preview

Essay On Fear And Bias

Decent Essays
Open Document

In modern politics and media, issues are often unnecessarily blown out of proportion and stigmatized through misinformation. Source A details this extensively, citing the prevalence of fear campaigns and misinformation to manipulate viewers. In the past, news was often simply factual and impartial. However, fear and bias are common forces behind coverage today. Recently, a news anchor claimed in a nationally televised interview that “We’re already in World War III,” hyperbolically and without basis, simply to scare viewers into listening. Source D illustrates this issue with a viewer simply turning off hysterical news coverage when asked “What can we do to lessen the grip of fear from terrorism?” This political cartoon implies that the fear striking America from modern issues such as terrorism and immigration is …show more content…

As such, news has become a fear-mongering and untrustable source. Source C details this in relation to the current mass shooting endemic, and CNN’s debate over whether or not the names and information of shooters should be public. With no scientific backing to the argument against sharing the information, this is another example of the news’s tendency to withhold information or misrepresent information. Mass shootings, terrorism, immigration, refugees seeking asylum, and pro-life/pro-choice arguments are all issues that are controversial in modern debates, and are all presented inaccurately often in modern coverage and politics. Due to this, shootings have continued, Muslims have been profiled due to terrorist ISIS attacks and driven away from seeking asylum(Source A), and rape victims have been driven out of abortion clinics by people “pro-life” oxymoronically. As a line establishes in the 1978 Tom Stoppard play, “Night and Day,” “People do awful things to each other. But it’s worse in places where everybody is kept in the

Get Access