(Jeremy Tinder / /Flikr)
If the Pinocchio curse were real, the American mainstream media would have a nose long enough they could light a Marlboro in the pouring rain.
The first and most important lesson that’s taught in journalism class is to present unbiased and fact-based news.
As reported by Gallup’s Megan Brenan, their poll from September 2020, shows that 60% of Americans either have very little trust or don’t trust the media at all.
Yes, we’re Canadians but it’s obvious how much the US media impacts us. Furthermore, it’s in both the Canadian Charter of Rights and the American Constitution that it is our right to have a free press. It’s necessary for proper democracy. Receiving unbiased and fact-based news is how the public can make informed and rational decisions.
This isn’t about picking sides of any political parties, or in support of any of the politicians mentioned, nor is it to imply we should get our news from fringe conspiracy websites. We should simply support and want the complete non-misleading, non-sensationalized, fact-based, unbiased information as our news. And this is not what the American mainstream media does today.
With the emergence of the internet, information is available at an infinite level. In turn, we can bring truth to power and validate, confirm and fact-check anything shown or said on a news outlet.
We don’t have to go back far to see how this has been helpful.
(R.I.P)
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In 2020, there were countless protests, and for good reason. It started with the inexcusable death of George Floyd and with many other things occurring throughout the year, protests continued.
Remember that couple standing on their lawn pointing guns at protesters?
On June 28, 2020, protesters took to the streets of St. Louis after Mayor Lyda Krewson spoke irresponsibly on a Facebook Live feed. What she said isn’t important here. A protest is always justified so long as it’s peaceful and it remains within the limits of the law. This one didn’t and the media did not show us that initially as they should have.
The purpose of the protest was to go to Krewson’s house as they chanted for her resignation. Making their way to the home, they passed a couple who were standing on their front yard pointing guns at them. This sparked outrage by the public, shunning them as a couple of gun-crazy lunatics. But, was this the reality of the situation?
What the media did not show and what the internet allowed for us to learn, is that the protesters were trespassing on private property, which is somewhere that protesting, by law, isn’t permitted. In addition to that, the couple didn’t have guns at first. They began by yelling at the protesters to leave. It wasn’t until the group kept coming closer and the couple began feeling threatened is when they went back into the house to get their guns.
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Guns may not have been necessary but, American laws are a lot different than Canada’s and the couple were lawful, what the protesters did wasn’t. Peaceful protesting means staying within the limits of the law and these people didn’t. In Missouri, a person is able to defend their home with a gun. Agreeing with the rule is irrelevant. It’s the law. Period.
It’s really not even about who’s right or wrong that’s the most important part of the story here. It’s about how the media presented the event, consequently resulting in further disunity within the country.
Why they do this is beyond questionable. How come they couldn’t show the entire video or explain the entire situation and let the public decide? Instead, they show clips and images of a couple pointing guns at a seemingly “peaceful protest”. It just created more division between people.
Which was something they did for four years with Donald Trump in office.
Again, clarity is needed. Trump didn’t need the media to divide the country, he did a lot of it himself but, the media played a huge role in severing relationships between people by how they portrayed some of his policies.
(Gage Skidmore / Flikr)
Take that “Muslim Ban” for example that they kept calling “Trump’s List”.
Firstly, this so-called “Muslim Ban” wasn’t necessarily a full-scale ban, it was a restriction on immigration from those countries. The only two countries that had a full ban of entry to the US was Syria and the most Islamic country of all… North Korea (hashtag sarcasm). This had nothing to do with religion, most of the countries just happened to be Muslim majorities, which was perfect for the media’s narrative that The Donald is racist and Islamophobic. And he could very well be. That still doesn’t change the fact that the media was giving us misleading information. You could have been Atheist, Christian, or Jewish and the limitations would’ve still applied to you, but you would have never heard that when they would say the “Muslim Ban”.
Secondly, the same media outlets would call it “Trumps List”, which again, is just so wrong. The original list of seven countries was conjured up as part of provisions to The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, which was signed by none other than Barack Obama. Although Trump enforced these travel restrictions, it’s still unfair and not accurate to call it “Trumps List”.
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This is not about being right or left. It’s only about how we’re given information and what information we’re given.
The one thing that we should all put a label on ourselves is that we support the free press and proper journalism; it needs to be full of all the facts and removed of any bias and sensationalism. The media has an immeasurable influence on public perception, and they’re relied upon to make crucial decisions in our everyday lives. So, when our news isn’t honest, we can’t make honest decisions.
Protests are allowed as long as they’re peaceful and President Trump did and said plenty of ridiculous and appalling things but, that shouldn’t lead to misinforming the public. We’re smart enough to decipher things ourselves. Just give us the facts, all the facts.
Actually, maybe the public is Pinocchio, and the media is actually the cat and the fox.