MAKING CHOICES & CREATING ONE’S SELF
Media world is full of conflicts of interests. At one side, media organizations are supposed to inform the people with accurate information however; they also have to make money in order not to go bankrupt and keep on distributing the news to the people. In addition governments are also affecting the media’s choices greatly by allowing or impeding them to criticize some specific subjects, primary of which is government affairs.
At this point, everything is very fragile and that is why the media has to be very careful at what it is doing. The media does not have to give all the news it encounters but I believe it should not screen voices. For example, a newspaper may choose to not publish the pictures of a murdered woman just out of respect. In fact when Haber Turk published the corpse of a murdered woman it was considered very rude and unethical by many people. I believe in this case keeping the pictures is not screening voices but just respect. On the other hand, not revealing the crime committed by a presidential candidate in US is screening voices because remaining neutral in these situations is equal with supporting one of the sides that is guilty.
Lastly, the government may also moderate the media by making controversial statements and diverting them. For example last year while the media was busy with discussing Mr. Erdoğan’s statements about abortion, many changes took place in Turkey. The bid for a 3rd bridge in Istanbul took place; THY workers were banned to protest for their low-wages and 51% of ASELSAN’s shares, which is a corporation that produces tactical military radios and defense electronic systems for Turkish Army, was sold to Israel. Now of course abortion is a very important topic that concerns women’s rights and should be discussed however, while discussing that the media should also cover other important news. Maybe they were deceived by the government or maybe some of them understood what the government wanted and organized their news coverage according to that. Also, some news agencies may thought that covering abortion would bring more profit than covering other news. As you can see this is a very convoluted topic in which everything is mixed up. In order to understand who did what for which reasons one has to make a broad research.
In conclusion, media should give all the news it encounters unless it violates one’s privacy and will engender great chaos in the public. In other words, if the utility of news outweighs its consequences than it should be published.
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