BF2S Forums Is the news shocking to you?

I am from Germany, and it is the very same over here, too. I remember in earlier times, you didn't see any dead bodies in the news -- nowadays you do, and it's really shocking. You see amateur movies which came right up from hell, it seems, like for example the Tsunami videos or stuff like that where you can see all the destruction and all the dead bodies...

And why? Money. Money from audience ratings (is that the right English word for "Einschaltquoten"?), ads and so on. It's really depressing to see people getting money out of other people's suffering.

But in the end it's a simple rule: if you don't want to see it, then don't watch it. If the news is going to depress me, I will switch over to another channel.

I know, the news is horrible these days. I mean, I can't even wastch Survivor without getting a Newsflash on the commercial break that is terrible. Heck, last Thursday was a newsflash that an 18 month old got run over in a parking lot. That really sucks.

The downfall of the news media is when they went to a Rating system. News became dramatic and holding the attention of the view became all important for ratings. Take away the need of rating and you go back to normal and accurate news... maybe.

Sarum wrote:

I was actually mentioning this to my mum the other day. The guy on the news, as they usually do, said "be warned, this report contains distrubing images" or something like that. My comment to my Mum was that what was really disturbing was how un-disturbing I found the pictures of bloodied dead bodies in piles by the side of the road.

Day in day out we read about it, look at pictures of it, watch it on TV. In an effort to prove the significance of events (for I'm not quite so cynical as to believe it's simply about ratings - for some journalists/networks it will be, but others feel a genuine desire to show us the reality, and significance of, events around the world.) they simply desensitise us to it.

Which is part of another problem. We see killing and bloody bodies and horrible things like that so much that we get used to it. Which makes murdering someone seem like not such a big deal and more people will do it.

Media (newspapers, magazines, TV news, BBC, CNN, etc...) in general and around the globe is making readers and viewers lose that sensibility towards others suffering. No doubt that in many countries you will see a bloddy corpse with guts wide open in the front cover of a recognized newspaper. I think that most of the time it is to make a quick buck or to make themselfs famous. Yet sometimes media has also played a very important role in transmitting people's suffering, how else would we know of massacres, or how certain governements treat the citizens?. For those of you who read, I reccomend a book "The Rape of Nanking", or for those of you who would preffer a movie, watch Hotel Rwanda, or Schindler's List.

Media has the power to change a vote, or to put someone in trial, or have the population absolve a mass murderer. That is why you may have legislative, judicial, and executive powers but you also have the press as a 4th state power.

In conclusion, media is an instrument, and it is really up to the people in charge of that instrument to portray to the world what they see through their lenses. When they cross the line into the obsene it is up to a government agency to control them. Even dead people have dignity. And above all these dark at heart should never hide behind Free Speach Acts, for they will bring down with them those who want to make a change.

Last edited by jag1973 (2005-10-12 10:55:53)

Actually I would have to disagree with you Kilroy. While media does have an enourmous impact on popular opinion, it does not have any control over the the document by which it safely operates. And I would have to say that persons who have the ability to change the definitive of "Law of the Land" have a far greater impact on our lives.
Media does effect the present state of your thought and as a result can seem to be a greater influencing force due to the emotive state that is provoked, and it has most definitely been the catalyst  of action but your life and your day to day behaviour is defined by the statutes enacted by politicians.
And the ethical question that media really needs to address is that of its role as a population control. Its all well and good to report the passage of a law that continues the erosion of our civil liberties, but what about all the negative stories of death, destruction, social threat that preceded the inception of that very same law and promulgated its necessity in the social psyche?
We are a Democracy in that we elect our representatives, but we are still a populace, a mass of persons can become a mob very quickly, and our representatives realize that a common social ideal of normal behaviour and consequence based modifiers to enforce that ideal is necessary to maintain social fabric, And media aids this with the constant projection of stories that provoke a fear response, a constant yet subtle reminder of what happens when the norms of behaviour are cast aside.
It is this ethic of that role which is being ignored. The concept of basic human decency and that the majority of us all actually are capable of, and commit daily, acts of kindness, tolerance, genorosity and compassion by choice and desire , and not by statute, seems to have been misplaced. But that doesnt sell I guesss....and anxiety does.

Seems like everywhere is going from bad to worst. From where i grew up, rapes, murders, robberies, etc were hardly around and calmost non-existent. A decade later, all hell boke loose and my small town even made it to the national news for a brutal slaying of a toddler and a case how police bullet-ridded a house full of goldsmith robbers with MP5s. What going on ????

As a TV viewer in my personal time and an employee of a TV station I find that I get to the point of saturation very quickly regarding news and newscasts. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they sensationalize everything, they also have to repeat it to death and come up with new ways to scare people into watching. Ratings are king – and as the news department slogan goes, “If it bleeds, it leads”.

Every week a new drama; Avian Flu, asteroids crashing into Earth, toothpaste causes cancer, hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, serial killers, and the list goes on. (Add your favorite.) It is just depressing if you think about it all the time. If the worlds going to end, why quit smoking!? Why do anything?

It’s no wonder that video games and other pop culture mediums reflect so much violence – its all around us, we can relate to it. It desensitizes us to the growing trend of it. 

I think it’s important for us to have the facts about world events in a timely manner, but I do not find the embellishment that the television medium includes with it to be an admirable way to achieve their goals at the expense of the viewers trust.

News sh0x my r0x.

I might hear of a murder once every 3 weeks.
Go AUSTRALIA!

i care a great deal about animals and spend almost all my free time fighting animal cruelty.
just a few days ago i saw a documentary about pittbuls and how 'dangerous' they are. the documentary clearly had its own few on the matter and was not objective at all.
they showed a clip of a pitbull hanging on a mans arm and refused to let go,while blood was flowing richly.
the dog was shot and u could see it all happen,he got 2 or 3 bullets and his muscles were cramping a few seconds before he actually died.
later on when i searched on the internet about this documentary i discoverd the dog was beaten and was fed drugs and thats why he was so aggresive,but off course they dont tell that and only show the dog in a horrible fashion.
the way humans treat animals always disturbs me more then anything.
the news is used in a manner where they want us to think a certain way and manipulate a movie like this.
where it was the man his own fault the dog attacked him.
i dont trust the media on this and something like CNN is a joke to me.
they come across to me like they want to force their own opinion on people and use random videos in a way to prove their point.

here in holland adds and commercials are getting heavier as well.
people see horrible things way to often and learn how to not care about those things.
so you have to make more shocking points to come across now a days.

we don't have fox in holland.
i usually just read different pages on the net and then try to make my own conclusion.

i like to think some of our news broadcasts are objective but that's probably an illusion too.
you just simply can't know what's the truth or not