Thanks to this election season, the evidence of an untrusted media is evermore evident. I used to love ABC News. My family would always watch ABC News during dinner and watch what has happened in the world. Now our TV is turned off completely because we can't take it anymore. The media has nothing better to report than political opinions held by the anchor and news team. It got so bad that even our favorite shows became politically biased. Media is not supposed to cater to the government. The sole purpose of the freedom of the press is so that the government cannot have a hold over the media. One can state that CNN, A.K.A. the Clinton News Network, has drawn away from its roots as a reliable source of news facts and honesty. I sadly have to agree.
A very, very long time ago, there were only a few news channels such as ABC, NBC and CBS. They were the role model and epicenter of all media. The greatest question that arises to everyone is "can the media be trusted?" Once the most trusted institute of the US, along with education, military, medical and the police, the media has sharply declined on its trusted platform. The reason? Financial standards have replaced journalist standards.
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In the early years, the role of the media was to establish objective journalism with only the facts. The role of the media is not to establish an opinion in an attempt to offer a solution. It was up to the readers to form their own opinions and solutions. The decline of standards in journalism has resulted in a sharp decline on sales. According to PEW Research, print newspaper sales have declined sharply since 2006. In 2006 there were over $47 billion gained from newspaper sales, but in 2014, newspaper sales were met at only $16 billion. One would think that the social media is taking over an outdated medium of media, but digital sales have not even come close to the difference.
So what has happened? News companies have lost staff due to this financial constraint. It's replacement? The social media. The social media has replaced professional journalism with mediocre journalism. Today there are over 27 billion bloggers, while news journalists only come to a fraction of that. Social media does have its pros and cons such as the fast spread of information to other people. Due to social media, the once objective reporting journalism has been seen as unfavorable due to low ratings. Journalists have found that if they include an opinion that is so absurd to something so factual, they will distinguish their media from others. These opinions are often liberal.
In the media, the majority of the media is Democrat, though the majority claim to be Independent. When it comes to ideologies, those who claim to be Independent in the media are actually more left than right. The media has separated and divided a line between the two political parties of America. PragerU states in a recent video that "the mainstream media have chosen to double down on views and themes that appear to their liberal constituency." They go on to say that "a certain amount of skepticism is a healthy thing, but a thriving democracy depends on a dynamic and free press." If a media sides with liberal ideas more than conservative or even vice versa without the idea of having just factual evidence on an event, the media has favored that political view and has acted more of a way for the government to monitor our own lives.
How can we step away from this biased media? Simply eat your dinner in peace. Don't watch the news. Boycott it if needed. Only rely on the most factual of sources. I tend to watch more of live speeches and live broadcasts without commentary to get the real picture. Whenever one of my news apps has a live update on something, I watch it before the media can come up with an excuse. Never ever come to a conclusion based upon what the media wants you to believe. In order to have a freedom of speech, there must be a true freedom of the press from the government. Otherwise, the media represents our regurgitated food that we have relied on for far too long. Seek the facts to know how to act.
