Blog Assignment #3

Biased News Media

Can you believe everything you hear on the news? Yes, you probably can. But, is the news giving all 100 percent of the information from stories? This is where things get questionable.

Joshua Breitbart and Ana Nogueira did a writing called An Independent Media Center of One’s Own: A Feminist Alternative to Corporate Media. The main idea of their writing is that the media, mainly the news, does not tell stories from all perspectives of people and events that occur in the world; mainly that of women and lower class people. It also talks about a website called indymedia.org. At indymedia.org anyone can go on the site and post a news story, but from the way they experienced it. The writing goes on to explain that advertising is done in certain ways to actually catch people’s attention in a particular way. “Dependent on advertising and focused on the bottom line, the media monopolies are concerned primarily with what women (and men) want insofar as they are consumers, not citizens or advocates” (p. 24). Furthermore, it talks about men having more news jobs than women. The writing also mentions the beginning and the tremendous growth Independent Media Center, which is similar to indymedia.org. The down side is that they are not yet able to reach everyone around the world. In addition, the writing explains that women and various classes are segregated in the media; including magazines, TV, and internet, and what is being done to try and help the horizons become expanded.

An Independent Media Center of One’s Own was a very insightful reading because it uncovered a lot of evidence for me. When I actually think about the topic of women in news media I realize how true everything the authors are saying is. For example, I had no idea about the protesters at George W. Bush’s inauguration. It is sad to discover how candy coated the news makes of events. In advertisements, “Women are seen as caring for stereotypical women’s issues-education and health-and are valued for the purchasing decisions they make in those areas” (p. 25). After reading this line, I started to think about it and noticed how accurate that is. For example, most, or all, the commercials for Pine Sol cleaner, the Swiffer mops and dusters, and even baby diaper commercials are all shown with women doing this work; cleaning and child care. The story about the Black Bloc was surprising because it seemed like something that would have happened years ago, but not in today’s society. It is obvious to me now why the news media is biased against women. This is because “Women account for 41 percent of all journalists, but the percentages vary greatly when categorized by issue” (p. 27), while at the same time, “women only make up 9 percent of the boards of directors of media” (p. 26). The Independent Media Center is a creative way to get other voices heard. I like that people can post absolutely anything up on the site without it being edited. If it was edited by someone that would practically defeat the purpose. It is neat to give people the opportunity to read and write uncensored information. One disadvantage of the site is that you never really know if the information is reliable. In that case, people just have to use their own judgment.

Media within the news is biased against women and certain classes. They also leave out the details of stories. Fortunately there are systems being created where people can be independent journalists and share stories about the events that were left out.