Is it time to give our mainstream media the flick?
I have largely ignored mainstream news for a while apart from watching about 20 mins of Sunrise on the TV when I wake up in the morning - mainly to provide me with some background noise whilst I get ready (and to hear the codeword for the Cashcow that I hope to win someday ;p).
Over lunch this week with some of my workmates (we can have some very interesting points of view and discussion over lunch at work), we were talking about the whole fracas around 60 minutes and the Lebanon kidnapping and touched a bit on the poor baby girl who was killed by her mother in Victoria a few weeks ago.
What is evident is that the news that we hear doesn't necessarily tell us the entire story - it is spun in a way which creates fear or some other emotional reaction - all for the sake of raising the viewership which leads to more money as advertisers flock to those stations to cut an advertising deal. The other thing that is evident is the amazing fact that people are happy to just 'soak' in the information without questioning the blaring obvious (and this is why, whenever I remember, I tune into The Project because these guys talk about the elephant in the room).
For example, the 60 minutes fracas - I can't even believe the audacity of 60 minutes to even THINK about attempting to do something like that. If something like that were to happen in Australia, what do you think our general reaction would be? Pretty much what the reaction was in Lebanon. Have we heard the father's side of the story? Do we really know the reasons why the mother agreed to do this? What were the circumstances surrounding the father getting full custody? Quite frankly, our legal system places a large emphasis on the bests interests of the children when it comes to custody... so what were the reasons for the court to actually give the father full custody?
The other thing that erks me is this ridiculous emphasis of mainstream news to focus on social media and stupid things like "the best pose to make a selfie", interviewing pre-teens and teens about why they're so famous because they've documented their entire lives on Youtube, baby panda bears rolling around because they're oh so cute, etc. Is this really what our society has come down to? Concentrating on things that either bring fear to society without actually doing anything to stop it? Not providing us with the full picture? I actually find it hilarious that we place so much emphasis on the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and how ridiculous that sounds but fail to look in their own backyard - over the past few years I think we've been through at least 4 different prime ministers. Whatever happened to democracy? Even if the person we had voted for became the prime minister, it's not guaranteed that they would stay because their party would move to chop them down as soon as the polls show otherwise. And guess who's in charge of the polls? The media.
Perhaps it's time for us to give less emphasis to the one-sided nature to the stories that we are being fed and to investigate it a bit further. That way, we'd find our own truth.. and then be able to act on it.
Over lunch this week with some of my workmates (we can have some very interesting points of view and discussion over lunch at work), we were talking about the whole fracas around 60 minutes and the Lebanon kidnapping and touched a bit on the poor baby girl who was killed by her mother in Victoria a few weeks ago.
What is evident is that the news that we hear doesn't necessarily tell us the entire story - it is spun in a way which creates fear or some other emotional reaction - all for the sake of raising the viewership which leads to more money as advertisers flock to those stations to cut an advertising deal. The other thing that is evident is the amazing fact that people are happy to just 'soak' in the information without questioning the blaring obvious (and this is why, whenever I remember, I tune into The Project because these guys talk about the elephant in the room).
For example, the 60 minutes fracas - I can't even believe the audacity of 60 minutes to even THINK about attempting to do something like that. If something like that were to happen in Australia, what do you think our general reaction would be? Pretty much what the reaction was in Lebanon. Have we heard the father's side of the story? Do we really know the reasons why the mother agreed to do this? What were the circumstances surrounding the father getting full custody? Quite frankly, our legal system places a large emphasis on the bests interests of the children when it comes to custody... so what were the reasons for the court to actually give the father full custody?
The other thing that erks me is this ridiculous emphasis of mainstream news to focus on social media and stupid things like "the best pose to make a selfie", interviewing pre-teens and teens about why they're so famous because they've documented their entire lives on Youtube, baby panda bears rolling around because they're oh so cute, etc. Is this really what our society has come down to? Concentrating on things that either bring fear to society without actually doing anything to stop it? Not providing us with the full picture? I actually find it hilarious that we place so much emphasis on the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and how ridiculous that sounds but fail to look in their own backyard - over the past few years I think we've been through at least 4 different prime ministers. Whatever happened to democracy? Even if the person we had voted for became the prime minister, it's not guaranteed that they would stay because their party would move to chop them down as soon as the polls show otherwise. And guess who's in charge of the polls? The media.
Perhaps it's time for us to give less emphasis to the one-sided nature to the stories that we are being fed and to investigate it a bit further. That way, we'd find our own truth.. and then be able to act on it.