost every news station in Korea has, introducing hidden gems of restaurants. Do you really think that there are that many good unknown restaurants to sustain that kind of show for long? The answer is no. You may then ask “Then why don’t they simply end the program?” The answer again is the money they receive. The money from the restaurants in exchange for giving them publicity. Don’t believe me? There was a program that tackled this very problem a few years back. It was a parody of the Trueman Show called the TrueFlavor Show (Æ®·ç¸À ¼î). It documented newspeople not only instructing the shop owners to make novelty menus, making it as if the restaurant was a one of a kind just to drop that menu within a week or month of the program airing, but to hire actors to overreact to the novelty menu as if it was the most delicious thing in the world.
These are not isolated cases, nor is it the only bad trend when famous people do even the smallest good deed, or when something negative comes up about something or someone famous, every new outlet rushes to publish something about it while when police arrest a priest for helping homeless people, it only gets a small corner on the internet.
I am appalled by this lack of integrity and professionalism from journalists and news outlets of today. Not only does this go against everything journalism stands for, it also feeds misinformation to the general masses who won’t care enough to actually look into the information they’re given. It is my firm belief that this should not be tolerated, nor excused, and should be changed for the better swiftly and efficiently.
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