Fact? What Fact?

Unit: Professional Writing and Presentation 212 - Fakes, Frauds and Fictions
Journal Teaching Week 5 (300 word limit)

What an awful prospect. While amusing, the Wag the Dog movie was also quite terrifying. Where do I start on conspiracy theories? In relation to the debate on spin, I suppose the greatest question that the movie raises is, wouldn't it simply be easier for the President to face up to the charges. Hiding behind the fabricated war not only causes a whole range of other problems, but also gives the public a reason to think that he has something worth hiding. Perhaps to face the music would be to gain a politician a little more respect for actually doing the right thing for once. Who will ever know?

It is amazing to realise the extent to which certain media has the public attention and trust. News is such an official channel that it seems unlikely that anyone would question a war that news channels (papers included) are declaring is happening. In reasearching Orson Welles' War of the Worlds incident, it does become clear that the presentation of an event is everything to the public. The authority of the news, of the spokespeople, the grainy appearance of film (or marred clarity of a radio broadcast, enough to prove that the broadcasting area is under attack) all works to define for the public what is real.

I think that there is some sense of cynicism regarding the news today, some realisation that most stories are in fact taken from a side and the whole story not given. However, television still holds more credibility than other news channels, as the public can see what is happening.

Take the emergence of the internet and it's ability to circulate news “as it happens,” even faster than television channels. The announcement of Steve Irwin's death, for example, was considered by many to be someone's idea of a sick joke when it was circulated on the internet. It was only television news broadcasts that convinced these people that it was, in fact, truth.

Reading
Movie, Wag the Dog.