Looooooong post

Before I begin I have to say that I have done no research whatsoever with regards to the history of news and journalism, views expressed bellow are of my own personal view of how news are being presented, O.K, now that's out of the way let's begin.

Much like almost everyone else I never found the news to be exciting, on television it was nothing but one or two people speaking monotonously with a video montage while on the papers it was nothing but a bunch of words with some pictures on it, it's no wonder that most people don't like following the news it's boring. It was not until junior high I find myself being drawn to these texts and pictures and not because they changed how it was presented, although it did help make the news more palatable, I was actually drawn to the news, I started to read more newspapers and magazines, particularly 'Time' and 'The Jakarta Post' (local newspapers gave me headaches) when I moved to Singapore to do my O-levels I was almost always the first person in the dormitory to wake up to read the morning papers before it was shredded to pieces by some ignorant kids who had no respect for other people who wants to read the papers. There I expanded my sources, I read the local Strait Times, Newsweek, I even read USA Today, Ok I admit they weren't the best news source bit it gave me different perspectives about the world and particularly about people, right then I had an idea what field of study I wanted to do.

Several years later I sat down in one of my lectures listening to my lecturers explaining about the media control and sociological effect of the media, coming from a place where media were practically state run it didn't come to me as a surprise that propaganda is prominent in ANY country, whether it was state "sponsored" or driven by a bunch of rich old bastards with an agenda. What caught me was the idea of smear campaign, before I became a university student I pretty much took what ever was on the news as fact, with a grain of salt, by the time I finished my 1st year I realized that it was more than just a grain, the salt came in by the truckload, there were so much salt in the news finding facts in the news was like looking for a needle in truckload of salt, there probably was a point where I thought "a cat was rescued by firefighters from a tree" meant something completely different.

Up to this point I've never really seen the notorious Fox news channel only parts of it, then it happened, after a few years my apartment finally had cable, of course the first thing I looked for was the History Channel (I'd be lying if it was a news channel) then I went and looked the news channel, CNN (international) was confirmed and so was BBC, then saw it, Fox new channel, out of morbid curiosity I switched to that channel, lucky for me it was a slow news day it wasn't until a few days later that I was introduced to Sean, Anne and Bill, I watched these three with amusement, the same amusement most people get when they see a freak car accident. All it was was a bunch of angry highly opinionated white people who loves to speak in front of cameras, the scary part was when I found out that the majority of America loved these guys, how did I found out you ask? the simple fact that these people have stayed on air for that long and one of them has published a book that was bought and read by millions. I couldn't go to any of my classes that week due to excessive vomiting.

Then there was the State of the Union Address by none other than the 43rd POTUS. Personally I love hearing the Union address from any president, it's like listening to a person making multiple new years resolution, in fact I think all State of the Union Address needs to be done on the 1st of January. Anyway, it was hilarious seeing how one news channel reported just the major points made by the president and how will it effect the country in the future and the other praising and glorifying every single sentence in the speech, I'd let you decided which channels did what but it was clear that the media no longer reports news objectively.



more on this after I pull more words out of my ass.....