When you watch the news, what appeals more to you: the
negativity or the positivity? Personally, I would rather listen to how and why
someone is on trial than where someone is planting a new garden to assist in
the "let's go green" movement. Why is this? Society feeds off of
negative energy. We like to engage in activities that excite and stimulate us.
We enjoy having something to talk about and, after a while, the "going
green movement" gets boring.
I say all of this because I wanted to take a moment and
touch on how media portrays situations, events, and people through the media.
More specifically as it relates closely to us Penn State students, I wanted to
discuss the manner in which us students were portrayed through media when we
found out Joe Pa was fired.
When I was watching the news after everything happened, I
only recall seeing students screaming and rioting. I only saw the cops macing
the crowds of the "uncontrollable" students. More unforgettably, the
flipping of the news van. It is funny how the News captured that aspect of the
student's effects. Now, I was there (not participating, but observing) and I
remember everything; not just what I wanted to remember. I remember the PROTEST
because that is how it started. I remember the students just walking in the
streets crying in sympathy for Joe. And what will never slip my mind is how the
football team stood at the corner of Beaver sulking because they could not
shake their coach's hand for the last time before the big game. Of course the
reporters did not capture those moments because they want to sell "a"
story and not "the" story; and negativity sells. And as soon as the
calm, open talks at Old Main turned into crazy riots, you saw the journalists
running in excitement with a pen and pad to capture it "all" on
paper. It is hilarious because they sold the story all over ABC NEWS and FOX
NEWS, and every other channel they could get it on; and the public bought it.
The media is corrupt and as long as the First Amendment is in place, the media will always be corrupt. Selling the "negative side" of a story is not libel, or lying in the news; instead it is just not reporting the whole truth and saddly this is legal and protected by the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment states that there is "freedom of the press" and therefore the media has the authority to put a spin on any news it wants as long as it is not publishing lies or violating privacy. I agree that the Joe Pa scandal was very badly portrayed but I think that it needs to be understood that the news is a business and people (reports, especially) always go out for their best interets and the interests of their company. Everything that ABC NEWS, FOX, and ESPN portrayed was legal and we have to respect that what they did was protected by the First Amendment.
ReplyDeleteBrooke- I would have to agree with Marta here. The media has complete control on how they want to cover stories and typically they are going to have headlines and coverage that will get the public's attention. For the reporters there, the riots after Paterno was sacked was just like giving crack to a crack addict. They had all the necessary tools sell to their consumers the news. New Corporations are indeed businesses and like every good business they know what creates profits or in their case high viewership. I believe the news coverage should of been portrayed differently out of respect to the students because it was a major distraction from academics for many, but realistically that never would of been the case. However, I feel that had the story broke out over the summer, It would of had different implications for the students and staff of the university. There would of been severely less coverage over how Paterno is considered to be an institution to many here at PSU and would of not left a burning image of ourselves as the wild, football crazed party school that has no conscientiousness to civic responsibility.
ReplyDeleteSince the vast majority of "the media" in the world are run as for-profit corporations, their interests are in reporting what sells. The ugly things in life are always the ones that grab our attention. Why do we always look at car accidents when we drive by on the highway? I think that the media reinforces our tendencies to glorify the not so happy things in life. Nice post!
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