Lost in Transmission, Research Paper Example

The media doesn’t give us the real story

Media is one of the most powerful institutions in a society as it informs and shapes public opinion. Thomas Jefferson had said that he was willing to live in a country with a free press and no government, but not the other way round. “The only security of all is in a free press,” he wrote. “It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” It was true to a large extent. While most Americans rely on media for the latest news and reports on world and domestic affairs, a research conducted by Cronkite School of Journalism, has found out that near 67 percent of Americans do not rely on the authenticity of the media.

The role of media was supposedly noble and honest, making our life broader and free. However, it suffered miserably at the hands of the societal and political malice of greedy, elite politicians and business groups. Their vested interests and internal agenda transformed the sanctity of media into one, purged with malice, ridicule, deception, lies, bias, contravention and false impendence; ethically coagulating it into a villain with vice. Think of the media stance on the Iraq Issue, the Vietnam War, and for that matter Holocaust – all pointing to the disfiguration of facts and manifesting that media is merely a spokesperson of the political throne. This study will thus, examine the media role in light of the novel “The Giver” and how the media doesn’t give us the real story.

Media is a ‘parrot’ to the ruling government – its hands tightly tied in the relegation and the red tap process of the system. Strange enough, the press job in this country is protected by the US constitution, because our founding fathers had the notion that press would be there to protect people. But things have turned just the opposite. Press has become fabricated with vicious lies and glamorization of true facts. It leaves a false impression on people and in the process ethically cheat the nation of true information. The dissemination and proliferation in the mainstream news- for example creating titillations in the montage in the minds of the audience, “The Truth being exposed”, continuing to “the story is yet to come” and soon the end- the audience waits anxiously to know the truth, bearing the innumerable short advertisement capsules, only to find that there was nothing precise. At the end they feel cheated and realize the hoax.

The media, a strictly commercial organization, motivated strictly by monetary interests, reaping costs and profits from advertisements and loyalty from various sources. Since their earnings are advertisement oriented, their entire focus is regulating TRP’s. The simple truth and facts needs to be glorified, superimposed and made to look bizarre for pulling maximum viewership. In the process journalist excel with bosses giving more air time or a front-page slot. The false story, whether justified or not, will get higher TRP’s ratings result in higher sell of papers, rightly said that, “If it bleeds, it leads.” A journalist describes his role as, “The business of a journalist now is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon and sell himself for his daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes, we are jumping jacks. They pull the strings; we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes” (Media Monitors)

The case of the Iraq issue is one of the prominent of examples of how media never tells the truth. On the day of May 1, Bush reached the aircraft of USS Lincoln carrier and delivered an inspirational speech in front of a huge “Mission Accomplished” banner. His efforts were hailed by the media a “breathtaking” and he was explicitly declared as the embodiment of presidential leadership in toppling Saddam Hussein. Media lost in the illusion to capitalize on the heroism of George Bush, ignoring the failure of Bush to contravene and locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. American warfare, technology and heroic deeds bolstered the cover page news, giving negligible attention to the real situation in Iraq. All were triumphant about the White House’s claim that the war was won. NPR’s Bob Edwards said, “The war in Iraq is finally over;” and Fortune magazine’s Jeff Birnbaum said, “It is astonishing how complete the victory in Iraq really was in terms of the broadest context” (Moyers).

How could the press get it so wrong? Why did they turn a deaf ear to the lack of  evidence regarding the dispute of the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between 9-11 and Saddam Hussein continue to go largely unreported? “The conservative media fathomed the situation; media had performed an inevitable part of cheerleaders for the White House from the very beginning and were simply continuing to show their support behind the President — no questions whatsoever. It was indeed impromptus to see how the mainstream journalists suspended scrutiny and skepticism remains an issue of importance that the media has not satisfactorily explored,” says Moyers. “How the administration marketed the war to the

American people, and has well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?”

