When I want to watch the news, I have a few options. I can wait until broadcast airs the news during its scheduled time slots, or I can turn to a 24-hour cable station like CNN. If I'm not near a TV, I can even surf the web for the latest headlines/videos.
Earlier, I went the conventional route and watched a program on CNN named Cruise to Disaster. This special report focused on the Costa Concordia disaster that claimed 32 lives.
We learned this week that the function of the news is to simply report what happened. It shouldn't tell us how we should feel or how we should react.
Within a few minutes, this program broke that rule. It was apparent that CNN has its own view on the situation and wanted to inflict that slant onto viewers. Specifically, a mixture of images and aggressive language from people who were interviewed aired over and over again. I suppose that CNN wanted me to be angry with what had happened, but I admit that I almost felt numb.
As a person with her own beliefs and feelings, I should be able to make my own conclusions. However, let's be real. That will never happen as long as the media continues to influence what we see and hear.
The only way to make the news' original vision a reality is to have robots report the news. Even in that instance, humans would be the ones to program them. Keeping these ideas in mind, I'm not sure that there will ever be a day where news will be impartial.
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