Accuracy in the Media

The majority of the people in the world know that what you read in the newspaper you have to take with a pinch of salt. What i mean by  taking it with a pinch of salt is that you cannot always believe what is written in a news paper. Journalists are supposed to find out the truth but we all know they will write stuff just to sell papers. I am always reading stories that sound to be not 100% truthful and sometimes wonder where they get their information from. In some cases when the paper is forced to apologize about a false story they publish, the article will only be about an inch or two in size saying a woeful apology, when the damage that is caused is probably a lot worse. The news media don’t always get their stories right and many of them don’t even seem to care. By advising them is their responsibility to the public, whom they claim to serve.

Out of the options I was given I wanted to chose this topic as it has always interested me.There is a paper back in England called "THE SUN" which everyone knows doesnt always tell the truth in all their stories, but the stories they get are so interesting that many people read the paper and believe the stories as though it is 100% truthful. I have always been curious when reading an article how a journalist got so much information for that particular story when it seems he was just in the right place at the right time. 
When i was given a list of options for what topic to write about and research, i umped straight onto this topic without given a second thought for the other topics as I felt this is something that will always interest people.

The Article below is from www.thesun.co.uk, with the head of the newspaper apologising for an incident that happend a few years back during a soccer match where fans were killed. The paper printed false lies about what happened and its only recently in the last month that the real truth has come out and people and papers are being found out.

The website i chose was:
http://www.aim.org

This was their missions statement from their site:

Accuracy in Media is a citizens’ media watchdog whose mission is to promote accuracy, fairness and balance in news reporting. AIM exposes politically motivated media bias; teaches consumers to think critically about their news sources; and holds the mainstream press accountable for its misreporting.It is a non profit , citizens watch dog for news media that critiques wrongfully written news stories and sets the record straight for the public.


In 1998 The American society of newspapers published a study that showed 78% of Americans felt that their news was Biased. This is where ACCURACY IN MEADIA ( AIM) came in to try and get the media to report the news fairly and objectively, with out resorting to bias reports.


"Accuracy in Media was founded in 1969 by a group of concerned citizens, led by economist Reed Irvine, who were troubled by the inaccuracies and one-sidedness they saw in the American media.  Frustrated by the media’s unwillingness to address their individual concerns, they banded together to form Accuracy in Media, hoping that an organization would have more clout than individuals in getting the media to correct serious errors".             ( http://www.aim.org/about/history-of-aim/ )

AIM brings attention to this problem with the media by: 
Publishing a twice-monthly newsletter 
Broadcasting a daily radio commentary 
Syndicates a weekly newspaper column 
Attend major news media meetings to express the problems and faults of the media being published

I think this is good what AIM is doing to help spread their views and findings about false news being published to the general public. I am sure they are trying to get themselves out there more in the near future, but i feel the news letters and broadcasting daily radio commentary helps get themselves out there and get the public aware of what is being written in certain stories is untrue.



Below are two articles I read about Obama. The first is explaining how Obama is blaming the movie for all the violence when in fact terrorism is still at large and hasn't been stopped like it was said to have been. 
The second article is explaining about a second video made about Obama and the friendship he had with a man suspected by the FBI of being a soviet spy.

On the Letterman show, President Barack Obama once again blamed Middle East violence on a movie, adding that he was concerned about the “shadowy character” behind it. That “shadowy character” was picked up by the police, acting on behalf of the federal government, in order to begin the process of appeasing Islamic censors around the world who want to destroy our First Amendment rights.

Blaming a movie shifts the attention away from the fact that al-Qaeda is behind the violence and that Osama bin-Laden’s death hasn’t affected the global terrorist war against

Although the Associated Press and ABC’s Nightline program have taken apart Dinesh D’Souza’s film, “2016: Obama’s America,” another film about the President is strangely getting the silent treatment from the major media. This film, “Dreams from My Real Father,” explores in detail the relationship that Obama had with Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party member suspected by the FBI to be a Soviet agent.

