An Analysis of Elizabeth Bishop's 12 O'Clock News
In “12 O’Clock News,” Elizabeth Bishop accentuates the difficulty involved in perceiving the “truth.” She utilizes a technique of constructing an exotic world out of objects that can be found in a newsroom. By defamiliarizing a newsroom, she questions our trust in what we perceive. Is it truly a journey to another world or just another perspective on something we are already familiar with? The intent of this transformation is to create a substitute for reality, analogous to the substitute reality which the media presents to us each day as its product, the “news.” The news media are capable of creating a world beyond what we see everyday, presenting us with what appears to be the truth
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The pile of manuscripts or the “slight landslide [that] occurred in the northwest about an hour ago” (lines 13-14)* links the surroundings with the newsroom. These discarded manuscripts are not found in a generic office setting.
Juxtaposing a real and fanciful interpretation of objects, Bishop separates each of the objects from the technological terms that ordinarily are used to describe them and depicts them with a naturalist language, which make the objects not readily recognizable without the label off to the side accompanying the description. Bishop adopts a naturalist language, which would usually be expected in a description of a rural or completely untouched area. By applying this language to various objects in the newsroom, she disillusions the reader with this created world. Using this technique, Bishop distances us from the familiar object in order to question our understanding of our environment or the basis on which we construct our opinions of other cultures or places. For example, the typewriter is described as having an “elaborate terracing of its southern glacis gleam[ing] faintly in the dim light, like fish scales” (8-10). By relating the typewriter to terraces and fish scales, rather than using technical terms or presenting the
In an era of global technology, instant news, infomercials, electronic town meetings, and “Made for TV Documentaries,” the borderlines between news and analysis, news and entertainment, news and fiction are constantly shifting.
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.
It is not always easy to look someone in the face and address their faults. Yet, Clare Booth Luce’s introduction of her speech is straight to the point and effective through her appeals to ethos and pathos as well as various tones to do just that. The purpose of her speech is to criticize the tendency of the American Press to sacrifice their journalistic integrity in favor of the public demand for sensationalist stores. In a number of ways, Luce is successful in setting up her speech’s message and working towards cushioning her audience for her upcoming
As society advances and the opinions of the general public change several press outlets work to stay up to date with the changing times. However, in an attempt to stay modernized journalists often times sacrifice their integrity to stay favorable in the public eye. These degrading actions, often times sacrifice the true news for more appealing news. Clare Boothe Luce, American journalist and politician, gives a controversial speech to the Women’s National Press Club condemning her female audience. Moreover, as a female addressing an audience of women she is able to give her true opinion and is able to honestly critique her colleagues. She persuades her audience by preparing them for the criticism by reiterating that she is the guest, by praising journalism, and by logically providing reasoning that the journalistic view must change for the good of the general public.
Within Joyce Nelson’s essay, “TV News: A Structure of Reassurance”, Nelson criticizes the TV news structure that perpetually disconnects current events from their historical background through comforting anchorpeople partnered with advanced technology to create a TV program that minimizes the important implications of current events. Though lacking the amount of information that a print news publication can maintain, the TV news can convey immediate information through technological advances of modern TV equipment to allow the medium to remain competitive. The façade of in-the-moment international information broadcasted directly to viewers enables anchorpeople to maintain the feeling of immediateness, keeping the viewers believing the program
In, “One Man’s Rumer I Another Man’s Reality, Gregory Rodriguez, an author of the Los Angeles Times he argues about the power of broadcasting the truth and its effect on the people. As a result, “can false rumors and off-the-wall theories be corrected by broadcasting the truth” (Gregory Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2009)?
With regards to Walter Lippman’s quote in 1922, it is fair to dispute that ‘News is just someone’s version of events’. Due to the changing society over the past years since the quote and the increased number of factors to consider, it raises the question of how precise, accurate and relevant this quotation is in the present day. However, some factors must be considered when debating the credibility of the quotation: ‘news is just someone’s version of events,’ as it can be affected by a number of reasons. These can include factually based stories, changing market conditions, partisan and ‘churnalism’; more specifically- ‘flat earth’ stories. Therefore, when considering these factors affecting news stories, it is can be argued that news isn’t ‘someone’s version of events’, because the article is either purely fact and leaves no room for opinion, or the version of events or news story has been manipulated due to changing market conditions or ‘churnalism’. However, when a news story is initially sought, it is also believed that a reporter should find a story and that the news story is true and a chronological order of the events in which the reporter witnessed at the time, furthermore supporting the quotation. On top of this, when biased media organisations include their opinion or political stance, this can also be argued that it is ‘their ‘version of events.’
