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 These
are strange and treacherous times. Apathy and ignorance are
running rampant with media conglomerates and corporate interests
shaping America's youth. Twenty-four hour news cycles and
instant global communication creates a false sense of unity
while creating even broader rifts. Infotainment and sensationalism
have taken the place of newsgathering and investigative journalism.
Ratings
equal money, and money is the bottom line. From the presidential
debacle to the murder of Dr. John Locke on our own campus,
the conventional media's lust for ratings only makes things
worse.
Instead
of reporting the election results as they came in, the networks,
vying to be first to name the president, caused even greater
confusion. In the case of Locke, the local media outlets were
in such a hurry to break the story that the facts were overlooked
and subsequently reported with false information.
In
pursuit of ratings, the media holds fast to the fallacy of
objectivity. Since human experience is subjective, it is impossible
not to include a certain amount of bias in reporting. From
the type of story a journalist chooses to investigate to the
language they use to tell it, the reporter's beliefs are evident.
News
is everywhere but everything is not news. When judging what
is newsworthy, the media tends to take the easy road.
In
1997, two equally famous women died, but the events received
markedly different media coverage. Princess Diana's death
garnered saturated coverage while Mother Theresa was barely
mentioned.
In
the case of presidential pardons, big media was quick to report
on Marc Rich, the millionaire on the lam for 17 years, but
slow to report on persons more deserving of a pardon. People
such as Lisl Auman, a twenty-year-old Denver woman serving
a life term with no chance of parole for a crime many believe
she couldn't have possibly committed.
The
Campus Voice is an experiment in true journalism. Our aim,
as our name implies, is to be a forum for debate and information
regarding the students of the University of Arkansas as well
as the community. 
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