I wanted to add these clips showing examples of where the media has written false news and where the AIM has gone and found out the truth. The first story is very interesting as I have heard it a lot on many papers, where important political figures feel very confident that with the fall of Bin Laden, that terrorism has now fallen, but that is far from the truth, as we all know terrorism will always be a major problem. I feel it is something said to make people probably like that person or maybe earn them another term in office.
The other article is telling of the films made about Obama. The first film was looked at but not taken very seriously, but the other film showing important details about Obama's friendship with a suspected soviet agent has hardly got any coverage which makes me feel like some one in high authority has made a few phone calls to big people in news telling them not to talk much about it. 

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-other-anti-obama-film/






I struggled to load a video but I found this video on youtube which was a representative from MIA saying how media is now becoming an enemy of the American people.

http://www.youtube.com/user/aimaccuracy?feature=results_main


I feel that Media in Accuracy is a very good company and punishment should be handed out to news companies and journalist who print false news. Like AIM stated, if a lawyer lies, they can be jailed for contempt in court. A surgeon who messes up an operation can lose his license. A corporation that falsifies reports can face serious troubles with the SEC. However, a journalist doesn’t have to surrender his press card for faulty reporting. And the reason a journalist can get away with this is because of the first amendment act. I feel this needs to be looked at and maybe tweaked in order to prevent such media lies breaking out into the news and maybe put the reins on the media as it seems they have the free will to right what they want with little or no discipline.

Problems facing print media

Print media is going to be a thing of the past, like it or hate it, thats the truthful fact which has been scaring many news paper companies over the years and the sad thing is, not a lot can be done about it. With new technology, lifestyle and easier ways of getting access to news, the victim ends up begin print media. 
What is killing print media?
What can be done to save media?
Whats the new way of accessing news?

The publisher of the New York Times acknowledged Wednesday that the newspaper will go
 out of print — eventually.
"We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD," Arthur Sulzberger.
 Sulzberger's statement came in response to a prediction that the newspaper would go out-of-print
 by 2015.

The image below shows how paper circulation in estate paper has risen and declines over the years. This is similar to most print media news papers. 

No more then 20 years ago people were in full demand of print media. People would pay for it, wait days, weeks, months for papers, magazines etc, but that is a thing of the past now. People do not need to wait to get what they want and in many cases do not need to pay for it. Print media is not loosing out to quality, its loosing out to accessibility and they are in desperate need to change it quickly.
Over the past year print media is down 30% and the many reasons why print media is dying is because of the way we lead our lives. 

1.changing lifestyle -  People are working longer hours and the demands of todays lifestyles are causing people to get what they need quickly, whether it be food to the news. People will look up anything they need and will get what they want without having to leave their computer. Our main source of information in past decades was print media, radio and t.v, now most tv networks have their own web sites for news which are updates minute by minute causing news to travel faster.
2. Better Advertising elsewhere - With the print media in total decline and fewer people picking up a news paper, this is causing many advertising companies to look else where to take their products or jobs etc to be broadcast. This as a result is casing news paper companies to loose money and as a back lash have to increase their prices for advertisement, which is doing nothing good but only making less companies use print media. ( The example I used for this is at the last article at the bottom of the blog)

3. Technology - People do not need to leave their house or office to find out instant news. With todays technology such as the computer, iPad, Facebook, twitter, phones etc. People can easily find out what ever they want and with little trouble. Many thing people do iowa days such as communicate, apply for work etc is made much easier allowing people to broaden their communication.
Another problem facing print media and journalist is that with all this new technology which anyone can access, it is allowing anybody to write up news and not be a professional writer for a company. Millions of random every day people can post their own news and pictures on such web sites as twitter which is then viewed by millions. 




Just to give you an example of how things have changed, i found this article going an example of how the amount of money payed to a journalist back in the 1950's to today and what has changed with it.

In the 1950s, professional magazine writers could earn US$1 a word for their work—and a decent house could be bought for $5000.

In the 1990s, writers were still looking at $1 a word as the standard, but the same house cost $350,000—70 times as much!

In the 1950s print media—newspapers, magazines and books—ruled supreme, challenged only by radio as a communications medium.

Then came television, increased literacy, decreased publication costs, and a flood of new magazines.

Independent magazines were bought up by publishing conglomerates, and the tenor of the editorial office took on a more hard-nosed business-like note.

(http://www.writerswebsiteplanner.com/print/)

IDG, a leading technology media, events and research company. Now as chairman and still active participant, Pat owns 85% of this 46-year-old media powerhouse, which is currently generating $3 billion in revenue annually. He explains in this video, how he has managed to maintain his media company going and print while a lot of other companies have fallen.


