In our day and age today there are many ways t obtains information
and this information is obtained through the internet. The internet is now a
new way for us as people to gain different perspectives in the information that
we process to day. Mainstream media sources tend to have some form of an agenda
that can lead to certain bias in topic or stories that are on the air. In an alternative
media they can pick and choose what topic can air because of the fact that they
have the power to. They can air topics or stories that mainstream media outlets
normally do not air because of either the topic has some connection to their
sponsors or that the organizations themselves do not deem the topic worthy or mentioning
it on air.
An alternative
news outlet that I had found that was as good as other mainstream media was BBC
news. BBC news is a publicly funded news organization that gives the news to
the public on a daily basis. As a publicly funded news organization the company
has control over what they want to say or do on the air because there are no
corporations that are telling them what to do. However since it is funded by
the people they have a voice of what is on the air that they want to see. Since BBC news is a section of the
organization of BBC it does in a way tell them that there are some limitations
but the organization itself is not hiding any stories from people.
In the
article Catherine Saalfield says that “I teach kids how media works and powerful
it can be and how they can use it for their own ends”. (Saalfield 67) In a way
this applies to the success of BBC news because of the fact that the organization
has gained a reputation as a news organization for the way that they display
the news. BBC news shows the news from a global perspective rather than that of
a domestic one like here in the United States. It is through the fact that they display that
global perspective that they are respected because there really isn’t a form of
bias that comes to it when you’re showing it from the perspective of the world.
According to Bell hooks “Strong texts
work along the borders of our minds and alter what exist. They could not do
this if they merely reflect what already exist”. (Hooks pg2) In my opinion what hooks was trying to let the
reader know that the news is suppose to tell you what happens and not
sensationalizing it to paint it into a different light.
In conclusion, in our day an age
today the media is shown to have certain perspective on stories. These stories
can be shown to have a bias in the mainstream news organizations like Fox and NBC
but alternative news organizations like BBC news show a global perspective that
shows stories that happen around the world. Alternative news outlets like BBC
just show the news from the perspective from their own opinion. Publicly funded outlets has its advantages
like BBC because of the fact that the people have a say in what is on the air
and there is not pressure from corporate sponsors.
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