Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news. Discuss this with references to recent events.

Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news. Discuss this with references to recent events.

Mass media is considered the watchdog of democracy. Are they really doing their part to protect democracy? Do they report the news or do they make up the news? Judging from the numerous cases reported by the press, we can see that the media are abusing their rights and withholding the truth.

Take the recent case of the Virgina Tech massacre for instance, it has been more than one week but the press continues to report about it. Reason being, this will boost up their sales since it capture the attention of many. Their reports on this issue caused the society to be more aware, educate them of what is happening around us. But again, is there a need for them to even visit Cho's parents? What is their foremost priority in doing so? I presume that it is used again to boost it's ratings, to cook up more stories with reference to this event. Also, NBC's release of the videos that Cho has taken , shows one thing about them-unethical. they chose not to care about the families of the victims and distribute the videos, photos and manifestos. In order to get the 1st hand news reported, Chicago Sun-Times journalist Michael Sneed among several others, had incorrectly identified a Chinese American and a Chinese national as the suspected shooter. The erroneous report was released to the public twelve hours before the correct identity of the gunman was officially disclosed by the Virginia Tech authorities.


Also, in the case of NKF's dispute, the press have deliberately published the issue weeks after weeks. This caused much unrest and brought the whole nation to have bias views about charitable organizations. Imagine this, there was only a few articles on NKF's director Mr Durai's embezzlement of the funds, will it cause such a great commotion? Will people shun other charitable organization?

All this was due to the press abusing their power, abusing their privilege of freedom of expressions. But again is this their fault? The media reports anything that interests their readers, who do we have to blame if it was we, who encouraged the idea of making up stories?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre#Inaccurate_media_reports
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kidney_Foundation_Singapore_scandal