Over and Out

Well mis amigos, the time has come where I have to hang up the gloves and retire my blog. It has been a pleasure, but now I must move on to bigger and better things. I had a lot of fun with this post, and I learned a lot about my writing skills and improved my writing in a lot of ways.

Thank you all for your respect, for you my readers is why I started this blog. I hope to continue with my career in journalism, and hopefully achieve my long-term goal of working for Vice News, for their approach to journalism is new to the industry, but receiving much apprasial for their work and achievements. For now, I must say adios, but not forever. Hopefully someday I’ll be reporting on important issues in an unbiased, ideal, journalistic stance.

This is Brody Goguen, over and out!

The Future of the Bizz

The world is changing. With growing technological advancements, increased communication, our world is growing smaller and smaller. And what that, the way journalists present the world will be changing too.

With mainstream news being under a microscope since the 2016 presidential campaign, major news networks have now began to either provide a unbiased portrayal of the story, or like networks such as Fox News, have made their [Conservative] opinions known when presenting information to the public. What the future holds for the news industry is a tough one to predict, but I have some ideas as to how information will be spread.

With technology advancing every day, and the capabilities of our cell phones expanding with each new model introduced, I suggest that in the next 5-10 years, most news networks will solely rely on technology side rather than broadcasting on TV.

People are losing interest on what reporters have to say, and would rather just hear the quick facts so that they can move on with their busy lives, and with that being said, the whole “story” idea will be diminished down into a list of the cold, hard facts. The story might include a quick response from a professional in the field or someone involved, but stories will be simplified to adjust to the fact paced society we live in.

Not only are people growing tired of a lead anchor sitting at a CNN desk just rambling on about certain topics, there has been an increase in interest pertaining to topics about foreign nations, different cultures and ways of live. Networks such as VICE started the groundbreaking movement to show the world what is really happening across the globe. From hallucinogenic experiences in the Amazon forest, the underground bare-knuckle boxing in the United Kingdom, VICE has created a platform like no other, and has opened the doors to a much wider world for journalists trying to make a difference.\

In the years to come, I think there will be a strong emergence of news networks such as VICE, taking on the challenge of telling the necessary stories to help us ordinary people look at our world through a new, more educated lenses.

 

Toolbox for Journalists

Social media is a vital tool for distributing news and information, but the increasing number of platforms and messaging apps, which interlink billions of people across the world, also bring new opportunities for news gathering.

Facebook interest lists and Twitter apps like “Tweetdeck” are already widely used for their ability to collect relevant sources on a topic in list form, helping journalists to stay updated on their specific beat, but there are ways to delve deeper into social networks to find stories.

A new social media platform called Storyful and similar applications  have developed specialized tools for monitoring “hundreds” of lists on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other networks for keywords which may relate to a news event.

Words such as “kidnap, bomb, shooting, explosion” add more “weight,” indicating that there is an additional importance of something happening in a location.

An example would be a journalist searching the word “temblor,” which is the Spanish for earthquake. Now journalists can use this tool to search for news in other languages to find international stories.

But in regards to mainstream news networks, there has been much controversy over which networks are more reliable and present unbiased information in their storytelling. Networks such as CNN and Fox News have always bashed each other, and both are recognized for their political biases. If this is your main tool in gathering the news, it is important to remember to not just rely on one source to get all your information. I am personally a fan of how Fox News covers major stories, but I also watch CNN too compare how they are presenting the same story, and the opinions of “guests” as well as the anchors telling the story.
We live in a world that is seemingly growing smaller and smaller with the amount of communication due to increasing technology, and the opportunity for false news to be circulated is getting smaller and smaller. If a newsworthy story takes place in the Middle East, people on all corners of the globe will be able to hear the details before any fabrications can really be made to the facts.

With such a vast availability of news outlets, most of what we see online or on TV is usually true, but fact-checking other sources is a great habit to have when one sits down to read the news, and makes the news gatherer much more educated and equipped.

The dangers of having a singular source of information

President Trump has publicly stated his admiration for Fox News broadcasting, claiming that they are the most accurate and factual of any major news source in the country. He encourages his supporters to follow certain programs and refers to the anchors as his friends while claiming critical news organizations as “the enemy” of the American people.

