Can Media Be Trusted?

The media is a very important part of our life. It is everywhere. In the morning, it enters our house in the form of a newspaper. Our teacher gives us a topic to search for. We turn on the computer, the media appears as internet. We take the remote control to change the channels, the television turns into media.

How much can we trust in that source which plays a big very important part in our life? There are times we hear the same news in different media sources in different ways. The same news appear in the television, radio and newspaper with different stories. I know my parents prefer to buy a certain newspaper and when I ask them why they always buy the same newspaper, they tell me that they trust that newspaper as the news on this newspaper are generally true. This proves that media cannot always be trusted as some media sources choose to add some details to the news to make them more interesting so the people prefer their products. Of course this is not an extensive research but I believe we all know people like my parents. I also think that today journalists probably prefer to be popular and earn a lot of money rather than trying to write the truth.

The media can sometimes lie to sell products. My mother’s friend saw some news on one of the websites about an eye cream. The news about the cream said that it would make you get rid of the wrinkles around the eyes and they guaranteed that if the cream doesn’t work, they will take it and give the money back. She bought the product. She didn’t like it and when she wanted to give it back, they didn’t pay her the money back.

Newspapers and radio and television channels with a political view change the realities if they oppose their ideas. They don’t want people to hear different ideas and they communicate what they believe to society. So we hear the same news with different interpretations and we end up by not knowing what to believe. For example last year when it snowed and there was a big traffic problem all the television channels showed real scenes from the Istanbul traffic. However, a channel supporting the municipality told the audience that there weren’t any problems with the traffic.

Internet is the latest source of media. Our teachers often give us some topics and ask us to search for the topic on the internet. They tell us not to use Wikipedia as the information in Wikipedia is generally incorrect. There are many sites in the internet which cannot be trusted.

Personal blogs such as facebook and twitter are used by the majority of the society. However, I think they cannot be trusted as people can easily create fake accounts. The news we share in these blogs can be interpreted in different ways by other people and they share our news using their interpretation with others.

The media cannot always be trusted, however, we still need the media as it is the source of news. We need to follow the news in order to understand the world around us.