Corruption has become rife in the media. Today, the main objective of news and media agencies is no longer reporting the news, but rather reporting the news that will earn them the greatest profit.
The media has undergone a form of "metamorphosis" that has altered the role of the media - from a reliable source of information to a biased source of altered facts which main aim is to earn money from people who trust the news. It seems that the very source of information that everyone placed their trust on has became corrupted itself.
This can be seen in the recent events where the media resorted to the twisting of facts and spinning of stories to create popular articles to earn more profit. Even large news companies such as the CNN, BBC and Reuters are not completely innocent of such corruption. For an example, last year, there was a case in which a Reuters photographer manipulated images to make Israeli air attacks on Lebanon seem more serious than it was. It pictured a digitally altered picture of a Red Cross ambulance "wrecked" by an Israeli missile. However, it was only after several days that people began to realize the deception. Worse still, several news agencies such as ITV News, Time Magazine, The Age, NBC News, the New York Times and many other news agencies were already spreading the false information to people worldwide, giving the false impression that the Hizbollah intentionally attacked a Red Cross ambulance.
Another example is the favoritism of news agencies towards certain government bodies, countries and organizations. There is a great tendency of the media to report more about local news and close neighbors or allies rather than a general report of world news. The media also tends to side people or organizations in power rather than the underdog. Different news agencies will in one way or another, show favoritism in the news they report. CNN usually reports business news and is more centered on American news. The BBC, on the other hand, reports world news but concentrates more on news about the European Union and its allies. Due to this, there is a great tendency for media agencies to take sides and become biased in their reports.
Media has also become corrupted because of the loosening of control over the media. As society becomes more open to change, more countries are doing away with laws that control the media and the freedom of the press. However, contrary to the popular belief that the loosening of media control allows more freedom, the relaxing of media laws have allowed the media to gain enormous power. It is this immense power that corrupts the media. The very power to control the knowledge of the people and make them believe whatever the media reports without question has caused the corruption of society
Sources of Information
http://messageinamatrix.wordpress.com/2007/03/27/globalisation-and-the-media/
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_holey_ambulance_the_backside_covering_begins/
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1316
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/27/150207.php
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