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Network

Network As a freshman and sophomore I thought about taking journalism as a minor. I ended up taking News Writing I & II, as well as Public Relations. In addition, I also worked for my local newspaper, Pawtucket Times, as well as for a local boxing promoter handling their public relations - a job which I still hold today (http://www.cesboxing.com). Because of this I found both the movie and the reading to be very factual. The basic premise of both the film and the reading is that the elite, or the rich people and corporations of the country, control the news and what is reported and what is not. In my personal experiences, as well as in the film, this was shown to be almost 100% correct. In my personal experience I have found that we will get no news coverage for a boxing event from our local paper, the Providence Journal, until we put together an ad package. This is not a written rule, however it seems to be the only way to get things done. Also, when working for the Times, the paper never covered the Providence Bruins AHL hockey team until the team started advertising with them, than the paper made it a top priority. I especially liked how they created the controversy around Howard when he expressed his true feelings on his show. I think this happens a lot to this day. When a writer does a piece that is a little controversial you will see many times them being sued, reprimanded, etc. Or, if you pay close attention, many times that writer will just not show up that often anymore. This is prevolent in all kinds of media. A few years ago ESPN2 had a very good, but controversial radio talk show host on as a host of a call in show. Jim Rome, was his name, and once he got too controversial they had to yank him from the air for fear that the advertisers and sponsors would pull their support from the network. When Howard said in the film that bit about the people of the country not wanting to hear the truth he was very correct. If you think about it in terms of the news of today you will see that. If a person is watching the news and there is a lot of violence and bad things happening they will almost always ask the questions, why can't the news say something good? Well what if there is nothing good to say. News nowadays has had to cater around this however, creating "Local Heros" segments, "Health Checks," etc. In the film Howard had the advantage of television, thus he was able to get away with a little more than he would have been able to in regular news writing. The best evidence for this comes from the reading where Gitlin quotes Ben Bagdikian's three stage selection of news. The editor first doles out the assignment. The writer covers it, but then the editor gets it back to look over. If the editor feels that something may offend of upset the advertisers, or his bosses, etc. he has the freedom to "edit" the article and make it "suitable for print." Basically, in the film Diana is the quintessential reporter for today's corporate world. For her it did not matter what the real news was, all that mattered was what would sell and what news would garner the highest ratings, etc. This is how the network wanted Howard to feel, however instead he chose to tell the public how everything works. In essence Howard almost became his own program director and told the stories how he wanted them to be told. Things like this do happen in the real world often. Many times you will read a column that seems to be a little off beat and seemingly against the grain. This is because sometimes things do get by the editors. Also, these things usually only happen when the column is written by a reknown columnist and not a reporter. The main reason for this is that the paper and the head honchos there can always lay the blame on the columnist and forward all the criticisms to him/her. I had seen this movie while in high school and I liked it then as well. However I did not have the knowledge of the news industry I have not. Based upon my personal experiences and the reading I can say that there is a lot more truth to the film than what many people think. As a high school student I did not really believe the film completely, sure I thought some of it was possible, however I never realized the seriousness of the situation until later on. Bibliography:

Word Count: 795