Why does the media censor it's stories?

Question

We all know that the media is biased and only reports stories that are ratings getters and those that reflects the station managers views? Why do they only tell one side of the story and not all sides? Why do they report only negaitive stories and not positive ones? Why does one story gets more attention than one very similar to it? Is there anything we as the public can do to ensure that we are getting all sides of the story? What can we do to get all sides of the story?

Answer 1

We can get a little crazy about seeing all sides of a story. If one side is supported by an overwhelming part of the population and the only other side is represented by fringe loonies, I only need to hear the rational side.
For example, water fluoridation is supported by the CDC, all the dental societies, the leading credentialed scientists, and most voters given an educated choice. Yet, we keep hearing total bilge against fluoridation from hippies with a general distrust of anything they can not smoke. But, they do scare people good.

Answer 2

To get all sides of a story, you had better read more than one newspaper and listen to more than one television station.. For instance, there are Republican newspapers that lean toward the Republican side of any issue, and there are Democratic papers that do the same thing. This also holds true for television stations, with Fox News presenting the Republican views...and CNN and other stations leaning toward the liberal view.

Newspapers and television stations are kept alive by their advertisers and their readers. The more readers, the more advertisers. Naturally, they try to publish stories and articles their readers will like, but in most news stories, reporters try to be as truthful as they can.

What you call "negative stories" make up the daily news. If you have an uneventful day and you find out a man was killed by an ax murderer, should you print or air that it is an uneventful day and the Garden Club met as usual? Naturally, you're going to go after the ax murderer story and, if it isn't in the paper or on the news, people would complain.

Both newspapers and television are accused of presenting only "frivolous news," like the Paris Hilton story. But remember, they print or air what people watch or read. If you didn't watch it or read it, it would never reach the news.

Part of the problem these days is that there is so little news of the war available to the media. Reporters huddle in the "Green Zone", or are embedded with troops. So, a list of daily deaths and bombings seems to be the limit of what we hear on our media. It makes one yearn for the old days, when reporters like Ernie Pyle reported every facet of WW11, or the younger years of CNN when they reported Desert Storm so well that the American public watched every facet of that conflict.

Answer 3

Let's review here. Take it from someone in the business -- there are far fewer opportunities to put bias in the news than you might think. Mostly the stories are simply no-brainers, reports on what happened. There is very little interpretation involved; it's just a matter of collecting information.

Are media outlets in the business to make money? Absolutely. Is every story a ratings-grabber. Absolutely not. How much reporting takes place about government? Lots. It is accompanied by a lot of yawning by the public, but it is still necessary.

There are tons of positive stories out there. Look through the newspaper, and you'll find a bunch of them. Now, it's the nature of the beast that one person dying on the highway is more newsworthy than 200,000 making it home safely. Or one plane crashing than 800 landing safely at the airport. News indicates a break from the normal, and often that's bad. But it's often good.

So read from as many sources as you can, and make good decisions.

Answer 4

The 'media' isn't just one monolithic thing, it's almost infinite in what 'it' covers. HOWEVER, if you take 'mainstream' media, that which provides 'news' to the largest number of people, then yes, it is quite biased, biased in favor of generating as much advertising revenue as possible.

If you want all sides of the story, you have to look beyond CNN, FOX 'news' and the broadcast networks. There are countless newspapers, magazines and books you can read, not even to mention internet. There is no shortage of information, but if you look no farther than FOX or CNN, you'll find little beyond the celebrity gossip of the day and sports scores.

Answer 5

buy "2" TV sets... set one on CNN and the other on FOX
(see what happens)... you'll be amazed.........