The News Industry Today
Where do you get your news? From the television, radio, newspapers, or from the Internet? For many people today, the answer is the Internet. For some people, that is bad. They say that we cannot rely on the Internet for accurate information. This is true. They claim we can trust other sources of news, such as television or newspapers. This is not true. Despite these claims, the news media do not have to tell the truth. As companies, they are legally responsible to the people who finance them – the owners – not to the consumers. They do not commit any crimes if they leave out important information. For example, if there is negative news about a company that buys advertisements, a news host may perhaps not report the story in detail. There is also no penalty for this.
It is well documented that some newspapers want their readers to vote for a particular political group. So they report stories that blame other political groups, the opposition, even though the source of the stories is not good. They may then simply refer to the story in other newspapers and not try to get to the truth. Just as we need to ask who owns a news website, we also need to know who finances a newspaper or news program.