When I turn on a television, I want to be informed. I want to find out what’s going on in my community and all around the world. Unfortunately, it is getting more difficult to do so in this day and age. From CBS to NBC, nearly every one of the major broadcast networks airs biased stories that have little meaning to anyone other than a person who is trying to be entertained. I find this absolutely unacceptable. Since its inception, news broadcasts were used as a way to inform the public on what is going on around them. TV stations have veered away from this idea and taken a new approach on what is considered an ‘acceptable’ news story. American news stations have begun to air unproductive stories used to increase viewership rather than educational broadcasts that keep the public up-to-date on topics that are occurring all throughout the world and the United States.
Informative broadcasts have been with Americans ever since the invention of the television in the early to mid-twentieth century. These broadcasts aired on the televisions were directly correlated to the immediate success of the device. Never was there a time before then that news could be delivered in such an engaging and informative way in such a short period of time. From the election of JFK in the 1960 presidential election to the broadcasting of the Tet Offensive in the late 1960s, television broadcasts were essentially information machines, providing current news to much of the population of the United States.
The importance of television media was evident up until the past few decades. In-depth broadcasting turned to hastily put together pieces of news segments, informative discussion turned to close-minded debates, and reliable news networks turned to biased companies looking to brainwash their next viewers. Reasoning for this sudden change from diamonds to beads is similar to many others: money talks. The more viewers that a station has, the more money they make. The once informative broadcasts are turning into segments created for entertainment purposes only purely to attract more viewers. Unfortunately, these networks are in it for the money rather than the satisfaction that one gets when they develop the next break-through broadcast that airs to millions of viewers hungry for their next bite of information.
Today’s media has gotten too far out of hand and needs to return back to the time when broadcasts actually meant something and they were not just used for entertainment. The major reasoning behind the development of the television was for its use in informing the public using factual information on important events. Not only do these entertainment broadcasts do the exact opposite of informing the public, but they also show us where our society is going. We were once a society that actually cared about the outside world, wanting to absorb everything we could get our hands on. Now we only care about the news that involves seemingly useless stories such as which celebrity wore the best outfit on the previous red carpet event or whether or not disliking dogs makes you a bad person. While some may find these segments worthwhile to watch, they are merely used to attract the most viewers through popular culture. This does not inform. It only provides us with satisfaction in the short run, rather than access to a vast amount of information that could be applied for the long run. To me, the choice is obvious.