News and its influence on society

In recent years thousands of channels have been released over world satellites.
Channels such as BBC, CNN, and Sky News (listing but a few) are regularly watched by
millions of viewers worldwide. I believe that channels like this can lead to the
implantation of false ideas of specific parties, races and religions. This could be
because the country of the news station has a personal vendetta against particular
parties, races, religions or countries and seeks to influence the audience of the news
channel.
News is an important communication tool that is present in the lives of most adults.
When used appropriately it can have a lot of advantages. News channels feature
hourly programmes where major world incidents are reported rapidly to an
increasingly large audience. These news reports consist of live images and factual
evidence of what is happening around the world. Fires, earthquakes, wars, bombing
attacks and presidential or important meetings will often be part of the news hour.
These reports help the viewers get a clear vision of the occurrence and aid their
approach of a personal conclusion or opinion of that matter. An example of that is the
Australian wild fires which are now ongoing. By alerting the world to crises such this,
the situation can be given publicity and therefore help or aid can be sent. Another
example can be when the oil spill happened in the Gulf of Mexico. This warned
potential travellers to avoid the area.
One benefit of the news is that it brings awareness of the world. It educates.
Nowadays, it brings the family together. This helps them socialise due to interesting
news report and forms a basis or conversation and debate. This helps to create a
cohesive community whereby the citizens have common ground to form a dialogue.
Furthermore, I still argue that news can have a negative influence on society. News
can be biased, untruthful and inaccurate. A clear and shocking example is of some
organisations that broadcast a false number of deaths. For example, if a hundred
people are killed, the news only reports that ten people have died. This is according to
Robert Fisk (Independent, Journalist). This is an example of how news can be
misleading and sometimes manipulated to cover up a countrys crimes. People then
may form opinions based on misinformation. This basically shows that specific
countries joystick news channels. Yet another example of untruthful news is the
revolution in Bahrain, where a religious group tried attacking the government for false
reasons. Some news stations supported those ideas and made a big broadcast of it
and those news organisations supported it because of their specific political agendas.
Over the past four years in Egypt, there have been significant social and political
changes. Some news agencies have played a major role in that revolution. These
news agencies are particularly Arabic channels. Al-Arabyia, for example, has
influenced viewers to believe the untruthful side of the revolution, where it has
convinced society to accept the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood are terrorists and
are driving the Egyptian revolution towards a disaster. These particular channels are
owned and managed by governments and therefore coverage of international affairs
will be based on political agendas. The CNN and BBC are world news channels and as
an ordinary viewer, we believe and agree to what they broadcast. In fact it runs the
same way as Al-Arabyia: The BBC follows the British governments politics; CNN
follows the American government. Therefore, I believe that this is a large influence on
the society. This brings the world to have corrupt ideas and untruthful facts.

News can also be perceived a brainwashing tactic, which makes an audience forget
and abandon the ideas that they have and know, instead replacing them with a false
rhetoric. A precise example is Israel taking over Palestine, originally a country in its
own right. And has been a country since the world began. Israel occupied Palestine
soon after WWII, destroying identity and ripping apart a whole nation, causing millions
of innocent people to seek refuge elsewhere. With the help of the United States and
its allies, the Israel that the world now knows, is deemed a country. Palestine has
forcibly become a territory.It just doesnt seem fair. Israel continues to take more and
more land with no question by the United Nations, nor any other global and
humanitarian organization. Besides my point, the news broadcasts the history Israel
wants to put down. This means that history is being rewritten. This also refers to
an explicit judgment that Israel also runs world press.
News agencies around the world have expanded their coverage on Islam after what is
known as 9/11. This had led to the wars and crises all over the Muslim countries, by
the United States, Israel and other western superpowers. It started by 9/11, the world
news organisations influenced on society that Muslims are all the same. The problem
is that society took and learned what it got from the news and did not calculate
everything nor did it read the facts. Subsequently you see protests against Islam,
calling Muslims terrorists and news agencies agreeing and broadcasting that the
religion of Islam is a religion of terrorism. Why does a whole religion have to be
blamed for something a random man attempted? I recall and state that this is
because of specific groups and religions, where they want to fight another group, and
the idea of news broadcasting it and sticking to one side of the argument, plants a
generation with counterfeit information.
In conclusion, I keep my ideas and opinions that news reports can have a lot of
interference with the ideas and the opinions of society. A news report should stick to
its primary function: to inform.