I feel that it is only a matter of time before News papers are the things of the past. People do not want to go out and buy a newspaper that they can read on the computer/mobile phone etc in their own home with out going outside or out of their way to get one. Today news stories online are free and that is another reason people prefer to use technology to keep them selves up dated with news. Why pay for something you can get for free. I do not know what could be done to keep the news companies going, they will need to have a big think into their future otherwise they will lose out.




This clip below is a section I found about the problems facing print media and their advertising section. To summarize this section, It was saying that over the years advertising companies have been taking their money and their adverts elsewhere to other new sources and technology, but as the news companies are loosing advertisement income, instead of reducing the cost to gain more income, they have in fact increased their prices. which i think is a wrong move as they will only lose more money for them selves.

Explination into the 10% problem

Most newspaper executive use words like “eventually” to push off into a fuzzy future a transition that they know needs to happen sooner rather than later, but still find impossible to conceptualize because of the 10% problem.
What is the 10% problem? Let’s look at the New York Time’s numbers. According to the NYT online media kit, here are the print and online audience numbers:

• Online unique users (12 month average): 13,372,000
• Print circulation – weekday: 1,120,420
• Print circulation – Sunday: 1,627,062

NYT doesn’t report ad revenue for NYTimes.com broken out from its News Media Group (which includes mostly other local newspapers, but is likely dominated by NYT revenue)

• Total advertising revenue: $483,594,000
• Online advertising revenue: $51,000,000

Let’s assume that the NYTimes.com has roughly the same portion of ad revenue coming from online. What you find, with some modest rounding, is that print circulation is about 10% of total audience reach, while online advertising revenue is 10% of total ad revenue — the economics are nearly the perfect inverse of what they should be.
But why is this so? Let’s take a look at NYT print and online ad rates, using employment as an example. Here are the print display ad rates for employment:

And here is the rate for an online employment display ad in the job market section of NYTimes.com:

It’s hard to compare apples and oranges — a big pat of the problem — but the online ad looks like about a quarter of the screen:

So let’s say I wanted to buy a quarter page ad in the Sunday edition for each of four weekends across a month. A half page is 63 column inches, so four quarter pages would be 126 column inches for the four ads. At a half page rate of $1,247 per column inch, that’s $157,122 for the four quarter page display ads in print.
Those ads would run in the Money, Business, or Week in Review sections, so would reach people who didn’t necessarily look in the employment section. It’s difficult to compare it then to the $7,500, which gets you a 20% share of voice display ad in the online job market section. But given that the NYTimes.com has nearly 10 times the reach of the Sunday print edition, $157,122 vs. $7,500 is a pretty eye-popping disparity.
Let’s try another print/online comparison. NYTimes.com also has a package called Employer of the Day, which gets you an ad on the homepage of NYTimes.com:

The homepage of nytimes.com is viewed by more than 1 million unique visitors every day. For Job Market advertisers seeking quick access to an extremely large audience, the Employer of the Day position can deliver a branded message twice per week.
Attract passive jobseekers
This position exists on the homepage of nytimes.com in order to attract jobseekers who may not be visiting nytimes.com specifically to visit Job Market. This provides you with an outstanding opportunity to woo potential jobseekers, who may be on the site to read articles, view award-winning multimedia content or use any one of our other services. By becoming the Employer of the Day, all visitors to nytimes.com become potential jobseekers for you to target.

Here’s the pricing:

So for $10,000, you get a 20% share of voice on the homepage for a full month. For the same $10,000, you can also reach about 1 million people in the daily print edition, for ONE day, with a 10 column inch ad (based on open rate of $1,056 per column inch), which is about 1/12 of a page.
With such a disparity in how the New York Times values its print advertising and how it values its online advertising, is it any wonder that it suffers from the 10% problem?


Read more: http://publishing2.com/2007/07/17/newspaper-online-vs-print-ad-revenue-the-10-problem/#ixzz27LhzOsoQ






www.nytimes.com
eprints.lse.ac.uk/21177/1/Young_people_new_media_(LSERO).pdf
www.ehow.com › Culture & Society
mkt-iq.com/.../1.../123-media-evolution-the-changing-role-of-print

NEWS LIMITED

News Limited was established in 1923, publishing The News, a daily newspaper in South Australia. This was owned By Sir Keith Murdoch , but was later passed down to his son Rupurt Murdoch.

