Does The News Serve A Purpose In Our Society

Does The News Serve A Purpose In Our Society

One thing I really enjoy watching on television is the local, regional, and national news in local channels as well as channels cognate CNN constitute on Dish - Network. When I cite to the news, I obviously am not referring to local, ugly automobile accidents, kennel fires, whereabouts drive - by shootings, murders at the hands of gangmembers, or any other frightful incidents that we see every week on television. I find them all as abhorrent as the next boy, but I ' ll still watch the story. When I do see these kinds of incidents on the news, I just stroke understanding for the people involved, especially the children, who live in those neighborhoods. Often, but not always, they take stead in the inner - village. Nobody really wants to see these kinds of stories, and most people even hankering the news channels wouldn ' t even report them as often as they do, but it still is news.
I suppose that we could be lulled into a false sense of security if local channels did not broadcast these kinds of stories to the point that we assume that they just don ' t happen frequently, but the truth is that they do. And when they happen in our own hamlet, whereabouts, or town, the local news channels will report them owing to their job is to report the news, both good and bad, to make people aware of what ' s happening in their own local area. Would anyone of us observe any safer if we just didn ' t know what was operation on in our local area? That would certainly be a reversal of the mature saying that ' what you don ' t know, can ' t crushed you '; well, in this case, it certainly could come back and pained you or a family member if you ' re unaware of a local pickle. The point I ' m getting to, though, is more along the wares of the need for an active and spirited television and scribble news media which both inform us and report these valid news stories to us. It is certainly imperative to have an informed public in a democratic society selfsame as ours. We really need to keep the river of information flowing, even when we don ' t compatible what we see and hear and study in copy.
The discerning viewer needs to be able to see between what is truth and what is sentiment. They sometimes will confuse the two. In politically oriented talk shows, for example, the host will always tell his audience exactly what he knows they want to explore. There are a number of political take shows on the air lately that equip to either the right or the unattended, depending on their agenda, and the most full supporters on each side are convinced that they are always ' becoming '. This setting is creating a growing polarization in this country which is likley to get worse before it improves. You will either be labeled as being on the outcast or the right, ungrudging or conservative, and either a dismal or a flaming state. How polarizing is this when the the news agencies and political parties insist on putting us all in one of these groups, or the other? There doesn ' t seem to be any other option. And, there should be.
The whole matter of larger polarization in this country can eventually be devastating to us as a society if we don ' t get it below control fairly nowadays. It has become much more evident over the bygone few months with the town auditorium meetings in which local congressmen and senators met with their constituents, often boiling and unzipped, to discuss the health - care reform bill. There were charges and counter - charges from both sides, with each side dare the other side was telling lies. The polemic even reached a low point when a representative from South Carolina even called the president a ' liar ' on the floor of a joint engagement of congress. We should be glad that we live in a society in which we all share in these freedoms that we too often take for ok, but at the same time we should learn not to abuse them, either. The nation deserves better than this, and so do we.
By: Frank Bilotta