Everyone knows that the media is supposed to be a good thing for democracies in countries such as the United States. It's supposed to be used to transport information from the government to the people in order for the people to be well-educated on political topics and affairs. The media was first implemented to be completely unbiased and strictly informative. And while most younger generations today get their news from the Internet, there was a time, way back, when individuals would read the newspaper on a daily basis. But even back then, when newspapers were the main media source, the media wasn't used to inform, but to persuade.
In the 1890's, before media began using catchy, attention-grabbing article titles and excursiveness to derail individuals from the topic, there was a form of journalism that swept the nation. Yellow journalism, according to the U.S Office of the Historian, was "a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts". This means that the newspaper companies, just like magazine companies and most of online media today, used a style of writing in their articles that was more about what was appealing versus what was actually true.
It seems that this style of journalism has carried on into today's social media. You cannot scroll through Facebook without finding some sort of catchy title and a picture that seems interesting to read, only to find out it is nothing but information that you rather already know, or is too useless to do anything with. We arguably began idolizing celebrities in the 1950's, when famous rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley became a household name across the country. The media has transformed from what was supposed to be informative to what is known for today: bull-sh*t.
So I cannot help to ask myself a simple question: why do we do this to ourselves? Because frankly, it isn't the one who publishes the material that is to blame. After all, they need money just as much as anyone in this economy, and they did it the best way they know how. I put the blame onto individuals like you and me. You, because you just so happened to stumble onto this hoping it would fill 5 minutes of your time. People who consume the material are themselves to blame for the mass production of it. If we all got together and decided to stop paying attention to news sources that try to persuade and with lies and instead look up the facts for ourselves, maybe media will shift and become what we, as a nation, need it to be.