In “Buying the War” producer Kathleen Hughes and Bill Moyers document the reporting of Landay, Walcott, Strobel and the Knight Ridder team that dug deep into the intelligence agencies to try and apprehend the evidence on which the Bush Administration fought the war. Walcott said that many of the information about Iraq didn’t make much sense and that puts forward questions about the authenticity of Bush’s claims about the Iraq war. Journalist Bob Simon of 60 MINUTES, who reported directly from Middle East, questioned the media’s limited and bias role and said that it was absolutely absurd to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. He says that Saddam may have been fanatic and obsessed freak but it could in no way establish that he was connected to the terrorist organization like Al Qaeda. The program analyzes the piles of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors – only to point that all the claims of Bush and his bravery would eventually prove to be deceptive and false, all went past the scorching eye of the media virtually unchallenged (Moyer)

The New York Times reported on Iraq’s “worldwide hunt for the materials to make an atomic bomb,” but according to Landay, the claims put forward by the administration about the possibility of finding evidence of presence of nuclear weapons were highly questionable. Yet, his version of the “lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons” got little attention. In fact, throughout the media, stories were circulated challenging the lack of evidence while giving precedence to the claims of the administration. “Buying the War” examines the press coverage that is pungent, selfish and biased in its portrayal of both sides of the war. It shows how the media relents to a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy and puts forward the pertinent question after four years of the invasion, what has changed? It seems that more and more of the media has gone deep down in the shallow waters of falsely advocating the policies and decisions of the government.  They assumed the role of pimps, common carriers of administration statements.

With the publication of ”The Giver” in 1993, which earned Lois Lowry a second Newbery Award, it was acclaimed almost immediately, and went to become one of the best sellers in juvenile novels during 1990, though it was banned as it endangered controversy in some conservative communities. The Giver uses the discursive space of dystopia, and begins in an imagined world intended to be much worse than the one in which the reader was living.  Twelve year-old Jonas was the protagonist of story who lives in a sedate and small community, carved in a future society where his life was governed by rigid rituals, rules, and surveillance. Here the adults bicycle off to do their jobs before returning to their homes to eat the prepared meal. In Jonas’s world, there is no art or visual or aural culture. Citizens have no access to books. There are, apparently, no telephones, newspapers, televisions, computers or other electronic media devices in the home. Contact with nearby communities is very limited and with the larger world unknown. Constant surveillance and the medical suppression of adolescent ‘Stirrings’ discourage inquisitiveness and exploration. History is not taught in schools. The stability and static nature of Sameness–a complex, centuries old system of genetic, social and geographical homogeneity that governs Jonas’s society and which inhibits the ability to see colors, forbids monetary currency and distinctions based on wealth, and controls the weather–depends upon a contented populace who ask few questions and perceive little need for change. To this end, the community established the position of Receiver of Memory, (the position for which Jonas is selected and which drives the plot of the novel), where one individual is responsible for holding all memories of the past so that others can live unburdened by the pain, knowledge and guilt of human history (Levy 53-54).

The Giver creates a utopian society where media was absent. This society was stagnant and placid; staying where it was beyond the inexplicable boundaries of human contentment and communication. Their doors and windows were shut from the outside world and freedom of expression was highly curtailed. Without, media presence, the community looked like a notched up close hub, very personal and compact. There was no scope for improvement or enhancement of knowledge and resembled more of an authoritarian society with rigid rules. The presence of media is of substantial importance to the society and to the individual as it proliferates and advocates the rights and expression in a democratic society. And it is on us, to protect the authenticity of media by obliging to the rule of the day and not letting it get victimized to the political or social domination. Thus, we have to imbibe the positive spirit of creating news that is true and unbiased.

References

PBS, Bill Moyer’s Journal, Last Retrieved on May 22, 2010 from http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

Levy, Michael M. “Lois Lowry’s the Giver. Interrupted Bildungsroman or Ambiguous Dystopia?” Foundation 70 (Summer 1997): 50-57.

Lowry, Lois. The Giver, New York: Bantam, 1993.

Media Monitors Network, Last Retrieved on May 22, 2010 from http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq32.html#_edn1