Responsibility in the Media

Throughout our class we've talked about the role of the media in societies, the importance of the freedoms of expression and the press, and the power that appears to exist in one institution or another in dictating memes to our society.  We've discussed the idea of peace journalism in juxtaposition to that of war journalism.  We've even identified sports as paramount to politics within United States' public discourse, asking why politics simply aren't of much importance to the general populous.

The reality, as we've said, is that our government and its layers of politicians, lobbyists, and political professionals shape public understanding.  There are corporations, other governments, financial organizations, and powerful magnates who control our messaging.  In other words, there are wealthy institutions who control the majority of our understanding of the world and the hope of a resolved future.  Despite that, contradicting flows exist within our society.

A video has been finding its way around Facebook entitled, "The Most Honest Three Minutes on Television," from the popular HBO television show "The Newsroom".  It speaks to the importance and responsibility held in the media to correct popularly held notions with a sense of reality.  There is a responsibility held by this generation to change the trajectory of our collective future.  As with "peace journalism," journalists have a responsibility to inform our society and shape it not into a profit-driven, ethnocentric view that "others" the rest of the world.

"We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed.  By great men, men who were revered."  quote from The Newsroom:

What this video underscores is our loss of reverence for the people and media outlets that can and do work to shape a new message, a real message.  Never mind the left or the right.  Never mind the status quo, the comfort of our own time against that of the time to come.  Never mind that nearly every news article is sobering in its position in objectively informing the populous about the terrible tragedies and travesties that occur throughout our modern, globalized society.  Revered journalists are the ones who both keep us informed and paint a picture of what we could accomplish instead of what we can't or won't.

As potential communications professionals, we have a responsibility to our own generation to understand and inform.