A person cannot reach their full potential without constructive criticism. It is an important and mature trait to be able to read or listen to ideas conflicting of one’s own interests and present their side in a conversational format. President Trump has made a habit of “exposing” critical coverage of his administration as “fake news.”  It can be reprehensible to be critical of major organizations like the New York Times or CNN, but Trump and his administration have taken this a step farther by refusing to call on reporters from these organizations at press conferences and conducting closed door meetings with a select few outlets.

It is dangerous for anyone to gain their knowledge of the world from a single source, but it is another to try and control the news. Publicly proclaiming a fondness of a single news organization from someone with as much stature as the President can be detrimental to the way that organization conducts themselves as well. Knowing that Trump can be publicly overly critical of someone for as much as a single sentence, Fox News may shape stories to something that he wants to hear rather than objective fact. A 2015 study, “Objectivity and Information Bias in Campaign News” in the Journal of Communication analyzed election news reports from 2004 to 2008, determining that it showed that it can be a helpful trait for a report to have a slight bias. Those that were proactive in reading and comparing viewpoints on competing candidates were able to obtain more information as the different reports had more motive to bring those on the fence to their side.

Following a singular source can be a damaging attribute of anyone, especially the President of the United States. As time moves forward, the people of the U.S. hope that he comes to realize this as well.

Buckle Your Seat Belts

As we are all well aware of, the different social media platforms have become the main way that a lot of us get our news. Whether it be through Twitter or Facebook, more and more people around the globe are looking at a screen to read their current events. ABC News wrote an article about how young get their news through social media, and how fast news travels through technology.The story took place the day of pop star Michael Jackson’s death, and how fast fans were gathering outside of the hospital to mourn the loss. How did all of these people already know about the super star’s death?

Twitter.

Twitter has over 320 million users, and with that number news can travel faster than ever before. With this drastic increase in social media users and their use of media. The New York Times examined the word of print news compared to a decade ago before the technological boom. They stated that “in the United States, only 300,000 people now work in newspapers, compared to 415,000 a decade ago.” With the number of those working in print news decreasing more and more each year, where will they be in another decade? The article opened with the author saying, “journalists are now in the same situation as steel workers in the 1970s: They are destined to disappear, but they don’t know it.” Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not.

But what makes this new technology different than reading regular print news, is that now readers can participate in the conversation, and share their views and news with the world too. Half of social network site users have shared news stories, images or videos , and nearly as many  have discussed a news issue or event. In addition to sharing news on social media, a small number are also covering the news themselves, by posting photos or videos of news events. Pew Research found that in 2014, 14% of social media users posted their own photos of news events to a social networking site, while 12% had posted videos. This practice has played a role in a number of recent breaking news events, including the riots in Ferguson, MO.

The last thing I’ll share with you guys are some cool facts and statistics about the internet, and different social media sites, provided by the Brandwatch Blog.

• For context, as of July 2015, total worldwide population is 7.3 billion
• The internet has 3.17 billion users
• There are 2.3 billion active social media users
• 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels
• Internet users have an average of 5.54 social media accounts
• Social media users have risen by 176 million in the last year
• 1 million new active mobile social users are added every day. That’s 12 each second
• Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp handle 60 billion messages a day

With all that being said, all I can end with is saying that the world social media is only in its beginning stages, and over time, our world will become smaller and smaller as we all become connected by the cell phone in our pockets and the apps that they run. If you are not already on social media, you will find yourself at one point creating an account so that you are not left out. Buckle your seat belts, this ride of the social media roller coaster has only begun.

He Tweeted What!?

President Donald Trump was keeping tabs on the congressional hearing on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. He tweeted that the FBI and National Security Agency are telling Congress that Russia did not influence the electoral process.

That put FBI Director James Comey in the unusual situation of having to respond to presidential tweets in the middle of his testimony.

President Trump’s tweet seemed to differ with what Comey said. He told members of the House intelligence committee that the FBI has offered no opinion, and has no view and no information, on the potential impact on the election because that’s not something the FBI looked at.

Comey did say earlier in the hearing, however, that there is no evidence that Russian meddling resulted in changes of any vote tallies.

