Corporate America definitely has a stronghold on the media. Journalists claims to be objective when writing their stories, but it all actuality, they write exactly what they are paid to write and claim it to be objective. If they actually write what they believe, their defiance could lose them their jobs.

The reason for this pressure and persuasiveness of corporate America is because they own most of the media as it is. Only a few companies own the majority of the media in America and because of this, only the things that the companies want the public to know will be run will run, and the editors have no control over the stronghold that the companies have over them.

The Parenti article also talks about the strong relationship between the media and the government. Journalist strongly rely on the government and politicians for jobs, because there are always things happening on capital hill and at the state levels as well. Of course, this job opportunity comes with a deal. If the journalists that work for the government and closely with the government do not comply and remain loyal to the government, they can immediately lose their access.

There was a documentary I watched in another class about the Collegian called The Paper, in which something very similar to this happens. The girl who was reporting about the football team had been allowed access to talk to the players and had asked them controversial questions about the practices, the coaches, and the other players. When the girl ran the story with the answers she received from the players, it was very controversial and she then lost her access to the players completely, and all of the players were specifically told not to speak with her.

In that situation, there was an unspoken agreement between the Collegian and the football team. The fact that she was allowed full access to the players and the coaches meant that she would, in turn, write positive articles about them. When that bond was broken, she was denied access. That is why these journalists write exactly what they are told, because if they act out of line and write what they feel would be objective, they could lose the access that they have to these reliable sources they rely on. In the government, they journalist are loyal to whoever they are writing for, because along with losing accessibility, their names could be tarnished as well.

This week’s reading described the objectivity and government manipulation in media industry. According to the reading objectivity means journalist’s neutralizing attitude when they reporting or delivering some news to the public. Neutral means journalist’s should tell the facts because if they appeal their own critical ideas to the public, that imply that the journalists are possibly on one side and reporting unfairly. However, I am wondering if the journalists delivered the news with their view, how the public can classify its fact.

Also, the reading treated about the government manipulation, which I have a lot of things to say. The reading states, “Along with owners and advertisers, government leaders exercise a substantial influence over what become news,” and this is what I could not trust the media with hundred percent of trust. There are two cases in Korean media industry. One is a year ago there was a journalists’ strike about 170 days for kick out the chief executive officer of MBC, which is one of the television networks in Korea. MBC is a national broadcasting network and broadcasting media organization assigned MBC’s chief executive officer discretionally through their meeting. The problem is Lee Myung-Bak administration ordered to let broadcasting media organization to assign Kim Jae-Cheol as MBC’ s chief executive officer. Then, Lee administration censored MBC’s news. Therefore, journalists strike for firing their chief executive officer, and insist freedom of speech to get back public’s right-to-know. During the strike, most of MBC’s programs stop to air includes entertainment shows, and television dramas. While the main anchors participate to the strike, MBC hired people temporary and continue to air the news, but audiences turned their back already and cheer for journalists’ strike. The strike ended unsuccessfully because Lee administration didn’t fire Kim Jae-Cheol. Instead of kicking out Kim, MBC kicked out some journalists that they participated to the strike, and some got a penalties such as wage reduction, and suspending from duty for a while. It seemed Lee’s administration revenge, so consequently MBC lost audience’s trust of its news. The other case was about the celebrities’ scandals or a festival period like a World Cup season. When a famous actor or actress’ scandal issued, the government hide some important things or decided some laws while public’s interests are on the celebrities’ scandal. Also, government used some famous festivals to hiding their fault or making a wrong law.

I personally, hope that one day the political power excluded from the media, so people really can get the facts and trust the media. Controlled media is a tragedy and ironical thing in this modern democratic society.

This week I mainly want to focus on the video that we’ve been watching in class though I will touch base on the article we had to read, “Objectivity and Government Manipulation” by Parenti. He goes on to say in his article that news coverage should be free of biases from reporters so that news reports both sides of everything fairly. In other words, news reporters and coverage should remain objective. It’s funny that Parenti says that though because looking at today’s news coverage and media, that is hardly the case. It is rare, if not nonexistent, to find all news coverage being unbiased. We often only hear one side of the story in news coverage because that’s the “norm” or what is socially acceptable.

One of the reasons why Parenti says that it is so hard to find news coverage and reporters that are objective is because of how they obtain that news information to begin with. Where do they get that information from? The government. Since they’re getting that information from the government it gives the government the power to decide what they can and cannot do with that information. Since it’s the cheapest and easiest way out in the journalism world, they are under more mandate than if reporters took the road less traveled and were able to discover information the way it should be. However, that might lead to retaining information slower than what the social world would like.

In regards to the film we’ve been watching in class, it’s really opened up my eyes, personally, to the corporate world and how it functions. First of all, when they showed how farm factories work, it absolutely blew my mind. Not only did it seem completely inhumane, but it made me think about where the produce and food that I’m consuming on a regular basis is coming from and exactly how safe it is. Second, how they brought up the difference between companies’ morals and the individuals’ morals that work for that company and the “externality” factor. How important it is to distinguish between the corporation and the people that work for there. For example, how they showed that man and his wife confronting, quite nicely, the protestors that were calling them “murderers”. That was something that was really interesting – how these people came to insult them and here they were willing to sit down and talk to them over coffee basically saying “hey, just because I work for these people doesn’t exactly mean that I have the same morals. I feel the same way you do.”

This week we had to read one reading, which was very long, but I enjoyed reading it.  The article was titled, “Objectivity and Government Manipulation” and Parenti writes it. We would all love to believe that the news and information we receive from our media is all true and unbiased but we all also know by now that this is not the case. This article sheds the light on how manipulative and influential our companies and government can be on us. Parenti explains that the concept of being objective is a paradox, as it does not actually exist because it is very hard to achieve, if at all possible, corporations and government censor and provide information that they would like to provide to us—we do not receive the whole truth.

The corporate business class owns the media; this changes the way media coverage is done and how stories in the media are told. When reading this article the world ‘objectivity’ was hard for me to understand. Upon researching I gathered that a synonym for objectivity in journalism is neutrality, this made understanding the word a lot easier for me.

I do think most people think that the information they receive is all-true. We all have grown up watching and listening to the news and believing what they are saying to us. I was not ever taught once to question the media- nor did I myself ever question what the media said when I was younger. Even my parents never brought up the topic of media being corrupt. Of course now that has changed for me, I am much more skeptic of media ever since I have been in college.

It seems to me that corporations will do anything to make money, regardless of what the effects are. I was astonished to hear in the video we watched today that when tragedy of September 11^th occurred the first think that came to brokers and people who have stocks with gold’s mind was how much has the price increased. It completely disgusted me that that there are people out there who were considered this tragedy as a “blessing in disguise.”

Classes I am currently taking are making me realize how corrupt our government really is. It makes me have less faith in our leaders.