Viewpoint by Cody Daniels/reporter
Many informative, educational or reliable print-news publications have steadily lost readership and business in the last decade.
Distastefully targeted topics, ill-placed motives and irresponsible use of sourcing are to blame, causing a larger issue in America. When people go into a store to buy “X” publication, they are trusting that publication’s staff with services rendered. In this case, it’s the truth about the topic.
What happens when print-news publications begin sacrificing the integrity of their bond with the general public? Even tabloid magazines or gossip-based magazines report news. However, they are “reporting” articles that concern people, occurrences and events that wouldn’t be newsworthy to any publication if the subjects didn’t happen to be entertainers or dating one.
Headlines can also misrepresent. At Wal-Mart, a certain magazine blatantly covered the front page with the headline “Newlywed Murdered” over a picture of an English duke and his wife. After reading the story, it’s clear the man was standing on an uninspected balcony that collapsed.
This is more of a danger to the American public than one might imagine. Tabloid or celebrity news publications might not be responsibly sourced or even considerate to the lives they are affecting, but they certainly do catch the attention of a would-be reader in line at Wal-Mart.
This also indicates that unreliability is becoming an accepted thing as long as it entertains, and being a well-informed citizen isn’t doing that apparently. If this trend continues, eventually we will only care about whom Brad Pitt broke up with over brunch. One might fear this is the beginning of a weakness that will bring the power of oppressors in our government who want to influence us into their own personal greed-fueled agendas.
Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power.” He failed, however, to mention that maybe the right information is power and that too much knowledge in pointless areas might even make us weak and vulnerable and unable to do our jobs as American citizens in defending our constitutional freedoms.
