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Media Bias Printable Version PRINTABLE VERSION
by Helen, Canada Oct 4, 2003
Citizen Journalism   Opinions

  

Do you believe the news you hear from TV or read from newspaper? If you do, that’s a pretty bad idea. That’s because the media can lie, just like us. If this happens, it is called bias. Bias changed the face of the media, as they now start to make up some part of their stories to be against and to use youth. It doesn’t matter what the media do, we still have the right to know both sides of the story. The media sometimes doesn’t give the true information, sometimes they’re against youth, and they also give out bad information. Thus, the media invades the right of us knowing the whole truth.

First, the media sometimes doesn’t tell the whole truth. If they keep on doing this, nobody will believe them anymore. When the media tell lies, they have to have victims that the lie is based on, think about the victims, how do they feel when they hear the news? A lot of the time, they added extra details to their story to make it more interesting, so people would look at their news. Besides, where did they get the information anyway? How do we know it’s the truth? Let’s take the weight-loosing advertisement on the twentieth edition of Metro Today on Thursday, November 7th, 2002 as an example: “Tired of battling unwanted bulges? Dr. Milleton can permanently remove unwanted fat deposits from the stomach, hips, thighs, knees, chin, male chest, and love handles. Performed in the clinic as an out-patient procedure, patients frequently return to work in a matter of days.” From this ad, we can’t see what the side effect on the patients is. For example, the patient may have scars permanently from this liposuction, or maybe infections and any potential during the operation, and the patient may become more ugly due to the operation failure. This proves that this advertisement is not 100% true, containing some bias.

But why don’t they tell both positive and negative sides? The reason is if they tell the truth, people won’t believe them anymore and buy their products. Then people will be concerned about the side effects and other dangerous damages. Even though these damages and side effects are rare to happen, but nobody wants to risk their life.

The media is telling the truth, in a way that adds some more information and deletes some truth. If you had an article and deleted some things you don’t want and added things that are more interesting, is it the truth? Well, it’s the truth, but not the whole truth and with some information. So, can you judge if the media is telling the truth? Maybe, just maybe.

As youth, we feel it is difficult to give our opinion to the media. The media is always pushing us down because of our age. They hardly take any of our opinions. If the media really care about us and listen to us, why do 85% of cartoons still contain violence? This was pointed out in the 80s. The media is telling others that youth are troublemakers, but nobody ever thought how did we became troublemakers. If the shows that we watch everyday have violence, what else do they think that we are going to learn from them? The media also say youth have no interests and understand nothing. That’s why our voices cannot get out because they never listen to us. Also, they use kids to sell products. The media hypnotizes kids with jingles and dream-like commercials to let kids beg their parents to buy their products.

Everybody has the right to know truth of something. They shouldn’t be reading part of the truth with some added detail. But the media had destroyed that right of us knowing the whole truth. The media also tell the wrong information by giving bad images to kids. Everybody used their money to buy TV, newspapers and magazines. We paid money for these media sources, so we have the right to know the truth. Also the media should be like a mirror, only reflect the whole process of the story without adding or deleting any parts.

On the other hand, most of the media is trying to tell people the truth, tell people exactly what happened. And the media is best way to get news and information, as most of them is very important. Media is the only way to hear some news. A lot of people depend on it either as a job or a source of reporters. Lots of people use the media to search for information for projects, homework, or even business. Media is very important to our everyday life.

Although there are a lot of media that cannot tell people 100% truth, I believe most of them are trying their best to report the event fairly, timely and truthfully. There are more and more laws and regulations protect people from cheating. Youth and teenagers should be treated as the same as adult; youth also have their own right to learn the truth and should be protected. I hope to see more accurate, detailed information in the future media resources.





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Comments


cool
Grace | Jan 20th, 2004
this articles uses very effective phrases and is very informing to the audieces of media.

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