News Stations and Their Influence
News stations decide on the type of information that is to be exposed to the public. News stations cover the current stories such as politics, sports, weather, entertainment social welfare, religious views and other vital events. News range from the local, national and international news. News stations have evolved their stories and put their attention on the major stories. They employ reporters and anchors to provide reports. Moreover, they also use special reporters who report certain types of news such as sports, entertainment, traffic, and meteorologist. Such kind of stories can be either be biased or influenced by individuals who are in power such as politicians, and religious leaders. The paper will discuss the various ways in which the different news stations report out on stories.
Political Bias in News Stations
News stations are politically biased. Some of the political reports covered by the news stations are mainly influenced by the strong political parties in their favor. These news stations present news that oppresses the minority parties and present news that praise the influential leaders. Studies reveal that approximately 69% Americans view news to have a political bias. This represents an increase in the level of political news bias by 25% in 1989. For instance, in the United States' 2016 election, 52% of the Americans reported that there was political bias towards the Republican Party (Schroeder and Daniel 58). For example, in 2016 the Cable News Network (CNN) covered the political campaigns of Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump while it discriminated the Sanders. Supporters of Bernie Sanders thus protested outside the CNN offices in Los Angeles demanding to know why the television channel did not cover the campaigns of Bernie (Ji et al. 90). Moreover, research shows that some news stations favor the male political candidates and discriminate the female candidates. They show that the women do not have the capability of leading. Furthermore, the news does not cover the achievements of the female political candidates thus making the males dominant.
Liberal Bias in News Stations
Furthermore, liberal bias exists among the news stations. For example, liberal bias is evident in the NBC, CNN, CBS and the MSNBC channels. These arguments intensified in the United States' 2016 election when the channels revealed that the Democratic Party had only received $1,020,816 while the Republican Party had received $142,663 from the employees of the dominant media houses (Schroeder and Daniel 56). This showed that most of the journalists were Democratic voters and thus only reported issues being addressed by the Democratic Party. The party focused on issues such as gay rights, abortion, social services and affirmative action. They neglected the issues being raised by the Republican Party to popularize the Democratic Party.
News Station Bias and Lack of Watchdogs
News station bias has been caused by the lack of watchdogs who criticize the reported news. Long ago, there were specific groups such as Liberal Counterpart Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and Conservative Accuracy in Media who ensured that the news stations did not favor any groups of people (Prior 113). Today, politicians are the most significant criticizers of the news stations in their favor. Moreover, the news stations have differed on the coverage of specific stories by different ideological outfits. For instance, some news stations tend to focus on the oppression of the African Americans in the European national while others do not cover the stories.
Government Control of News Stations
Furthermore, most of the news stations are under the control of the state. The government uses the news stations to promote agendas that are of the national interest. The government can promote public diplomacy and political warfare through the use of these channels. For example, the United Kingdom government used the BBC as a diplomatic tool to reach the services of the Portugal, Arab and Spain. Moreover, the United States used the Voice of America and the Radio Liberty stations to spread propaganda on other stations such as Russia (Rich 313). The government has also intervened in the private news organizations to insert news that they want to be covered. Reports reveal that the military and intelligence agencies in the United States use the private news organizations to create stories that are then disseminated secretly to the domestic and foreign media. Investigations reveal that Russia has used the KGB news station to spread false stories about the United States. Nowadays, Al Jazeera which is owned by the government of Qatar has become one of the major sources of news in the world (Rich 204). The network is likely to be influenced by the government on the type of news that it should report and what kind of news not to report. Thus, the government has great influence on the various news that is covered by the news stations and is likely to support news that favors its agenda.
Public Relations Influence on News Stations
Public relations influence the way in which news stations cover news. The public relations agencies create specific packages such as Video News Releases which are reported without details about their origin. Such news is seen as normal news though they use the subtle product placement to be able to influence the viewers. Public relations agencies can derail the objectives of the state by controlling the kind of news that is covered by the news stations (Prior 107). For example, during the Nigerian Civil War, public relations agencies were used to influence the news that the federal government had a good relationship with the Western African nations. These public relations agencies collaborate with the interest groups who want to communicate their opinion on the various issues. The interest groups influence the news station's content by providing guidelines on how particular topics should be covered. For example, The American Bar Association has established guidelines on how the news stations should report trials. Some of the major interest groups include Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, American Institute Enterprise and the Economic Policy Institute (Schroeder and Daniel 53). These groups are involved in the news discussion shows and panels on the evening show notably Lehrer News Hour. Furthermore, the groups influence specific issues such as politics, economy, unemployment, abortion, religious views among others.
Conclusion
In conclusion, news stations are the leading source of information about the global issues around the world. Most tend to people believe the news that is presented by the news stations even if they are not true. Furthermore, some of the news stations favor certain powerful individuals and political parties while they discriminate against others. This has led to non-objectivity of the news stations which do not cover stories as they should be. Government and the public relations agencies have great influence on the various issues that should be covered by the news stations. Interest groups also influence the kind of news that are covered by the news stations in their favor. Therefore, news stations are forced to adjust their news coverage because failure to do that would lead to dire consequences such as closing down of the news station.
Works Cited
Ji, Ping, et al. "News videos anchor person detection by shot clustering." Neurocomputing 123 (2014): 86-99.
Prior, Markus. "Media and political polarization." Annual Review of Political Science 16 (2013): 101-127.
Rich, Carole. Writing and reporting news: A coaching method. Cengage Learning (2015): 1-463
Schroeder, Elizabeth, and Daniel F. Stone. "Fox News and political knowledge." Journal of Public Economics 126 (2015): 52-63.
