NJC 2005 Year 2 CT2 Q12.

Journalists have far too much influence over the way we perceive the world. Do you agree? Globalisation is a highly controversial issue these days;just ask the protestors who gather whenever the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, symbols of the globalisation movement, convene. Yet many neglect the reality that it is globalisation itself that has made the anti-globalisation movement so powerful. The globalisation of information is a reality most of us have not consciously recognised as one of the greatest benefits of globalisation. Whether it is CNN, BBC or Channel News Asia, journalists are reaching out to global and international audiences with the erosion of information barriers. The news has become so ubiquitous in our daily lives;it is available not only on the radio and in the newspapers but also on 24-hour news channels, the Internet and even our cell phones. Yet sometimes we forget that journalists are human as well. They cannot be completely neutral and emotionless. Our unhesitating acceptance of journalistic report is dangerous because journalists are able to shape our perceptions far more than we would like to think. Journalists can do that because their tones and choices of words can put entirely different spins on their reporting. They are able to choose the perspectives and the portrayals of the same event to suit their needs. Recently, the right-wing news channel Fox News in the United States declared the congressional rejection of Bolton's nomination by the Republican government as Ambassador to the United Nations a "great victory" for President Bush. By choosing their words carefully to portray what most people would normally consider a disaster for the President's move to appoint Bolton in a different light, they were able to bolster support for the government. Of course, many who do not share this skepticism for journalistic neutrality will assert that such bias is rare and that there are unbiased journalists around to provide a clearer picture of world events. But that assertion sounds hollow when we consider the reality of our world today, like in Malaysia where every newspaper and news channel is directly or indirectly linked to the government. There is a very real problem with bias, especially when governments use journalists to disseminate propaganda. The problem is exacerbated by an equally real sloth in the people themselves. Many people take the accuracy of the news that bear on the television or read in the newspapers for granted;the reliability of the reporting is rarely checked by the masses. When journalists are assumed to be correct all the time, we have incidents like the recent reports about wardens desecrating the Quran, the Muslim holy book, at the detention centre of Guantanamo Bay, Florida, which turned out to be erroneous: the detainees did it, not the wardens. The retraction and apologies from the Newsweek magazine which published the inaccurate reports were too late to prevent the deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan as local clerics, incensed at the supposed crime, goaded the people to riot. The incident highlights the problem with journalism: some people say the global audience is smarter and better able to choose the news that is reliable, but prestige like that of the Newsweek magazine, and the simple fact that we do not have all the facts

ourselves can lead the people astray. Journalists can influence us a lot more than we would like-- even when they are wrong. However, just as the anti-globalisation movement has been truly strengthened by globalisation, the fight against biased and erroneous journalism is growing because of globalisation. The advent of weblogs, or blogs as they are commonly known, offer new and exciting prospects for reporting and journalism. Even as the Internet is cursed for its unchecked freedom by anti-pornography and censorship advocates, it is now receiving praise for it. Blogs like Baghdad Burning became highly popular during the American invasion of Iraq as the author of the blog, an Iraqi living in the invaded land itself reported on appalling conditions the people were suffering from in Iraq. Everytime United States government officials tried to assure the world that Iraq was stable and on the road to recovery, Baghdad Burning would reveal the truths omitted by such officials. It is, of course, extremely difficult to ensure the reliability of such reporting. However, many believe that as the blog culture takes flight, enough reporting will be achieved for an effective competition to occur to weed out the untruths from the solid journalism available from blogs. But that day is still far. Mainstream journalists still have great influence over our perceptions. As long as they do, bias can be easily injected into the news for there exists no real opposition to give a voice to the other side of the issue. If mainstream journalism, while respected and bestowed with great amounts of funds to spread their word, maintains a monopoly of the news, it would be akin to "censorship" even as we purport to support a free press. The way out of this quandary appears to be blogging, for competition with mainstream journalism to arise. The international journalistic association Reporters without Borders recently awarded Freedom Blog Awards to blogs that sought to expose the truth and fight propaganda. In Asia, Malaysia's Jeff Ooi won the award for his blog, Screenshots, which was named the Asian Freedom Blog for 2005. Perhaps one day there will not be just one Freedom Blog but a global community of bloggers keeping mainstream journalism in check. Then we will be able to choose our news wisely. Written by Brian Tan Kwan Seng, 04S29 (GP Class D4)