Journalism Speech

HYPERLINK "http://www.foxnews.com/foxnewswatch/" http://www.foxnews.com/foxnewswatch/ After reading part of Jeff Cohen?s book ?Cable News Confidential,? my misadventures in corporate media,? I was interested to check up on Fox Newatch given all these information from Cohen. What I came to find after watching several segments of the show was a fairly balanced forum for discussing media issues. The panel is made up of four guests ranging from Charles Hurt, a liberal writer for the New York post to Jane Hall, professor from American University. They take a number of different issues, international and national and discuss the media angles, the bias and how the issues are recorded. I find it fascinating that the media is so important that it?s is making news about itself. The media itself has now become newsworthy, which goes against the basic principle of the news- Don?t ever be the story. The points made in the show are valid, however it?s a little ridiculous that the entire show is commentary about media angles and strategic approaches to issues covered in the news. ---Fox is not the only network to engage in this type of programming, as mentioned in the article CNN hosts a similar show ?Reliable Sources.? As I said it?s very interesting that the media now feels compelled?to report how the various media outlets are distorting/ or not distorting?the story of the day. The cardinal rule of journalism used to be unbiased?reporting of the facts and events that shape our lives. Fox is right that?its important to watch how the media does there job but its somewhat of a?sad commentary in my opinion. Its all about spin, PR , damage control and?slant- what happened to the "news - you could trust".?? As Cohen says in his book, ?I savaged the corporate media week after week and got paid for it.? According to Cohen, one complaint he had about this media show was ?topic choice.? Although in the recent segments I watched I felt that a good range of topics was met, progress in Iraq, the Olympics in China and the issues with Tibet that go along with that, along with some less important issues such as if Katie Couric is really on the way out of CBS- Cohen argued that ?we did our share of tabloidy segments on Lewsinksy, O.J, JonBenet, reality TV and went on to say that ?almost any rightwing claim of bias could become a topic on our show.? That was until Eric Burns became the host and the ?show became truly balanced,? according to Cohen. The entire show is centered around critiquing the news media. Current host John Scott said at the end of one segment I watched about the controversy with the torch protests, ?there is plenty of reason to criticize the US news media on that topic and many others, that?s the whole reason for this program.? ?News Watch would become a more engaging and more critical media show than CNN?s reliable sources. Whereas CNN shied away from FAIR representatives as regulars, usual preferring a traditional center-right debate, Fox actually welcomed us, knowing it made for more exciting television.? The show began in 1997 and ever since it has been a regular weekend program on Fox News Channel.