Should minority groups be allowed to control an entity such as the mass media, or should the media's representation reflect the majority of the population?

The media should (and always has) reflected the opinion of the owners.

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Blade: "more educated and literate people than Justabubba"

Justabubba: "that would include everyone"

http://politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=27847

Mass media is for mostly entertainment. The news does not encompass everything, they select a few things and talk about i for endless hours....News in the US gets very boring because they talk about the same thing. News from BBC and alJeezera are alot better because they encompass more news around the world.

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The Asian Economist Network Post your opinion so the world can see!

I thought the news was supposed to be unbiased and objective, ie, the truth

And who determines what is "bias", "objective" and most difficult, "truth"?

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Man up.

Reality.

There are only two states of being, true and false. Reality is the state of being true.

The media is supposed to be based on the principles of journalism which is characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.


Our media is no longer legitimate upholding the principles of journalism, because it is subjectively promote collectivism. It is nothing more than a propaganda machine, for it collectivist's (corporate) interests.

I would say that is all it is.

Because it has become the Ronald Mc Donald of News.


The internet is the real News media.

Hmm. No gray in your world, huh? No opinion, differing value judgments, or anything like that?

For instance, I could be totally objective and file a report saying "9 people were killed in Iraq today."

But that's not the most useful report, because it completely lacks context. Wouldn't it be helpful to provide some details on *why* they died? Or who killed them? Or how many other people have died? Or what they're fighting for?

But that of course means discussing Iraq policy, which takes us far beyond the realm of anything that can be determined to be objectively true or false. Is Iraq an imperialistic adventure? An economic war waged for oil? A noble attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East? A mistake? It depends upon whom you ask, and their value system.

The problem can be as simple as this: how do you describe the people we're fighting in Iraq? Are they freedom fighters? Terrorists? Native insurgents? Foreign mercenaries? Where's the "truth" there?

Or ask any two economists what the state of the economy is. You'll get two different answers. Where's the "truth"?

When the media reports the latest unemployment rate, should they mention the various caveats, criticisms and defenses of how that rate is calculated? If they do, they have to grapple with the fact that not every criticism is equally important or equally valid. So choosing when, which and how to mention them requires judgment and thus bias on the reporter's part.

And if they choose not to mention the caveats, that, too, could suggest bias.

The media shouldn't be telling you what to think. And objectivity remains the ideal for the profession. But it's very, very hard to be totally objective unless you're simply reciting statistics -- and even statistics can lie.

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Man up.

Okay. Here's an exercise. Rewrite this story so it's totally objective and true:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080204/...wh/bush_budget

Or if that's too long, try this one:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080204/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Good luck.

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Man up.