Fox primary: complicated, contractual

This weeks article was about 4 of the possible presidential Republican candidates: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee . The issue that was brought up in the article was the fact that Fow news with the exception of Mitt Romney, have deals with every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office. The contract has all four of the candidates tied in so that they can only be seen on TV through Fox news and no other media outlet. On top of this all four of them are getting paid by Fox news. In my opinion this outrageous!  Not only does it make all four of these candidates look like hero's but also we as voters don't get to see them answer the tough topics that could make or break a voters choice. Also I feel as if it is a monopoly and that Fox news has gone above and beyond of what is right. By having these contracts it makes it tough for journalists and reporters to get the truth about what each of the candidates plan to do if they were in office and also it gives the Republicans a much bigger advantage when election time comes. While the Democratic candidates are facing the big 3 networks and other media outlets and answering all the hard questions, Republicans will be breezing through and be approached with questions that will only make them look like hero's. This quote from the article pretty much sums it up:" Fox opinion hosts typically invite the Republicans simply to offer their views on issues of the day, rather than press them to defend their rhetoric or records as leaders of the party".
    Their contracts also state that they will continue to get paid as long as they haven't declared their candidacy. I find this to be ridiculous because Palin has been setting up her campaign for months now and all Fox is doing is paying for her to have this big run at president all because she hasn't declared yet. I must say it is a very strategic and well thought out plan by the Republicans but this a Democracy and we the people deserve to know what each candidate can bring to the office. Overall this upsets me to see that the Presidential election races can be manipulated so easily by the media. Hopefully, the government will see what is going on and put  a stop to any type of media contracts with possible presidential candidates.

Can Media Regain Public Trust?

This week’s reading brought up the question, Can media regain public trust? This was an interesting question because in the reading both sides of the argument gave pretty good reasons why or why not, but in my opinion I feel that the media has dug themselves a hole they won't be able to get out of and no matter what they do they will always have the reputation of being fake and misleading. Media now-a-days isn't about telling the truth or straight facts, but rather they are more interested in trying to get more viewers and up their ratings. By increasing their ratings and viewers this means that they will earn more money, which is what every media outlet wants, so when it comes to telling the news the media will stretch the truth and even tell lies to make the news sound more interesting. With the media constantly doing this I do not see the public ever trusting the media again because of their poor reputation. Also I don't even think that the media would even plan on changing their ways to regain the public’s trust because if they did they would probably lose a ton of money. Even if the news is untrue people will still rather watch that then watch a boring, but also more factual show. For the media to even have a shot at regaining the public’s trust it would have to do a complete makeover of how they portray the news. Every newscast, magazine, newspaper, and internet website would all have to agree to portray the news in a factual and truthful way so that all fake news would be abolished from existence. After all this I still believe that the media would have a hard time regaining the public’s trust, but after time it might have a slight chance. Hopefully one day the media will change its ways so that they are broadcasting factual and trustworthy news, but only time will tell and to tell you the truth I don't think we will be seeing any change soon.

California Governor's Race 2010

2010 is the year of California's governor race. This year the two main candidates are Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. Jerry Brown is the democratic candidate. He has been the governor of California once before in 1975 and he most recently was the the mayor of Oakland. His opponent is Meg Whitman. Whitman is the Republican candidate for Governor of California. Whitman was Chief Executive Officer and President of eBay from 1998 to 2008, and served on its board of directors. She is the fourth wealthiest woman in the state of California with a net worth of $1.3 billion in 2010, and has spent more of her own money than any other self-funded political candidate ever. There are a number of third party nominee's running for governor, but the chances of them winning are very slim to none. From what I have seen this years Governors race is very tight. It seems each week the the votes of probable voters goes from one side winning back to the other. Also Meg Whitman has had way more commercials than Jerry Brown and the majority of them haven't been promoting her campaign, but rather they are bashing Jerry Brown. Meg Whitman is using the strategy that if she rules the media side of the competition she will get more of the voters attention and use that to her advantage. So far her strategy in my opinion has not been working all that great, but the election is still 2 months away and anything can happen between now and then. With California usually being a liberal state I think Meg Whitman will have a hard time trying to convince voters to vote for her, but at the same time Jerry Brown isn't the most popular among Democrats so it is very possible liberals will give their votes to Whitman. This years Governors race is by far one of the more exciting to watch, and I can't wait till November roles around because I have feeling this race is going to go down to the very last vote.

Will Evolving Forms of Journalism Be an Improvement?

In this weeks issue we were asked the question, "will evolving forms of journalism be an improvement?' After researching, reading, and thinking about it I came to the conclusion that evolving forms of journalism will not be an improvement and it will actually cause more of a mess. For example, now-a-days twitter, blogs, and facebook are all new forms of journalism, but these all are very common ways of misleading and untrue sources of news. A lot of the time people will post things on their websites without actually knowing or having information to back the truth. When this happens people then read or see the false information and will believe it, then pass it on causing problems for the real truth to be discovered or reported by actual news reporters. Also issue 10 asks us to talk about how journalism could be improved. The one big issue that I have with journalism is that because there are so many different forms of it that they never seem to have the same story. I feel that when I turn on the TV to watch the evening news each station has a different view and opinion about the story they're covering, which makes it very difficult for the viewer, me, to follow what is really going on in the world. In some ways evolving forms of journalism has made an improvement, for example, the speed at which we get our information can be amazingly fast. Instead of waiting till we get home to turn on the news or waiting the next day to read it in the newspaper we can get mobile updates straight to our phones and computers. Even though these evolving forms of technology have made our information easier and faster to obtain I would still prefer to wait and get the real story about what is really going on and make sure the journalist and reporters are positive about what they are relaying to the public. Hopefully, journalism will return to its roots and start reporting stories with more precision and accuracy, but with so many different forms of journalism I can only see this problem getting worse.