Let’s just stop and think about this for a second. We now live in a world where our country’s leaders are bringing Twitter into major discussion. Baffling. Despite the fact that the Twitter accounts have authenticity in belonging to Donald Trump, his personal account (@realDonaldTrump) and the presidential account (@POTUS), have been discussed more in the news than some of the major stories that have been taking place.

I just think it is amusing to see how social networks that you and I can access are also being used by major politicians to discuss (and sometimes argue) certain news topics.

I think it is great for politicians to be able to tweet and their thoughts and concerns be shared with the general public, but I think it is a little too much seeing an investigation of  Twitter accounts, and Twitter being such a big concern for our politicians.

With all the different social media platforms becoming more and more of an influence in our culture, I find myself taking a step back, and analyzing how we came to this, and where the world is heading in terms of how issues are discussed and resolved in politics. Are meetings among different world leaders going to be solved through tweeting at each other?

We’ll have to sit back and watch.

Is It Biased, or Just Plain False?

Knowing and realizing the bias that lies within the media is a powerful tool to have in this day in age. With so many different means of attaining information about current events, it is crucial that the reader/viewer understands where their information is deprived from, whether it is credible, and whether there is an underlying bias or motive.

Picture scrolling through your Facebook or Twitter news feed. What kind of stories arise, and what are their sources? With “fake news” being such a hot topic nowadays, news gatherers should be aware of where their story is coming from. Let’s go back to the 2016 United States presidential campaign.

Following the 2016 presidential election, the focus of concern has shifted to social media. Social media platforms, such as Facebook, have a dramatically different structure than any previous media technology. Content can be relayed among users with no significant third party filtering, fact checking, or editorial judgement, and an individual user with no track record or reputation can in some cases reach as many readers as Fox News, CNN or the New York Times. Among the most prominent concerns has been the impact of false or misleading information – “fake news,” as it has been dubbed in the public discussion.

 

With the Republican and Democratic parties showing much hate for their opponent, a lot of false stories were thrown into the news to make their opponent look bad in the spotlight, as well as supporters trying to “build-up” their candidate. I’m sure we all remember the false story of how Pope Francis endorsed candidate Donald Trump. For a short while, a vast audience believed this with no way to fact-check the information other than the source that was providing the story. But the power of social media made this fake story blow out of proportion, and made candidate Trump much for favorable in the eyes of a lot of religious voters. But we all later learned that the story was completely fabricated, and that Pope Francis had no involvement in the election.

This just goes to show we cannot believe everything we see or read. Even though this blog has been mainly concerned with depicting biases and underlying agendas, I want my readers to be aware of the false news that sneaks its way into our mainstream media. As we continue to learn about current events around the world, always make sure to fact-check any surprising story by seeing if any other major [and respected] news networks are telling the same story.

 

 

A Beginner’s Guide to the Biased Galaxy

Since I launched this blog, I have mainly been focusing on and discussing the influence of media on today’s society, and how it can used to shape the way a community feels about certain issues. I have brought up how major news networks, social media websites, and other means of mainstream media form our opinions and prioritize the issues in our world. But a large majority of our population does not realize that, only giving the major networks more and more power.

To change the pace of this blog, I have decided to discuss how you can detect a biased influence in the news. Learning to recognize what underlying objectives a news network is trying to accomplish is a very powerful tool. With this, you can learn to pay attention to actual facts, and focus on the key points of a story. For me, it has added a sense of humor to the news, and now switching between Fox News and CNN has become comical contrasting  how the same story is told through different presentation and conversation.

First thing to examine when watching the news, is the selection of guests a news network will invite. Be aware of the political perspective of the sources used in a story. Media over-rely on “official” (government, corporate and establishment think tank) sources. To portray issues fairly and accurately, media must broaden their spectrum of sources. Otherwise, they serve merely as megaphones for those in power. Count the number of corporate and government sources versus the number of progressive, public interest, female and minority voices.

Next thing you can take a look at is the diversity among the news staff, along with the guests that appear on the show. What is the race and gender diversity at the news outlet you watch compared to the communities it serves? How many producers, editors or decision-makers at news outlets are women, people of color or openly gay or lesbian? In order to fairly represent different communities, news corporation outlets should have members of those communities in decision-making positions.

