A Critical Assessment of the New Media Environment 2

A Critical Assessment of the New Media Environment 2

     Chapters 5-9 of “Amazing Ourselves to Death” unearth information in each and every chapter of the book. The first chapter in the second part of the book, “Breaking News”, takes a look at the decline of the network news.

     These chapters offer a close examination on how the advancement in technology is slowly impacting the current news sources as well as others that may be cropping up. The chapter also opens up our eyes to the kind of sexism and appearance that play in the process of casting news anchors. This is depicted in the situation where Katie Couric became the first woman anchor in the CBS evening news program. It was noted that the executives grew skeptical over the belief that their audience would find women to be unsuitable for the job and therefore not serious enough for the job since their voices were apparently too soft. Racism also portrayed itself where Bernard Shaw became the principal anchor in the same evening news program.

     Perhaps, the punch line lies in the fact that whatever is displayed to us on the televisions is simply not news, but a news show. This simple fact that we are indeed feeding our minds with what is perceived as a show should thus be an indication of the reality behind what we term as “news”. Whatever we see is controlled by the management team in these news broadcasters, and much of what we see is in fact entertainment which can ensure the success of the news broadcasters in the next years to come.

     Strauss comments that “As, citizens, we need to have access to enough information to understand our situation, but not so much as to make it impossible to arrive at an accurate assessment.” This statement clearly underscores the fact that what we perceive may not entirely be information, but it does keep us content with what we need to know.