News limited is a major media chain which has standings in publicly listed companies  interests span newspapers and magazine publishing, internet, pay TV, market research, DVD and Film distribution, and Film and Television production trading assets.
News Limited owns approximately 146 daily, Sunday, weekly, bi-weekly and tri-weekly newspapers, of which three are free commuter titles and 102 are suburban publications (including 16 of which News Limited has a 50% interest).
With interests in digital media, the company's sites include carsguide.com.au, news.com.au, MOSHTIX.com.au, GetPrice.com.au and truelocal.com.au, and has a 50% stake in CareerOne.com.au, and a share in REA Limited that operates www.realestate.com.au, as well as websites for most newspaper and magazine titles. The company's other Australian assets include part-shares in subscription TV provider Foxtel and the National Rugby League together with shares in two teams in the NRL.

Murdoch moved to Britain and rapidly became a major force there after his acquisitions of the News of the world, The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times. 
 In 2011 The News of the World , which was one of the biggest selling papers in England was shut down due to scandals over the past few years of phone hacking;s by journalists etc of murder victims and service men and women who had been killed while out on duty in Afghan and Iraq. As a result people in high places were arrested and some sent to Jail.

In the early 1970, Rupurt Murdoch bought the San Antonio Times , and soon after founded the National Star , a Supermarket Tabloid and then followed up by buying the New York Post.


NEWS LIMITED currently operates 170 newspaper and magazine titles in Australia alone. Employing over 12,000 people world wide.




News Limited control the majority of the large selling papers in England. I didn't realize this until i did my research. I feel that news can influence people in so many ways and can influence people into thinking a certain way abut a topic. I feel that these papers back in England work together to get what ever they want gained achieved. 
If there is a political debate, they will maybe focus more positive things on certain people and try and find dirt on other political people. They will not hold back any details and will snoop into peoples lives as much as possible to get what they want. 
When the papers make mistakes and publish false information, they often apologize but with a very small article, which doesn't make up for the damage caused already.
I feel that the media has and will always influence me on certain topics as they make it out to be so truthful and have ways of persuading me and everyone else around that they are right and we should agree with it.

www.Newsspace.com
www.thesun.co.uk
www.NYpost.com
www.newscorpe.com
www.wikipedia.com

Blog Question - Media Influence

In the last 50 years the media influence has grown exponentially with the advance of technology, first there was the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper, magazines, television and now the internet.

We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships, traveling and anything else that we have to do.

I feel that the media has a really big influence over the viewers it gets everyday. The media can put ideas in people head and make them think a different way to how they would of thought before they watched the news or read the paper about a certain topic. If you are in one particular state which is keen on a certain political candidate who is running for office then they will publicise that person a lot more then any other person running. This will make the viewer like and see more positive things about this person, and they will also feel that as thi person is being shown a lot he must be liked.

Viewer have the freedom of speech and can decide to do what ever they want with in the law but other then that , they do not have to be influence by anything or one. This does not men that they can be influenced by the media. Viewers are just given information in a certain way which might benefit the purpose of the news feed, but its up to the viewer to decide wheather or not to take it on board. I think people can be easily influence by the median, so we are free willed but can be easily turned.For example, after the attacks of 911 the media gave a huge coverage of the event and exposed Osama guilty for the attack as they were told by the authorities. This shaped the public opinion to support the war on terrorism, the same happened with the war on Iraq. The problem is that if media received un accurate information then the public opinion supported a wrong cause, this is the power of public opinion influence.

In chapter 14 the theories that stood out to me, were the Agenda setting with the media and the Spiral of Sibria by Elisebeth Noelle Newmann, who explained that the mass media can help create a false, overrated majority, those that feel that they are the minority can grow silent when they sense the majority in the media.

These views can be used in today political campaign a lot, by all parties and the news channels who are supporting each candidate. The media has its ways of being able to make people look at views in certain ways and make out that everyone id behind there views or that know one is supporting their views, which can make the viewers want to follow the majority , even tho they might not feel that strongly about the views.

source:http://rayuso.hubpages.com/hub/Mass-Media-Influence-on-Society