Fake News

After watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it became obvious that they expected the audience to be familiar with the current events already. Furthermore, if you had not heard about the event before seeing the show, then you would not truly appreciate the humor of the show. In my opinion, Stewart was more dramatic than Colbert, and he seemed to be more dynamic in his presentation. His facial expressions, the intonation in his voice and the theatricality of his movements made the show more interesting. When comparing "fake news" with a typical news broadcast there are a number of differences. For example, when watching the local news broadcast it seems as though the anchors are robots reading off a teleprompter and sitting in a stiff upright position. Stewart and Colbert sit in a similar way during their shows but it is more of a spoof as they are incorporating a bit of improv in their presentations. This is not to say that they have not planned their shows. For example, Colbert's show used the text box in the corner of the screen to add one liners to enhance the jokes. Stewart and Colbert do have very clever shows, and they are talking about real issues, but they have been exaggerated. Should a person be unfamiliar with current events and hear about something on the show for the first time, they may take it too literally. Hopefully this is not the case and people really start to understand current events and follow the truth about the news.

Does Fake News Mislead the Public?

After reading Issue 9 "Does Fake News Mislead the Public" I came to the conclusion that fake news does mislead the public. Both sides of the argument have really good points and reasons why news does or doesn't mislead the public, but after really thinking about my own life situations and how I've seen fake news I would definitely say that I have been mislead and miss informed. Even the real news now a days is fake in some aspect. It's very hard now-a-days to find the real truth especially with shows like The Daily Show giving us our main source of entertainment and news. Younger generations seem to seek out the more entertaining and comedic shows rather than the truthful more insightful shows. As we read in the book less than 20% of youth read the newspaper daily because they seek the more entertaining sources of information such as Jay Leno, David Letterman, or Jon Stewart. All of these shows are somewhat true, but they all seem to stretch the truth and the people who watch this(mostly younger generations) will believe what they say not only because they like the show, but also because it's their only source of news. I know that in my life that most of my news comes from friends and shows similar to The Daily Show. As part of America's youth I honestly don't want to watch old men sit around a table and talk about politics and I am sure there are plenty of people who feel the same way. Our generation is obsessed with humor and what better way to make the news more interesting than to make it a comedy. Also I believe the reason why the public is so mislead by the news is because we think that everything we see or hear on TV must be true just for the simple fact that we do not think TV would lie to us. The sad part about this is that television is all about their ratings and they will do anything to get them higher, even lie. Overall fake news does mislead the public and with the media becoming an even bigger part of today's essential needs I think that even more people will be misinformed and the truth will become a lost cause.

MSNBC vs. FOX NEWS

After watching two different political shows on TV it opened my eyes to a whole new level of politics. One of the shows I watched was the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC and the other show was the Glenn Beck show on FOX news. Both shows were very opinionated and had completely different views on politics. Maddow's show was a liberal based show and she talked about the issue on immigration especially in Arizona. In my opinion she seemed to have a good argument because she backed her opinion with facts and stats that she acquired from the border patrol bureau. I found her show really interesting because she raised some really good points about why the immigration law in Arizona isn't effective and how it ha actually caused more of a mess than do any good. For example, she showed a bar graph that showed illegal immigration is down 20% from the year 2000-2005. She also showed us that some of the Arizona governor's partners were heads of immigration correctional facilities, which means that the Governor not only is trying to pass this law to keep immigrants but is also doing it to keep her partners happy. The other show I watched was the Glenn Beck show on Fox news. Beck's show was much more conservative and was the complete opposite of Maddow in every way possible. Beck was criticizing President Obama for pretty much everything that has gone wrong in the past year. Beck also called Obama a Muslim and was warning us that if Obama wasn't impeached that the US would be heading for some serious trouble. It seemed to me that Beck had some pretty outrageous ideas about politics and I found them to be kind of crazy, but he did have video to try and back his opinion but even then I still wasn't convinced that what he was saying was true. Overall both shows were very informational and I really enjoyed watching both of them. Hopefully one day we can see the two sides of the political spectrum become closer in ideals and see eye to eye about issues going on in the world and US.

Are American Values Shaped by the Mass media?

After reading chapter 1 in our book Taking Sides I found it really interesting how much media is apart of our lives today. The reading made me question myself whether my values have been shaped by mass media and after thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that mass media has curved my values in one way or another. For example, MTV has shows that encourage dating, fashion styles, and partying and I can honestly say that from watching those shows when growing up it made me think that those were the right values to have and that was the way I should live life. James Carey had some good points about why the media doesn't affect our values, but if you think about it the media and technology run our lives. We turn on the TV to see whats going on in the local news and their broadcasts are usually favoring one side over the other, which then causes us to follow the same values as the broadcasts because we trust that the news is always right. Also the computer has completely changed the values of many people. Before cellphones it was unacceptable to answer the phone when talking to someone or eating at the dinner table, but now a days people are texting underneath the table while eating and answering their cell phones whenever they please. The media has completely changed the rules and boundaries of peoples values and I know for a fact it has had a huge impact on me and it will probably still have an impact on me forever.

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