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

Mass media reaches out to everyone. It has branched out into different means of communication, such as television, radio, newspapers, magazine and many more. Therefore, mass media has a huge impact on everyone’s life and affects every single one’s life in one way or another. To everyone, mass media has been THE source of information on issues happening around the world. However, recently, this image of mass media has been scrutinized. The idea of bias media is gradually rising among free societies. It seems as though now, rivalry between rival media companies have placed economic interest before reporting the real news which have been their motto.


There are quite a few recent events to back up this rising trend of media bias. The capture of British sailors by the Iranians has caused quite an uproar in the country. A first hand exclusive account of the whole ordeal would have brought much revenue and exposure to the mass media company that has brought over the rights. When the sailors were finally released from Iran, Defence Secretary Des Browne allowed the sailors to sell their accounts. Various TV stations offered huge sums of money to get the exclusive rights. One sailor, Faye Turney sold her account to ITV1’s Tonight with Trevor Macdonald and Sun newspaper. The amount she earned because of this ordeal is reportedly 6 digit sum.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6537555.stm

Another issue is about NBC putting their trademark logo on the videos and photos that were given by the Virginia Tech mass murderer. Even though NBC did not do anything additional to the videos and photos given, they gave the citizens something to vent their anger on. This is similar to the Al- Jazeera. These bunch of terrorist do the same thing, by showing the world videos to terrorize the people. In this case, the NBC is using the same tactic. Just to boost their sales, they can actually not think about how the families of the victims or the families of the suspect would feel if they see the videos on national television. Is the mass media going to be that unfeeling and insensitive to the feelings of the people and continue reporting such news just to obtain the profits?

http://www.aim.org/aim_column/5399_0_3_0_C/

Another case of mass media making the news instead of reporting the news is whereby they totally missed the complete story on the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. There were concrete evidence suggesting the bombing that killed 168 innocent American men, women, and children had been ordered by Saddam Hussein—then in power in Iraq, and possibly with the help of other Middle East terrorists. However, the mass media covered it up as there were political issues involved.

http://www.aim.org/aim_report/5408_0_4_0_C/
The above three examples are just the pick from many more such cases. It is saddening to know how the mass media has reduced from an ideal source of facts and reliable information with integrity to desperate reporting of stories to boost their sales.