Objective or Not?

Ever since the beginning of history, there has been news. It really took off when the printing press was invented in 1430. Newspapers had begun to be written daily and copies were made at maximum speed. It was not uncommon for everyone in town to be in the loop and up to date with events.

Now days we have news broadcasts at almost all hours of the day. If you are a KCRG person, you can catch the 6 am news to get your kids ready in the morning. You can also check up on events at nine A.M., mid-day and, five, six, and 10 P.M. KCRG 9.2 is always playing some sort of news, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Most people in my neighborhood also get the newspaper every day or every weekend. And since we are so technologically savvy, we can look things up on the world wide web. The thing is, news, in theory, is supposed to be objective. There is supposed to be no opinions involved, or bias when delivering the news. What's funny is that when you go back in time, you can see that this has almost never happened, if it ever happened at all.

What did all of the tabloids say when the British were invading the U.S. during the Revolutionary war? "THE BRITISH ARE COMING!" That, unfortunately, is not objective. That is warning like, telling people to evacuate and the army to get ready to fight. An objective revision of this may be, "The British landed in America today." It is simply fact. No opinions or bias towards any side of the war.

An example from today is FOX news. They are Republican and do not even try to hide their bias when it comes to delivering the news. Marty Robinson would say that this example is over used and everyone knows about it, but that is why i am using it as an example. People don't realize that the news isn't supposed to have bias to it. It is supposed to be just news. Cold. Hard. Facts.

Some would argue that taking opinion or feelings or bias out of stories may make them insensitive. And i agree. I just find it interesting how, in theory, all news is supposed to be objective.
Here's something to think about. Have you ever noticed how the news rarely covers happy topics besides sports? All we hear about, day to day, is the war in Iraq; how many people have died, how many new soldiers are being deported this month, bombings. Isn't that considered bias? Why don't we hear about how our soldiers are providing school equipment and shelter for Iraqian children? Why don't we hear about the homecoming of troops or any victories over seas? We are biased to hearing about the negative. Objective news would have positive and negative things to report about, but it would be balanced.

I would like to give credit to our school newspaper, The Torch. I believe that the writers do an excellent job of covering the positive and negative to every story and leave points of views out of it. That is as close to objective as i have ever seen.

Sarah

P.S. The first issue of The Torch comes out on October 7. Get Excited.