Sensationalism

March 26, 2012 

My friend and I started watching MSNBC and FOX news, Greta Van Susteren. My friend, who I will not disclose is not in our media in politics class so she is not aware of all the underlying meanings and reasons why the media do what they do. We were flipping between MSNBC and Fox to see how the same story can be framed in 2 totally different ways. On Greta Van Susteren show On the Record, her main point was the new health care reforms. After she got done discussing that she then moved to more sensational stories that I recognized immediately, thanks to our class. On the other hand, my friend asked if I would leave it on FOX because she thought FOX was more interesting. The stories that Greta was discussing was the debut of Tim Tebow in New York, an easter egg that no longer is  going to happen because of parents getting out of control, Bald Eagle babies being born and the high prices of food at sporting events. After she got done watching, I asked her why she wanted me to leave it and she responded with “the news is too bias, Greta was talking about issues that can not be bias.” I found this very interesting because we have discussed in class the biases of the media and how they are effecting people. However biases often lead to selective exposer and selective interpretations, but for my friend it led her to watch the news channel that showed content that was hard to make a bias argument. How can Bald Eagles be a bias issue? I asked my friend what political party she is associated with because I wanted to see if that had an effect on her choice of her FOX channel choice and she said she does not identity with either of the parties. I know that we have said in class that there is no such thing as completely objective news stories but I see my friend being objective when considering her news sources because she simple chose the more interesting less bias stories. 

This directly ties into the discussion of the media giving the people what they want might not always be the best thing for them. Is Tim Tebow vital information to the American public? I don’t think so, it is completely sensationalized information. After my friend left I flipped back to MSNBC and I saw Tim Tebow on there as well. Sensationalism is clearly not restrained to just FOX News and MSNBC, most every news outlet has sensationalized information. This is widening the knowledge gap between the elite and ‘normal’ people because my friend is not the only one who chooses news outlets like this.