America Is Not The Greatest Country

The United States of America, the self-proclaimed sole remaining superpower, often touts that it is the greatest nation in the world. Yet, when the data is analyzed, this claim is proven time and time again to be wrong, whether it is math or science, literacy or numbers, household income or workforce. Time and time again, and the numbers continue to slip. Healthcare is no exception. In 2012, the United States ranked thirty-second worldwide in life expectancy (Avendano and Kawachi 2014). Of the thirty-four Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations in 2010, the United States ranked twenty-sixth in infant mortality (MacDorman et al. 2010). In a 1998 study of thirteen developed nations (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States), the United States ranked, on average, twelfth. The rankings for the United States on each of the sixteen health indicators was: thirteenth for low-birth-weight percentages; thirteenth for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall; eleventh for post neonatal mortality; thirteenth for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes); eleventh for life expectancy at one year for females and twelfth for males; tenth for life expectancy at fifteen years for females and twelfth for males; tenth for life expectancy at forty years for females and ninth for males; seventh for life expectancy at sixty-five years for

Having served nearly thirty years at CBS News, Mr. Goldberg had earned a reputation as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. However, when he observed his own industry, he realized the liberal media had completely missed their mission to give honest news. After years of sharing his observations and promoting more balanced reportings, Goldberg soon realized that no one listened because they believed they were doing the right thing. The liberal bias continued, therefore Bernard Goldberg decided to take the situation into his own hands and expose the distortion of the media himself. Goldberg’s breathtaking and shocking best seller book, Bias, reveals the close-mindedness of the news culture and their mission to entertain rather than share facts.

The artifact I chose for this week is a famous speech given the popular HBO TV show the Newsroom. This speech is given by a guy name Will McAvoy. Will McAvoy is doing a Q/A in lecture hall when he gets ask the question “Why is the US greatest country on Earth?” Two other people answer the question with the usual “freedom” talk. His answer starts off similar theirs. However, he starts giving an unusual answer where he claims America is not the greatest country on Earth.

In 1968 Ailes participated in helping Nixon get Elected to the presidency. Nixon once said “It’s a shame a man has to use gimmicks like television to get elected.” To which Ailes replied, “Television is not a gimmick and if you think it is, you’ll lose again.” (Dickinson ’11 p. 4) Because of Ailes success with the Nixon campaign, he was hired at Television News Incorporated (TVN). This news station was “designed to inject a far right slant into local news broadcast by providing news clips that stations could use without credit.” (Dickinson ’11 p. 5) The network was biased enough that the news director quit in protest, calling the network a “propaganda machine.” (Dickinson ’11 p.

In the video titled Was America Ever Great? by Charity Croff, Croff goes to look into the past of America and shows that America really never was as great as Donald Trump thinks it was. Unless Trump’s idea of greatness is the genocide of millions of native American’s, the stealing of land from the natives and Mexico, and African Americans being forced against their will to work until they die from horrific working conditions then as Croff says “America was never great”. He also goes to say that it is hypocritical of us to be so against illegal immigrants when the first Europeans landed and colonized America were illegal immigrants themselves. Our entire country was built on immigration by immigrants. Croff explains how the Indian Removal Act

Over the last few decades, cynicism in America has taken a downward spiral out of control. It is no secret that humans are intrinsically good and strive to be honest and thoughtful to one another, but we still ended up here. According to Tom Basile, we have the influx of media outlets to thank. He states that "American media institutions have been successful at driving and profiting from a dour outlook" as they flood us with the most negative stories they can get their hands on.

Americas greatness is a controversial topic on the worlds standards of living. In the opening scene of the television show “The Newsroom”, Will McAvoy the news anchor, is in an auditorium participating in a panel of politically knowledgeable people. McAvoy who is the protagonist of the show, he avoids answering one of the questions asked by a student “Why is America the greatest country in the world?”. He finally does answer “it is not the greatest country in the world.” By analyzing the video “The Newsroom Opening Scene” the viewer sees how McAvoy appeals to ethos, logos and pathos to express his answer.

