Truman Capote's Journalistic Report

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.

In the study, each source was ranked based on the political leanings of its audience. As a result, it ranked sources such as Buzzfeed more liberal than average while it ranked sources such as the Rush Limbaugh Show more conservative than average. However, none of the sources earned a perfectly neutral ranking (Wormald). The correlation between news sources and their audience’s political leanings becomes interesting when compared to the type of content each news source produces. Rush Limbaugh, for example, is infamous for his conservative rhetoric, whereas Buzzfeed is known for its lighthearted quizzes and comical representation of liberal politics. This reveals something about our perception of truth: biased sources allow individuals to ‘select’ the truth. When conflicting information is pushed to the side, it becomes nonexistent. Subsequently, the sum of partial truths interpreted by an individual becomes a whole truth in their mind, especially when partial truths are reinforced by mainstream media sources such as Buzzfeed or the Rush Limbaugh Show. This is harmful because, as Lewis implied, the entire truth is lost in this process and mutual understanding becomes harder to

Truman Capote's writing techniques are an essential component to the overall effect that his message gives to the readers. The use of rhetorical as well as literary devices work hand in hand to show the reader just exactly what Capote was trying to convey through his words. At first glance, it may be difficult to decipher the message, however once one digs deeper the message becomes much clearer. Capote wants the audience to understand the importance of living life to the fullest because it can change drastically in the matter of minutes. Although he explains very little that directly relates to his true purpose, his subtle use of stylistic devices work in cohesion to express his ideas, thus the importance of living life to the fullest at all times is greatly emphasized.

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.’

Capote wrote about real people and those real people have to live with the backlash that Capote’s work brewed up through its years of fame. The Clutters, their friends, the agents, and even the murderers were all real people with real feelings, not a character in a book. In a true fiction, a writer can twist and mold their characters into whoever they like. They can make things up about them without consequences because they aren’t real. However, Capote didn’t write a fiction novel; he wrote a “nonfiction” novel. Characters that he wrongly portrayed left a lasting scar on the memory of the real person. The two surviving daughters of Herd and Bonnie Clutter were furious with the portrayal of their mother as an invalid and Rev. James Post told

In the realm of politics, the media is responsible for producing versions of ‘truth’ which service

Although Truman Capote appears to recount the happenings in Perry’s life after the murders, his true intent is to push his audience to sympathize with Perry, depicting how he always looks to someone else to save him; therefore, asserting an individual’s attitude is greatly influenced by their past experiences.

"Failure is the condiment that success its flavor" is a quote from Truman Capote that explains why success is so satisfying. My opinion of the meaning of this particular quote is, that without the memory of failure to drive a person to do better, success would have no grandeur. One such example is the website I am writing this essay on this very moment. Another would be a particular painting that I have worked on for five years. A final example is the math I am working on this year.

In today’s society, remaining connected and knowledgeable of current events and the newest trends is vital to staying ahead in business, education, and social standing. This information is supplied to everyone through the internet, newspapers, television, and radio. One can tune into stations such as CNN, NBC, Fox News, Al-Jazeera, and many others (“SQs of Media Outlets”). In order to meet the needs of viewers, readers, and listeners, the ideal media system would contain accurate, quick information, with a purely impartial view on the facts as they are known. However, this modern media system has not maintained an objective view, pushing opinionated and slanted reporting onto the population in order to create profit and gain customers. The exploitation of information media for personal gain has created a toxic and inaccurate present, constant in today’s society.

Although Capote revolutionized nonfiction novels, his over fictionalization negatively affected real people, could have been easily avoided, and threw his morality into question.

Do news, entertainment, and advertising media give the people what they want, or tell the people what they want? Can the media be objective, and should they be? How can it be that conservatives are convinced that the media have a left-wing bias while leftist are equally convinced the media have a right-wing bias” (Lazere 304)? These sort of issued have been debated for decades and sometimes have lead to some form of verbal and physical altercation.

The short stories of Truman Capote are connected to his childhood experiences in Alabama. Truman capote was an American born writer who wrote non- fiction, short stories, novels and plays. All of his literary works have been perceived as literary classics. The tones of some of his stories are slightly gothic. His most famous short story is Children on Their Birthdays.

Nowadays journalists have the responsibility to report facts as accurately, objectively, and disinterestedly as is humanly possible. ‘’The, honest, self-disciplined, well-trained reporter seeks to be a propagandist for nothing but the truth’’ (Casey, 1944b).

It is no secret that the news has always been known to be bias toward a certain opinion, but experts can trace acts like this all the way back to the nineteenth century in early America (Thornton, 2016). During this time period most of the well-known newspapers were explicitly linked to political parties and economic interest. Respected historian Chilton Williamson writes this about the early 1900’s, “The presentation of facts simply as facts, editors and writers reasoned, cannot accomplish the exalted goal of saving civilization” (Thornton, 2016). But what if a leader comes along and believes that the best thing for their country is to use extreme media bias? In 1933 Adolf Hitler changed the meaning of media bias by completely controlling what people saw and read. Hitler eliminated papers against his control, and promoted the ones in favor. By doing this, he forced people to only see what news was being presented in one way, instead of an accurate and fair representation of the entire news (The Press in the Third Reich). This statement is not insinuating that bias with Nazi Germany is the same as modern America, but it is suggesting that bias amongst media allows for a misrepresentation of the truth to the people.

Traditional journalism has also prided itself as being an objective source of media, but pure objectivity is just a mirage. The limitation of human nature causes us to be biased, as we all have opinions which we directly or indirectly express in our communication, Added to this the financial, time and area space causes journalism to be subjective to a certain degree. But, another question arises, is subjectivity, an expression of one's opinions, necessarily bad? After all opinions give meaning to facts. One may argue that the presentation of opinions in the media would preclude people from making their own judgments, but aren't peoply independent beings with a mind of their own?