Political News
Political news covered by the mainstream media does not give comprehensive information surrounding the political issues of today. The mainstream media’s political news offer only superficial information on the political issues of the day. The political news covered on television infamously uses a sound bite of an important political speech and pass it as the “best political news on television.” Ok, so I’m being a bit harsh. To television’s credit, the political news covered by that form of media is geared to a people on-the-go. But an intellectually curious individual will not be satiated by the sparse coverage of political news stories covered by television. Let’s be real, gratification is not always instant. The classic “who?”, “when?”, “where?”,” why?” of journalism are maintained in political news covering the political issues of the present. However, the most important question regarding all journalism seems to be neglected on television; that question is “how?” How is such an important question journalists must ask themselves, especially on stories that are covering a salient political issue. “How” explains the origins of all events; it puts things into context. Context is something that television cannot give its viewers, and in understanding politics; context is everything. This could explain why so many Americans are turned off by politics.
Newspapers offer a good source of political news coverage. Newspapers comprehensively cover political issues in a thorough and in-depth manner. However, the state of newspapers has long been on the decline since other forms of media are becoming popular sources of news and entertainment. First readers observed, a decline in the length of a political news article, then increased frequencies of advertisements appearing on the pages, and finally many reporters were laid off because revenues from readership and advertisements could not cover the expenses of staffing a large scale newspapers. Nationwide newspapers are going out of business and raising their prices. For example, a weekday issue of the New York Times is now $2.00. The decline of the quality of political news coverage is inherently an important political issue because the press is the only industry that is protected in the constitution.
A well-informed citizenry is essential to the health of a democracy. All journalism has its own political biases, but the political news on television emphasizes that bias with anchors that use sidebar commentary and sarcasm to editorialize the political issues in the news. Also 24 hour television news networks contribute the to the serious political issue of division and lack of civilized debate by catering their coverage of political news according to their political ideology. Everyone knows that CNN is the democrat network and Fox News Channel is the network geared towards republican viewers. Both networks make claims of their impartial coverage of political news but the biases are as clear as day. The airwaves of political talk radio have a similar effect. There is no forum of an ideologically integrated discussion of political issues on the news.
The internet is an excellent source of political news. However, purists believe that journalism should be a professionalized job with an editorial process and some production value. Many websites have this quality but blogs are something that all readers should take with a grain of salt. The political issues and news discussed in blogs give everyone a feel of what the political climate is like in an instant but since many bloggers lack the training in journalism, they may be less mindful of the biases in their work. Also, because there are so many bloggers out there, there is then more potential for untrue statements to be said. The internet shows the most promise in the future of how we understand political issues and news. It is by far the most democratic but as Thomas Jefferson most famously said “democracy is nothing more than mob rule;” so think critically and use the internet as a supplement to what the television and radio say.