This monologue is from the HBO television show, The Newsroom. The monologue is set during a Northwestern University question and answer session between a liberal, a conservative, and news anchor Will McAvoy. Will McAvoy is viewed as this great “moderate” anchor, he’s in control of his opinions, and is unwilling to share his personal political philosophies. Internally however, he is conflicted, disillusioned by the current political climate characterized by a tit for tat policy. During the Q&A he continues to remain in the middle, responding with answers he believes will not satisfy or offend any specific party. That is until they are all asked the question, “What makes america the greatest country on earth?” Both the liberal and conservative both answer in a way that panders to their specific party, and Will attempts to remain in the middle, but is stopped by the moderator. The moderator demands that Will give him a “human” answer, so he does, in a way that is extremely unexpected. “America is not the greatest country in the world.”

America is not perfect, but one day it can be. Throughout the history of America there has been many failings and vain attempts to make America a Utopia. An American is supposed to be an idealized version of ourselves, a perfected image, yet that is not true, far from it even. There is still many struggles that we as americans face today, such as poverty and racism. In fact more that 45 million people fall under the poverty line in the 2014 census. There will eventually come a time where these discrepancies are abolished and I look forward to that day, but that day is not in the now. “A third-generation German American is an American. A third-generation Japanese American is a Japanese American.” This is one of the many examples of racism

This event taught us as media professionals to always listen to the whole story., In the beginning of the segment the broadcast stated that this was a theatre production. Not only did this encouraged active listening, this also encouraged us as media professionals to be more detailed with all the stories that we present to the public. When presenting stories, we want the audience to actually care and maybe not have the exact reaction they did but to have a level of

The mass medium I have chosen to critique is a new television show called This Is Us and it airs on the NBC channel. This Is Us is a show about a family with triplets and they show how they handle all the different parts of their lives. This particular mass medium addresses many of the different current issues going on in today’s society including; race, diversity, education, religion, and politics. This Is Us addresses diversity in today’s society and portrays many different types of people within this one television show. To prove that this mass medium portrays diversity I will look into how this show illustrates race, different social stances, and different educational backgrounds both positively and negatively. Also, to better the credibility

In one time, William McKinley manifested “Expositions are the timekeepers of progress,” inspiring America that the workflow will be presented graciously. Reaching to the years of massive expansions, America had grown tremendously with goods and services. During the late 1890s, President McKinley urged Americans to transformed America into the greatest powerful nation in the whole world. In preparing for a strong nation, the Spanish-American War had enclosed their attainments due to tensions between Spain and United States. American had its victories and forwarded the Treaty of Paris which had control over several foreign countries. After the war, United States focused on up warding their nation. America’s progression of new

The media in today’s society is constantly filtered by bias news reporters that are leaning more towards a conservative point of view or a more liberal point of view. However, despite this circumstance, there is still hope in the media to seek the truth. In order to evaluate the information that is provided by the mainstream media there is a tool that John McManus calls a SMELL test. This simple test helps viewers depict the facts from the fallacies and as well of seeing the producers intentions. Truth in today's media is difficult to identify because news producers are only sharing their political opinions rather than share pure facts. Broadcast networks also fail in providing points of views from both a conservative and a liberal point of

In an effort to expose the epistemology of television, which Postman believes has not been effectively addressed, he examines the effects of TV on several important American cultural institutions: news, religion, politics and education.  All four institutions, Postman argues, have realized that they have to go on television in order to be noticed which, in turn, requires them to learn the language of TV if they are to reach the people.  Therefore, they have joined the national conversation not on their own terms, but on TV's terms.  Postman contends that this transformation of our major institutions has trivialized what is most important about them and turned our culture into "one vast arena for show business" (80).  In the case of broadcast news, we see visually stimulating, disconnected stories about murder and mayhem along with a healthy dose of infotainment delivered by friendly and likeable anchors that remind us to "tune in tomorrow".  In the case of politics, we have discourse through distorted paid TV commercials and "debates" in which the appearance of having said something important is

“You think this is more real, truer-to-life than anything around you” (1092). As society relies more and more on what the media must tell them, they keep forgetting what is going on in their lives right in front of them. This happens with even simple television, and it is when, after a while, what one is witnessing becomes more of a reality than actual life occurring. This is easily visible when a woman might protest for more aid for the poor directly from the government, but ignores the poor in her own community. She might be walking down the street for a protest and fail to notice the poor man begging for change on the curb. When the news is bad, it creates panic in society, as if America will ultimately fail, however, when the news is good, people become oblivious to the negative things going on in their own