But a newspaper reporter, instead of holing up in isolation, was in touch with the rest of the world. What the reporter wrote influenced what people thought about and talked about the next day; he knew what was really going on. I decided I wanted to be one of the people who knew what was really going on”(204).
With the recent explosion of social media, many rely heavily, often excessively, on the internet for their news about the world. While being bombarded with fabricated stories and corrupted facts, the public struggles to find the actual truth, creating an entirely new realm of responsibility for journalists. They are forced to delve deeper than ever before, beyond comfort, in order to superficially scratch the surface of truth. This practice of exploitation and rooted research was coined “muckraking” by Theodore Roosevelt during a speech in 1906. While this term had carried a negative connotation for decades, Jessica Mitford, the late investigative journalist, transformed that perspective and graciously accepted the title “Queen of the Muckrakers”. Mitford was correct in her prideful title, as muckrakers have fulfilled a valuable role in the creation of policy over time, as well as acting as an integral component in modern day media, full of deception and bias.
“The whole problem with news on television comes down to this all the words uttered in an hour of news coverage could be printed on one page of a newspaper”. The average news cast is only twenty-two minutes long,and that's not nearly enough time to cover the days events.In Neil Postman’s essay “The News” Postman talks about the structure,content,and goals and results of a television news cast. The news can be compared to the theatres in terms of its structure. According to Postman, “Music takes us immediately into the realm of the symbolic, a world that is not to be taken literally.”
Vast amounts of information that is thought to be unsafe for common knowledge is frequently withheld from society. Information that is deemed dangerous, inappropriate, or fallacious is restrained from becoming public. In the novel 1984, the Ministry of Truth is responsible for determining if information is appropriate for public knowledge. They are Oceania’s source for news and entertainment. Even if the information being presented is invalid, it is made mandatory by the Party for citizens to accept the material. In modern day society, people are faced with similar circumstances. Society is taught to believe that the media tells them the truth and that the facts that are being put forward are legitimate. In George Orwell’s novel 1984 the Ministry of Truth satirizes the dilemma that modern day society faces through media control and the censoring of information.
The Story of an hour written by Kate Chopin is the best short-story because theme, characters, point of view, and style show the attitude that some women felt or may feel regarding marriage being repressive in their life and a longing for freedom. The story opens with Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine informing her that her husband has been killed. Because of Mrs. Mallard’s heart condition Josephine and Richards, who is a friend of the family and there to help deliver the news, are concerned with how the news will affect Mrs. Mallard. When Mrs. Mallard hears the news to is over taken with grief and locks herself in her room. While in her room she imagines herself in her new life that is no longer bogged down by her duties as a wife. When
The recent surge in popularity of social media comes with a price: fake news. Fake news is defined as news or media that has been altered or modified. Journalists have begun to analyze why that fake news exists and why it continues exist. Two authors, Eoin O’Carroll and Kevin D. Williamson, both have written articles about fake news. Eoin O’Carroll’s article “How Information Overload Helps Spread Fake News,” discusses how the media has bombarded us with news stories, blurring the distinct lines between real and fake news. Kevin D. Williamson, a journalist for the National Review, writes in his article “‘Fake News, Media and Voters: Shared Reality Must Be Acknowledged” that the news is not fake; it just does not align with one’s personal beliefs. Both authors successfully appeal to their audiences’ emotions and feelings, but O’Carroll is more likely to succeed than Williamson in persuading his audience to try and combat fake news because the writer presents himself as someone the intended readers will more readily identify with and offers evidence that his readers will find more compelling.
What was astonishing was not the rapidity of the news- that is, after all, the beauty of modern broadcasting technology- but the effect that the news had on the public. In the following weeks and months, story after story demonstrated the
To wholly have a grasp on how this new founded approach to journalism has changed alongside technology—as well as understanding the dangers such openness brings forth—one has to understand what exactly those changes are. Primarily, those that are writing for the sake of offering information have, whether willingly or not, fed into the usage of social media as it has become a centralized method of distribution that is relatively inescapable with the current times. As such those framing the news for the masses find an authentic avenue to stay in contact via social media that has benefits ranging from, “its extraordinary newsgathering potential; its potential as a new tool to engage the audience; and as a way of distributing our news” (Eltringham, 2012), all of which are deeply different from the presentation of reporting that occurred during earlier eras. Days of strongly structured instances of journalism that could not travel with such speed have been replaced as, “social media has trashed many of the foundations on