When you turn on the TV to find out the latest breaking news going on in your area, chances are you don’t think twice before trusting its integrity. We have been programmed to trust journalism and major media corporations as unquestionably true, but should we? More people should explore the corporate interests that are at play behind most stories released before taking every headline at face value.
Who wants to control your perspective of the world? In the past, journalism has always been considered an honest profession dedicated to delivering the truth to citizens. While no journalist is free of personal bias, there is a considerable difference between personal and corporate agendas. Somewhere along the way, corporate ownership of news stations such as Fox News and the like have changed what it means to be a journalist and even an audience member. A groundbreaking example of this corporate control over journalism involving Fox News was a 1997 scandal. Reporters discovered health concerns tied to U.S. milk, but before publishing a story on it the corporation stepped in and stopped the story from running (Huffington Post, 2017). Not only did this cause widespread illness, but it could be considered a turning point for the meaning of journalism. Reporters were being bribed to suppress the truth and several lawsuits over the matter resulted in Fox News revealing that it is actually not against the law to lie in news reports (Tampa Bay Times, 2017). This thought is scary at best; if journalistic lying isn’t a crime, how much of what we see is really true?
Since the Fox News scandal set the tone, corporate ownership of news stations has become a norm. Many segments are simply company advertisements disguised as features, and journalists are often forced to report on products instead of actual breaking news they discover. So, where does the solution lie?
With the prevalence of the internet in our current day, there are many alternative news sources available to those willing to look further than the first TV station they see. A good example is The Real News Network, which is independently operated and funded via donations. Operations like this one may be forming a new trend in journalism, where information sharing is once again prioritized above corporate profits. Will our journalism become a trustworthy platform once again in the years to come? At the very least, the answer lies further than the closest newsstand.