How We Perceive "The Truth": Distortion of Reality in the Media

Or should I better say..."How we receive..." the truth.

Let me give you an example of what I mean:

An event happens in your local town. Say, a new fast food restaurant opens.

Now, a news outlet (newspaper, TV station, etc.) wants to report about the new fast food restaurant.
The boss of the news outlet says to his staff "Oh, did you hear about that restaurant. We need a piece on that restaurant for our readers so we can inform them. Let's send two of our journalists out there, Jackie, you go and take Maggie with you. We need a story TOMORROW in the paper. Make it good!"

So Jacki and Maggie, two journalists go out wanting to make a story about the restaurant.

What's reporters and journalists do? They ask people, witnesses. Something. Whatever makes a good story.

So they pick a few random people close to the restaurant and interview them.

The one interviewed about the new restaurant says something like that he really doesn't care about it. He doesn't like fast food anyway, he hates the restaurant.

Then they interview another person. That person just came out all angry from the restaurant. In the interview with the journalists, she tells them there are some Mexicans or Indians serving in the restaurant. She really doesn't like them. The one server even got her the wrong sides with her burger..so he rattles on to the interviewer that the restaurant has really bad service.

After a while, the two journalists have their story. They go back to their HQ and write some piece about the new restaurant featuring the interviews with those people. They may add some other stuff to it, to make it a "worthy" story.

The next day, you open the paper (or watch the news, or read that site)...reading about this restaurant.

AND THIS IS HOW WE RECEIVE NEWS ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND US.

Whether it's a trivial event or a major event like a shooting, terrorist attack, assassination etc.

Do you think that as you open a website or turn on the TV you perceive THE TRUTH in regards to some events?

This is in particular the case if major events happening like school shooting etc. where it's happening often that false, inaccurate things are dispersed in the media especially right after some news break. In addition to that, news media do not have an obligation of "serving the truth"....they only have an obligation to produce a story. The first one getting the story (SOME STORY) wins!

Something happens, camera teams and journalists are sent out. They interview witnesses, police, victims maybe. They collect often biased information and or subjective wrong information.

"10 have been shot." (Because some lady interviewed swears she heard ten shots when she was doing laundry)
"Correction. 50 died at the latest school shooting." Based on that they interviewed some people close to where the event happened and some of them may have said they think that 40-50 people got killed. No one bothers to double-check. Nevertheless, you ill read it in the news.
One day later "2 have been wounded. Thanks god no one was killed". The story has been revised. Because it turned out that the witnesses from the day before were unreliable or simply told nonsense, 24 hours have gone by and better research has been done and it was found that only 2 had been hospitalized. No 50 dead.

In addition to all of the above let's not forget that many news media often have an agenda as well.

So....WE are perceiving our "reality" of what happens in almost all cases through news media because we are hardly ever there ourselves as a witness. Have YOU been at the scene of the murder or mass killing? Have YOU actually talked to the killer so you know his real motive? WHY did this guy storm into a cinema and shot two dozens of people? He was "insane" because they interviewed some former neighbor of the guy who said so? Was the woman in the car really "executed" or was this only an opinion by someone who was around when it happened? You get the idea.

We form conspiracy theories about events, say, the Sandy Hook Killings.

Not because we were really THERE and have first-hand knowledge what really happened, but based on a reality/truth which is "produced" for us by news media whose job is NOT "to report the real truth"...but news media who are companies that produce news for ratings. Or media where journalists are simply bad, too lazy to do research and who don't care anyway.

I always think..when people form conspiracy theories, they say things like "This or this doesn't make sense, so it must be a conspiracy, a false-flag". But we form theories often NOT based on the "real truth" but only based on second and third hand opinions, after they filtered through the media. This is the "truth" we perceive. And it's often grossly inaccurate, subjective or false. And I think when people form an opinion they should think about whether the events they talk about are actually the REAL events...or just 3rd hand accounts which may not have a lot to do with what really happened.

News is someone's opinion, only we have been brainwashed into thinking it is Truth.

What I would report is WILDLY different that what someone else would report. In fact, someone who didn't go through the indoctrination of journalism school will report things is a very different manner while all of those who went to journalism school will report things in almost the exact same way - despite what they believe.

To add the OP, another key problem, and it is a HUGE problem with reporting is the fact that stories are believed to always have "two sides." Every reporter is sent out to get "both sides of the story." This is remarkable as it has people making up things to fill in the other side. I saw an interesting mini profile on a doctor in las vegas who's a believer, and taker, or hormone therapy. He's 70 something and looks fantastic. The "other side" was some totally trumped up "might cause cancer" nonsense which was used to invalidate his experience. Reporters use the "other side" very, very often to frame stories in a certain way or to invalidate points of view.

Do the White House stenographers still call themselves journalists? If at "sandy hook" the only information comes from a "spokesperson" is the person who "tells the story" a journalist or a mouthpiece? I know people who put the words in journalists mouths and I know people who have written stories for journalists.

Reporters do not report the Truth, the report what they see based on their POV. There are only two words that need be used to invalidate the notion that journalism is something other than opinion.

Judith Miller.

How we perceive truth may be distorted, but with so many news stations and newspapers around covering the stories. They all form a system of checks and balances. They all have to pretty much get eventually the same story. Like a watchdog system in place. If one were to make something up, they would be in front of everyone else and deemed wrong.

Never believe ANYTHING you see or hear on the television. Nothing. Ever. The same can be said of all media outlets.

Don't believe any of it.

Have you ever heard the old saying," Don't believe anything that you hear and only half of what you see"? Well, with today's technology, it is more like," Don't believe anything you hear or see,period"! Anything you hear can be a lie and anything you see can also be a lie, especially with computer generated graphics.
You are right about how the media, whether it is a television newscaster or a radio personality or a person with an iPhone, can distort the truth, just to make a story sound good and the key word is "STORY". A story is just a story. It could be true or it might not be true, you have to decide that for yourself. The media knows that if their source is not good or if they just plain lie, you will forgive them and life will go on. We believe what the weather person says, even though that person has no control what so ever of the wind or rain , but we still put our faith in them.
But the sad truth is......what is really truth? We are all lied to everyday by the government, the media and half the time you don't even know if your spouse is telling you the truth. Are your kids really studying at a friends house or did they go to a party? Did your best friend Bob really borrow that money from you so that he could fix his car or did he really just use it to take out some bimbo he met the other night at the local bar? The truth is, you just don't know. Even if someone saw Big Foot and recorded it on video, some would say that it was real while others would say that it was just someone dressed up in a gorilla costume. The truth is the government and the media lie to us everyday. Some people believe the lies and some don't. If you ever find a very trustworthy person that doesn't lie, hang on to that person for dear life, because that person might be the only real truth that you have in this life.

letmeon
How we perceive truth may be distorted, but with so many news stations and newspapers around covering the stories. They all form a system of checks and balances. They all have to pretty much get eventually the same story. Like a watchdog system in place. If one were to make something up, they would be in front of everyone else and deemed wrong.

Media invention is a given, there is no watchdog unless everything is already cut and dried. 9/11 for instance was full of TV invention, and all the while there was some decent reporting lost.

letmeon
How we perceive truth may be distorted, but with so many news stations and newspapers around covering the stories. They all form a system of checks and balances. They all have to pretty much get eventually the same story. Like a watchdog system in place. If one were to make something up, they would be in front of everyone else and deemed wrong.

I'm sorry letmeon, but the post you made here sounds to me like an idealistic meme spread through high school sophomore journalism classes.
Ah that it were true.