English, Featured, Media, TV

The selection of news

Phil Rosenthal, writer of the Chicago Tribune asks: “Now that people get what they want the way they want on the Internet, where does that leave those mainstream media outlets that, in traditional fashion, pair the news people want with the news it is thought they need?”

Charles Gibson, anchor of ABC World News Tonight, has an answer: The importance of the mass media, in his opinion, has not shrunk, but rather increased because of the Internet.

“You are choosing the particular kind of news that’s interesting to you,” Gibson states. We become more important because our mission is to expose you to things you wouldn’t have clicked on.”

It sounds as if someone is trying to defend an elite status, Phil Rosenthal argues, but Gibson counters, “It’s a defense of journalism. It’s not that we know better. It’s not an elitist function. It’s an editorial function. It is a function of taking a look at what’s important in diet of daily news and saying, `Here’s what I feel is important.’”

Gibson made those remarks on a day in which the whole nation was watching news of the death of Anna Nicole Smith. His broadcast, mind you, started its program with news about the increase of autism.

It is truly an interesting thesis and not to be taken slightly. Mass media was able to influence the public discourse with its selection of news for many years. Today, it tends to bring attention to news, that would certainly be left out of the conversation.

You could see it as a last charge by an industry in pressing needs to defend its powerful status. As a consumer, you can also see it as a chance to be informed about news that you would not have noticed in the massive amounts of information, or ignored altogether. The former gatekeepers can merely shift our attention to their selection of news. The public discourse is defined by others.

Works Cited:
Rosenthal, Phil. “Gibson thinks old-style news more vital now” Chicago Tribune 9 Feb. 2007. 18 Mar. 2007