What's the Media Covering?

I can’t stop thinking about the discussion on Fox News and the media in general. I’ve become critical of the media and have learned that not everything reported on the news can be taken as factual. There are a large number of opinions that are factored into news reports and it’s often difficult to decipher the fact from fiction. I don’t believe that our media diliberately reports fiction. I would argue that the majority of stories are based on facts. But uncovering those facts amongst the opinions is often the challenging part.

But as I thought of Fox News and the idea of whether or not the channel is “Fair and Balanced,” I began to think about what is on the news today. What are the news channels reporting? I’m throwing out the window for a moment whether or not it is saturated in opinions. I became curious as to what is news in America?

I think by looking at what our news stations are reporting you can kind of get a sense of what is important to Americans and more appropriately what do the few at the top who control the media see is important or newsworthy. First lets start with what isn’t important. I think it’s fair to say that the agenda for cable news is different than that of network news. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, cable news covered a smaller percentage domestic issues, from the environment, to transportation, health care, Social Security, welfare, education, economics, race, gender and more (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008).

Collectively, the broad range of domestic issues, everything except immigration, made up 13% of the the time on cable. The three topics of celebrity, crime and disasters accounted for 24% of cable’s time (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008).

To break this down even further, if you were to have watched 5 hours of cable news, this is what you would have seen:
35 minutes about campaigns and elections
36 minutes about the debate over U.S. foreign policy
26 mminutes or more of crime
12 minutes of accidents and disasters
10 minutes of celebrity and entertainment

On the other hand, one would have seen:
1 minute and 25 seconds about the environment
1 minute and 22 seconds about education
1 minute about science and technology
3 minutes and 34 seconds about the economy
3 minutes and 46 seconds about health and health care
(Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008)

So when thinking about my stance on the media in general, I conclude that the issues or news I feel is most important isn’t being covered. I would like to see more news on education, the economy, and other domestic issues. I wonder why statistically there isn’t as much news coverage. The percentages regarding the campaign and election make since as well as discussion on foreign policy since we are in a war. This is evidence that regardless of if a news channel claims to be “fair and balanced”, there doesn’t seem to be a fair and balanced amount of coverage regarding all the issues that affect Americans. I guess it leaves me wondering what exactly is news and what are the classification for something to be newsworthy. I think those classifications have changed over the years and will continue to change. It makes you thankful for the advancements in technology and that you can go many places to get whatever kind of news you want. Because it’s obvious that if you turn to cable news, you are only going to get what they want to give you.

Source

The State of the News Media, An Annual Report on American Journalism. Retrieved April 13, 2008, from http://stateofthemedia.org/2008/printable_cabletv_contentanalysis.htm.