Miscellaneous

Perspectives: The Importance of Words and Perspective in Journalism

Note: This article is hosted here for archival purposes only. It does not necessarily represent the values of the Iron Warrior or Waterloo Engineering Society in the present day.

What is the difference between a king and a dictator? How about a freedom fighter and a terrorist? A revolutionary and a traitor? In terms of definitions, absolutely nothing. Think about it. King: (n) ruler of an independent state, especially one who inherits the position by right of birth. Dictator: (n) a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained power by force. Typically a line of kings started with one king that took power by force, and typically dictators that survive their reign pass on their power hereditarily, so in essence there really isn’t much of a difference. However, despite them being almost exactly the same thing, there is one huge difference: kings are typically heroes and dictators are typically villains.  Why? Because it depends on your perspective. (Political Science Students: Yes, I do realize that there is a more precise difference, but bear with me here.)

Now you might be wondering why I’m pointing out dramatically different ways of saying the same thing. The reason is because this is incredibly important in journalism. In journalism, you are basically trying to write a story, and good stories need a protagonist and an antagonist. Most stories already come with two sides, so the most media outlets typically pick a side that is more aligned with the views of their viewers and makes that side the protagonist, and the other side the antagonist. This is partly why Western and Eastern media can sometimes be incredibly different. In Western media, you never hear “The Sovereign of North Korea Has Decided to Enter the Space Race”, you hear “Tyrant Dictator to Begin Testing of Nuclear Weapon Rockets”. You don’t hear “The Islamic State Revolutionaries Fight Back American Forces Annexing Iraq”, you hear “American Forces Fighting Back Islamic Terrorists”. You don’t hear “Sovereign of Egypt Overthrown by Treasonous Traitors”, you hear “Victory for Democracy over Tyrant Dictator”. Why? Because you see a different protagonist. If you lived in North Korea, I’m pretty sure Western news might seem just as ridiculous as those headlines to you, simply because you see a different protagonist. But when you think about it, there really isn’t any inherent “good” or “evil” in anything. The universe is indifferent to morals. In human civilization, there are just actions beneficial to our kind, and actions that are not beneficial to our kind.

But why stories? Well the fact is, facts are boring and stories are interesting. Nobody would read an article if the entire thing was “Plane crashed into sea at 0900 hours, nothing is known, search efforts are underway, company records have released an advisory a few months ago that there is a chance that a specific engine valve might fail.” They want to read “a plane has crashed into the sea killing everybody in a terrifyingly violent plunge. We suspect that terrorists or an evil careless pilot purposefully downed the plane in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of the democracy-loving world and that investigations are under way to bring them to justice. *Insert emotional stories of family members here*”. People need protagonists, antagonists, emotion, and suspense. The media never goes ham on reporting a plane crash when they were sure that the plane was downed by natural causes. They need to hold somebody accountable. They need an antagonist for their story. But what happens if there isn’t enough information to choose a side? What quite a few media outlets do (CNN is a remarkable example) is bring in tons of experts to speculate and come up with interesting possible stories, trying to make up interesting antagonists and present those made up stories as news.

But why is this important? Is this a problem? Well, it depends how you think about it. Your brain tends to take in the information from the world and use it as a lens to view new incoming information. For example, if you were discriminated against constantly, you would be more inclined to interpret neutral actions as a potential act of discrimination against you. This is particularly important when it comes to the media, since that’s how most people get information about the world these days. Being bombarded with negative stories and certain views, you would become inclined to view the world that way rather than being more objective. Well, I guess you could say that there are pros and cons to this, and that there isn’t much that the media could or should change. But should we really stop trying to view things objectively? Well then again, what do I know? I’m just a sleep-deprived first-year engineering student, not a journalist.

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