Media

This Morning I read an article from the New York Daily News. The article was titled "Instant Reporter", the article basically went on to talk about Jamal Albarghouti's cell phone video that was sent into CNN and replayed too frequently. It spoke about how changes in technology have allowed the public to receive information at a quicker pace from people on the scene. It went to mention Jamal himself later that evening being on camera reporting as if he himself were a journalist. Keep in mind that he is in fact an Engineering student.



With all of that being said and the story that was put out in the paper and how great, courageous, and heroic they made it sound. The truth is that this is just another problem with our country. As a colleague of mine pointed out yesterday there was a time when Reporters actually investigated stories to ensure that they had all the facts before throwing information wildly to the public. In this case discretion would have been a more prudent step in dealing with what was released to the public. Had I been a parent of a student I would have been outraged at the endless garbage that was broadcast without really having anything to report. The images being replayed over and over again on the television served no purpose except to drive up ratings for the time of the incident. The I-Report may work on small scale issues but when you have a major catastrophe I am sure that many people would have rather waited to hear the facts than to be bombarded with hours of speculation surrounding the incident. This is just my opinion but I think that the News Services in this country need to abandon the idea of Sensationalism and get back to the art of reporting the news. After all Edward R. Murrow risked his life to report the News and not the Spectacle surrounding the news.