Media is Important (continued)
• The world's most read quality newspaper is The New York Times.
• The New York Times is also printed as a paper newspaper. More than a century ago, they started printing every day, on the front page, their motto: "All the news that's fit to print." But, what is "fit to print"?
• "The media presents the world. Not as it is, but only its most dramatic parts." That according to a man writing recently in the Swedish newspaper DN (Anders Bolling, dn.se 26 maj 2013). He recommended "hitting kids over the head with that fact" for the sake of democracy. Two examples of what he was talking about:
· Murder gets much more play in the media than traffic accidents, & opinion polls show that young people in Stockholm over-estitmate the former and under-estitmate the latter.
· "Dog-owner Defended Dog – Bit Back" was a recent headline.
â–º Why was the article about the person who bit a dog published?
â–º What are the differences between the world as it is and how media present it?
â–º Why does news (onTV & on radio & in newspapers) different from reality?
â–º What is news?
â–º That which happened nearby & recently usually gets more news play than that which happened far away & long ago. Why?
â–º Which distances determine how interested someone is in something in the news?
â–º Which news "is fit to print"? How much should the media cover well-known people's personal lives? The king's?
â–º Journalists are accused of "killing" the news by cutting it up in small peices so that the context gets lost. What does that mean?
221 Publisher
â–º The person legally responsible (under Swedish law) for what is printed in a newspaper is the...
| a. journalist | b. the person who calls in the news | c. the legally responsible publisher (ansvarig utgivare) |
â–º The legally responsible publisher is responsible for...
| a. everything printed in the newspaper | b. the newspaper's finances | c. sales |
â–º What responsibility does the publisher have for a newspaper, a TV channel or a radio station?
â–º What shouldn't be shown on TV? What shouldn't be show in cinemas (movie theaters)? Where do you think that the line should go when it comes to which images are OK to show? Why?
â–º Well-known people are often in the news, for example if they do something that people in general are interested in. Should everything end up in the news or do they have the right to a private sphere? Why do you think so?
â–º The British & Swedish royal families and other well-known people have had their private lives revealed in the media. How much should the media be allowed to look into their private sphere? What do you think? Why?
â–º Julian Assange and the organisation Wikileaks leaked American state secrets and made other state secrets available on the Internet. What do you think of Wikileaks? Why do you think so?
