Are the world’s news stations and websites capable of being trusted to provide un-biased accounts of current events? Media, any television show, website, or newspaper that portrays information to the public about a certain issue, will always possess an impactful constituent in the lives of everyone across the globe. In order to better understand the media’s purpose and to protect the images of people portrayed in a biased manner to the public, media bias classes should be a requirement in all secondary public schools nationwide.

Even though the general public is able to get reports about what is going on in the world around them, the reports themselves, are not always objective. One major way in which the media is so influential over America is because of its slant, or opinion of a topic. The media’s point of view is always known to slip out, even when it is not meant to. The solutions created by certain beliefs influence Americans because it is obvious that certain solutions favor one side, or political party, of the issue and they will either agree or disagree with the solution proposed based on which party they support. The history of the media’s reports advocates that they cannot be trusted wholly and completely.

The history of media bias and specific cases that have not ended well portray a major rationalization that something needs to be done about this issue. During every war, the media is known to blow up every story and occurrence that happens to have anything to do with that war. This was no different during the U.S. War in Iraq. The action of news stations having a slant upset many Americans. Although they felt strongly about it, most did not know what to do about it. The opinion of the reporter should not be in any report. In another case, George Zimmerman, a man who was on trial was essentially proven guilty before the jury even reached their decision. This is due to the media’s stories and tales about him that could very well be false. His character was ruined by the media, and forever, the world will have a view of Zimmerman that is entirely dependent on what the media told them. Yet another case in which the media did not give the audience all the right facts was during the Presidential debates. News stations recorded the debates, and added their own opinions to the report. The issue with this is that sometimes, audiences either do not wish to seek out the truth, or they just agree with the first opinion given to them without knowing the facts. This issue needs to fixed.

The issues of media bias can be solved by adding a course of education to high schools across the world. Since bias in the media is so straightforwardly abundant, the fact that people do not see it is problematic. The public needs to be educated in order to have a basic understanding of the media, whether or not it is guilty of bias and how to know when to believe the media and when not to. This high- school- level course will not just tell the students that some media is biased. This course will be designed to take things even one step further by having the students make their own decisions about what the media has to say.

Many questions that come to cross this plan of action include the fact that media cannot be controlled, teenagers will not take interest to learning about media bias and that this call to action requires too much regulation. The media is fueled by money; and the money comes from the amount of viewers that they have. If people become educated about media bias, then the media’s goals would change because the general public would no longer want them to share their biased opinions. The public would want to hear the facts, no frills, and no judgments besides their own, and so the media would give it to them and still make a large profit. And by changing what the public wants, it will be able to get it. The media has a large impact on high- school students as well as adults. Although students would not particularly take much interest in learning about bias in the media, the course would be required to graduate. The course would offer many different scenarios in which the teens would be in the position to make a decision and take a stand for what they believe in. The issue affects so many people on so many levels that chances are, most students will find media bias an interesting concept to study. With the plan to educate the younger generations, more government regulation will be placed upon citizens to pay and teachers to teach. Even though the regulation could be seen as another matter under which the government uses to take control its country, it is a necessary obstacle that must be undertaken to achieve liberty for the media, without sacrificing the ideals of its viewers. The public has a right to know what is going on in its country, but it also has a right to be able to decide whether or not to believe what the media portrays. If the public is not educated, it cannot make its own decisions and therefore will become prey to the devious schemes of the media. The obstacles of money and replete regulation seem small when compared to the achievements that this plan will bring to the world.

An education course for teenagers in high schools across the country would be immensely beneficial for not only the scholars themselves, but also the posterity of the United States of America. It is the citizen’s responsibility to protect the rights of the posterity of their country, and this is a step in the right direction. Never before has technology been so necessary to carry out daily actions. With technology becoming such a large part of everyday life of the average American citizen, the average American citizen needs to understand how best to use the media so that they can benefit from it . It is not possible for the media to simply give an un-biased opinion because in order for them to remain a profitable institution, it needs to have some income from viewers who enjoy hearing a “juicy story”. American citizens simply need to know when to believe the media’s information and when not to. The world’s news stations are not always trustworthy, and to have an education course available would have a large impact on not only the world of today, but also, the world of tomorrow.




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