Journalist

The Role of the News in Perpetuating Racial and Cultural Stereotypes

The news is usually considered the most reality-based programming on television. People tune into the news to learn about the current events and stay on top of global occurrences. Inherent in this dynamic is trust. Viewers trust newscasters and journalists to portray reality in a truthful way. The reality, however, is that newscasters are storytellers and stories can be told in many different ways.

The Newscaster as the Storyteller

The perpetuation of racial and cultural stereotypes is often carried out unconsciously. A newscaster or journalist who interviews people after a traumatic event or during a newsworthy activity will portray reality through his or her own view. Along with this reality is that no human being is without prejudices or weaknesses. The journalist is no different. The questions asked and interpretations of situations will be directly related to how that journalist was brought up and his or her own personal beliefs about people as a whole.

Stereotypical Images in the News

Stereotypical images on television often present a minority racial group as perpetrators of crime, women as helpless creatures and particular cultures as being backwards or possessing undesirable traits such as being smelly or uncivilized. These images are often selected subconsciously beginning as fundamental beliefs on the parts of journalists who haven’t yet taken the opportunity to challenge their own ways of seeing the world.

Challenging Stereotypes

As humanity grows and transforms, individuals will be forced to challenge their personal beliefs about the inferiority of particular societal groups. Only as this process occurs will the television news also reflect this change and represent the true potential of each individual and group.

Filed Under: General, News Tagged With: Journalist, Stereotype, Television

Can You Believe All That You Hear In The News?

Believing all that you hear in the news is something only naïve people do these days. There was a time when all the news that was on the newspaper and also on the television was true and real. These days, there are many more false news items and paid news items that are seen on television and read on newspapers.

So the answer that one will say to the question if all that is read on papers are true, will be a emphatic No.

There are many instances where the news has been false. The people who gather the news these days are mainly low paid journalists. Those who are paid a huge amount of money are covering the major events that have national importance. These people are the true journalists who are not influenced by the other people and give the true information to readers and viewers. The low paid journalists on the other hand, will provide news that they are influenced to present. They are paid money for these advertisements that pass on as news.

This has increased in the recent times, especially during times of elections. This kind of news has started unduly influencing certain sections of the society against another political party. As there are many people inserting such news items in the newspapers, it has caused people to not be able to differentiate the various true news items and the paid news.
So, any person who hears the news cannot believe all that is said or read in the news items. Since the paid news items are causing a lot of problems to the society, the newspaper associations and the many media houses are trying to prevent such paid news.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Advertorial, Journalist, Newspaper

Paid News And Its Role In Society

Paid news is one of the banes of society. This is because many of the people still do not know if news is paid news or not. There are many television channels and newspapers that are using this kind of paid news to increase the revenue that they get. The paid news that is common these days in many parts of the world have made people to stop believing in the news that they watch on television.

Other than the paid news, there are also news channels on television that are being sponsored by politicians and political patients. This has made the people to not know the difference between the real news and the news that have been told by the political parties to be broadcast. All these kinds of things happening in the news channels have made the people to search for other modes of news like newspaper, magazines, leaving television news aside.

The internet has replaced the television and even the newspaper to a large extent. This is because of the fact that the news that is seen on television and read on newspapers are not interesting as they seem to be biased. The news on most of the websites are not biased because they are directly posted by eyewitnesses in most of the situations.

The role of news channels and paid news is sure to make a mockery of the journalists in the future too. This has caused some of the reputed channels also to suffer. The people who watch or read the news are very careful these days as they do not want to be taken for a ride by the so called journalists. So journalists have to be carefull in delivering their statement infront of public. Cleaning up the bad elements in journalist circles will help overcome this problem.

Filed Under: Entertainment, News Tagged With: Advertorial, Journalist, Media, Palagummi Sainath, Press Council of India, Television channel