I read the Real Problem with Obama's Tax Plan. Lasch's description of modern journalism really hit this article right on the nose. I don't really think that it would apply to all journalism though. I think that it only really hits on the political side of journalism. He talks like jounalism is only about polotics, like everything revolves around it. I can clearly see that a lot of jounalism does deal with polotics especially in this time with the election and all, but what is the real problem with just the regular old news. I don't think that the normal news is really dumbing down america.
However after reading this article I do agree that politcal news is dumbing down america in its politcal sense. Not many people really know the true stances and issues that our presidential candidates believe in. Especially after reading this article on Obama's tax plan I can understand why. The only information that you ever hear is changed by the media which seem to always be run by a political party. That article made Obama's tax plan sound horrible and it had no mention of John McCain's plan for our taxes. With the internet and television all of the information that we get seem to be changed by the media.
Lasch explained the medias affect to be so strong that the candidates are not trying to even show what they believe it doesnt matter its more about looking good for the media. Your politcal views could be perfect but if you look nervous and sweaty the media will bring it out and over portray it to the public.
After reading Lasch's thoughts and reading a political article I feel that the media blows the bad things about candidates so far out of proportion that it is to hard to ever see the good. You can even see this in political commercials even if they are going to say something good about a candidate it is not until after they say something bad aboiut the other one.
I agree with Lasch that true head to head debate is one of the only true tests for truly good intentions. I think personally that the best debate is when you have nothing to lose. No public eye to judge you and of course in this day and age that is virtually imposible for a presidential debate.
1 comment:
As I read your blog there were a few things I thought about. You said that he talks only about the political side of journalism, "like everything revolves around it". It made me think, "Well, what other types of news are there?" There's news about events like housefires and parades, just plain reporting. Then there's entertainment news. But both of those are very superficial. In the first, you simply report what happened, no thought involved. And entertainment news shouldn't even count. So maybe the reason he talks about political journalism because it is the only one that requires analysis and thought, especially from the people providing it.
Political news doesn't make people dumber in my opinion, but it does make people ignorant. People watch Fox News and then walk away with a point of view. They think that they know what they are talking about when it comes to a debate, but because of Fox's political bias, they are simply ignorant to more liberal views. Bias in political news is the real problem, but as long as reporters have opinions, it is virtually unavoidable.
It's a shame that you're probably right about the image thing you talked about in the third paragraph. Obama can give a whole speech about policy, but the only part that will make the news is the "We are the change we need, Yes We Can! Yes We Can!", which creates an image rather than an informed public. Same with Sarah Palin. Most people don't know much about her besides that she's a "maverick" and "I can see Russia from my house". This may be because they don't give fair coverage to her on the issues, just the image. Then again, after watching the Katie Couric interview, maybe she just doesn't have anything constructive to talk about when it comes to policy. :)
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