Friday, October 23, 2009

The News is no Better than the Tabloids

Is it the New York Times, or should it be called the new world stories? The New York Times has undoubtedly become a mainstay for the social intake of news in the world today, especially in the U.S. It is very easy to see that The NY Times has influenced many Americans in how they view the news.

Take this class for example. We are given to read The NY Times every day. Why? To make us more socially and politically active? Maybe. However, I cannot see where reading a news story about how a little boy supposedly was trapped in a flying saucer shaped balloon that could not have carried him in the first place has anything to do with the good of the people.

So, then, we ask ourselves why exactly we are being given such an unimportant subject to read. There is a simple solution. We are given such things to read because those are the kinds of things that we like to read. The newspaper would not make any money if it did not have advertising. Advertisers look for a popular news site that offers its viewers what they like to see. So, therefore we see the unimportant because we like to see the unimportant.

As I have said in past posts, newspapers are very similar to tabloids, in that you read the tabloids for a certain subject: gossip. Now, we have begun to read our newspapers with the same idea in mind. We want to read that which is entertaining.

So, how do I think I have changed? Well, I still view the newspaper as a factual subsidy for news, but now I also see it as another entertainment website, made for the pleasure of its viewers.

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