You make think I am crazy, but sometimes the headline of a story does not even match the story told. Usually headlines are not written by the reporter. Since many people just skim headlines, misleading headlines have a significant impact.

But in reality, most of it is just put flat out in the open. Take a look at this screenshot from Fox News from about five years ago. I don’t think this serves as any better example for what I am trying to accomplish in this post. I wonder what Fox News had in mind when they decided to include this during their broadcast.

In my final thoughts, it does not take a genius to figure this stuff out. I am a 22 year-old college student, and I can tell the objective of a news network just by watching for a few minutes. Just pay attention to what is said, how it is said, and why  it was said.
I hope I helped identifying some of the tactics media uses to manipulate us, and now you can gather your current events with a watchful mind.

Tweets of Power

With technology becoming an ordinary part of everyday life, the way we receive our news, learn about new topics, and explore our world has drastically changed compared to how our parents received information. Social media has also become a major tool in public consumption of news. Twitter, along with the many different means of social media can be used to accomplish an agenda, sometimes good, sometimes for the bad. Here are my favorite examples of how Twitter has been used to accomplish certain agendas over the past few years.

President Donald Trump realized this power that social media has, and used it to his advantage in the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump has mastered Twitter in a way no candidate for president ever has, unleashing and redefining its power as a tool of political promotion, distraction, score-settling and attack — and turning a 140-character task that other candidates farm out to young staff members into a centerpiece of his campaign.

Another story that was exemplifies the negative use of social media and perceived by many people on Twitter as cruel was Microsoft’s campaign after the Japan earthquake. The company promised to give away 1$ for every retweet they would receive. The company received much criticism for being self-centered. Despite their generous donations, this story shows how perhaps something that was meant to have good intentions can come back and backfire.

One of my favorite stories may also be the most surprising, but certainly shows how powerful social media can be if you have a wide enough audience. Rapper 50 Cent posted a tweet suggesting to his followers to buy stock in “H & H Imports” which he held a 12% stake in. The stock price soared and brought him an additional $10m nearly overnight.

Image courtesy of bufferapp.com

 

In conclusion we live in a world that can influenced by one pair of thumbs typing away on a cell phone. For some, social media has helped gain recognition for charitable organizations and social movements. But for others, social media has been used as a tool of attack – often bashing out others for no real reason. As social media progresses, so will the means of how it can used. From reading the news to running for president, the uses of online media are countless, and continue to grow as the technology does.

 

Same World, Different Pair of Glasses

 

A selection of powerful writing that came out of the year’s tragedies and conflicts.

via The Posts That Moved Us in 2016: Current Events — Discover

 

Scrolling through the headlines of the WordPress news feed, I came across an article that caught my attention. The article was a publication on the top stories and journalistic projects on WordPress throughout the 2016 year. Reading the article was a glimpse into how a writer sees the world versus the standard news junkie as myself looks at the world.

The article brought up the topic of race relations and police violence were first addressed, reminding the readers of the demonstrations held in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. It then went into discussion on how the issue has been swept under the rug, and is still hiding behind the main media’s curtain.

As war was tearing up the city of Aleppo, Syria, a journalist crew followed the lives of two friends who survived the violence and escaped into Istanbul. The project received much praise as the project help give a human face to the all the refugees we hear about in the news.

The article continued to give praise to journalists who did investigations on communism in our world,  and several pieces from writers expressing their views on the 2016 presidential election in the United States.

What I did next was go online and research how Fox News reflected on 2016 so see what mainstream news views as important issues. Throughout the 6 minute video, 9 out of 10 stories took place in the United States, with a large majority concerning Donald Trump’s election, and first steps into office. Other stories that received attention are the capture of El Chapo, the Flint, Michigan water crisis, the Hillary Clinton email scandal, and many more stories that all took place inside United States borders.

Reflecting on how Fox News interpreted the past year compared to how the  writers who are actually out in the field look out world, it just shows how the large news corporations hold back stories from other parts of the globe and just focus on what they feel is important – issues on our front door. We live on a very large planet that includes thousands of different cultures and races, all with something to share with the rest of world. What I guess my main point is that the general public should not just rely on what they watch on the O’Reilly Factor on Fox, and instead look into alternative means of getting your news on the world.