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Why Is Oprah Winfrey Is A Media Mogul?

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Who would have known that the girl who wore potato sacks due to extreme poverty would now be worth $3 billion as a media mogul? (“Oprah Winfrey” Forbes). The only black woman in Forbes' list of 400 Richest People in America, Oprah Winfrey has climbed up the ladder of wealth and power in the media industry, once controlled and dominated by white male owners and executives (Elkins). Apart from her award-winning TV show, Oprah Winfrey Show, Winfrey has established her own media empire and shaped the media industry’s print, film, and Internet sectors through her religious, empowering vision. Oprah Winfrey is a media mogul who transformed daytime talk shows from gossipy-trashy to intimate, transformative, and empowering, broke down the traditional barriers of journalism, transformed the book-publishing industry, and influenced the mass audience to celebrate differences …show more content…

As a media mogul, she breaks the mold of the aggressive, coldly-objective approach of journalists and replaces it with an intimate method. Matthew A. Baum analyzed how Oprah interviews controversial actors and political personalities. For him, traditional journalists should not overlook the Oprah effect. He noted that “Oprah’s audience frequently matches, and sometimes exceeds, the average of 8.4 million total viewers who, on a typical evening during the first quarter of 2002, watched the top dozen cable news programs combined” (Baum 175). The impact of Oprah becomes evident for people who are politically inattentive and may be affected by her selection and interaction with political candidates (Baum 175). Even personalities who have negative images can benefit from being a part of Oprah’s show when they are depicted in a different, humanized light. As Oprah interacts with these people and show them as flawed, but relatable, human beings, she opened a new way of soft journalism that humanizes

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