Recently, there has been plenty of talk with the current ISIS and Ebola crises of fear mongering among both politicians and major news outlets. Among most of the public and outside commentators, they have accused them of hyperbole, talking over each other, and generally scaring the public to accomplish their goals.
This isn’t a new problem. Mass media has constantly been accused of hyping up the latest minor threat as the end all be all of human civilization. I’m also not the first to comment on this (I almost never am sadly). In his article titled “2014: Marching Forward,” Huffington Post writer John Friedman wrote that he sees a “disturbing trend,” where “More and more of the media are attempting to grab attention and eyeballs by using tabloid tactics and sensationalism,” rather than doing old fashioned investigative reporting. He criticizes the mass media machine for spreading misinformation all for the sake of beating out the competition to the story. He even cites the Ebola outbreak, along with the conflicts in The Levant and Climate science, to prove his point of Major news networks spreading misinformation.
I wholeheartedly agree with what Friedman has to say. Major News Outlets such as Fox and MSNBC, as a collection of journalists, have a responsibility to impart truthful, unbiased, and accurate information to the public. In his article, Friedman says that a media outlet misrepresenting the truth is like a company selling a defective product. However, it is much more than that, as what people hear these reporters and journalists say is how they are going to form their opinions and make judgements. When this information is wrong, you are basing everything from the hearts and minds of the people to opinions of lawmakers on fabrications. If it is intentional, it is nothing more than cheap propaganda. If it is unintentional, it shows a gross level of incompetence that should be dealt with immediately. Since these outlets are corporations and depend on viewership, however, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to say they are using yellow journalism for the ratings.
Though they do always say “never attribute to malice what can accurately be explained by stupidity.”
Media Mediums 