Reuters admitted that it had engineered the photo of air strikes in Beirut to make the landscape look more devastated.
Now this is news. Till now I used to think that Slimes of India and Aaj Tak were the only ones privy to this cheap method of selling doctored news, but now the granddaddy of all news agencies surfaces with the sheepish grin, "well I hate to admit it, but I too do it"
Things like these have made me shun all news channels alike. God knows what fairy tales they might want to feed me.
Someone I know almost always says "we're living in the world of information. It is the information revolution." and gets so ecstatic about it, almost poignant. What use is all the information, if it is not true? What if it has been all dressed up and spiced to make it look good?
I used to think that the media has a social responsibility to show to the people what is happening around them. My civics teacher used to teach us about the pivotal role that media plays in a democracy. And when I used to read about the socialist governments and how they had a propaganda department so that they told people only what they wanted to. I used to think that in my country the media is free, it can show anything. Only now I realize it is also a propaganda driven agency, only the content is not dictated by the government but by capitalist forces. They show what sells, and not what should sell.
The media has evolved,it too has realized the strength of market forces, and now it bows to them.
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Well it's good now that you are disillusioned about the role of the media. You might be interested in knowing more about it .. you can look up for Lippmann's work on Public Opinion.. or read up on Chomsky's views on the media. All forms of media-print or broadcast earn not through revenues earned by circulation or viwership .. they all thrive on advertising revenues. So they dont want to upset their sponsors in any way.. News or even other programs are made for the lowest common denominator.. So ofcourse you'll have dumbing down of content, yellow journalism and a lot of other filters.
All this just makes you cynical in the end!
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