Jess's English Blog

Not long ago the author was asked to join a symposium with his two colleagues, whose purpose was to scrutinize the obligations of the media and to suggest the ways to meet those obligations. During the discussion, a gentleman questioned: Why is the media nowadays so disaster-prone? The author does not think his colleague’s answer that newspersons are only responsible for reporting the news rather than creating or modifying it is so precise. He points out that nowadays the news media seem to operate on the philosophy that all news is bad news. The media tend to report anything eruptive, such as snipper killing and truck colliding. Futhermore, the author states that the most important ingredient in any civilization is progress. The result of our continual receiving the news of catastrophes is that we audience are underinformed about positive developments and overinformed about disasters. That will lead to our mood of defeatism and despair, which cannot make our society progressive.

Therefore, the author comes to his notion: the responsibility of the news media is to search out and report on important events which are in a wider perspective, such as nitrogen-fixation and combating famine. He holds the opinoin that the function of the news media is affecting its receivers’ attitudes. We are only what we think we are and we can achieve only those goals we dare to enviosion. If the media fail to depict the true portrait of the world, then what human beings have attained will again be lost and the society will not make any improvement. We should boost ourselves up on our experiences.  (273 words)