It’s another weeknight, and as you walk into your apartment after a hard day at school, you find you have the desire to watch TV.  Being the educated college student that you are, you decide to watch the news. However, as you change the TV station to CNN, you’re blasted across the room by the shrill voice of Nancy Grace. After you are able to recompose yourself and begin to watch her show, you start to wonder if this is even a news show at all. During all the time you spent watching TV at home, before you left for college, you never remember a news program quite like this.

In fact, it seems as though today’s style of news broadcasting is moving farther away from what it used to be. Instead of the traditional news shows, such as those with two or three anchors reporting the news, broadcasts now seem to be composed of one main anchor, if you can call it that, shouting his or her beliefs about something at the camera, defying anyone to disprove them. Take Grace’s show, for example. Pretty much everything about the show, including her set, the camera angles, and everything going on around the screen, is centered on her. And if that’s not enough, there are those annoying, scrolling news lines saying her opinions, which she just said, literally, thirty seconds ago. Such is the case with shows, like Bill O’Reilly’s, as well. You may find yourself asking is this even news at all? I wouldn’t blame you because honestly—at times, I’ve thought the same thing. Is this new style of news broadcasting what young Americans can look forward to in the future of news media?

After giving this question much consideration, I would have to say I really hope not. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that shows like Grace’s and O’Reilly’s are outright bad for the public. Instead of allowing viewers to think for themselves, the audience is basically being told what to think.

In Grace’s show, and in shows similar to hers, it seems as though the host is more interested in telling the viewers his or her opinions and trying to sway them towards one side, rather than actually reporting the topic they are ranting about. That’s right; I said they try to sway the viewers. Since when did the news become a contest to see who could get their opinion more heavily appreciated? It’s as if the news media has taken on a political persona of its own, trying to get Americans to join the Grace party or the O’Reilly party. In my experience of watching news programs, however short it may be, I’ve picked up that the news is supposed to be the opposite of this. I have always been under the impression that the news is supposed to be delivered unbiased; that the news is supposed to deliver just the facts.

Grace and O’Reilly didn’t seem to get this message, however, and neither did the general American public. I say this because Nancy Grace’s show and Bill O’Reilly’s show, The O’Reilly Factor, are two of the most popular shows on television right now. In fact, the Nancy Grace Show and The O’Reilly Factor are the two most watched so-called Headline News shows by Americans aged 25 to 54. O’Reilly currently claims the top spot, with 3.8 million viewers, while Grace holds a close second with 2.4 million (Huffington Post).

I’ve always been under the impression that the news is supposed to be unbiased . . . It’s not supposed to try to make the viewers believe one person over another or trust one person’s opinions above all the rest. That’s not news; that’s discussion about the news.

However, if we look at Grace’s and O’Reilly’s shows, can they really be called news programs? They are put into the category of Headline News, but again, I’ve always been under the impression that the news is supposed to be unbiased. But what does unbiased really mean? I could give you a high class definition from the Oxford Dictionary, but in general terms, it means to not take a side. It means the news is supposed to deliver only the facts, being as accurate and reliable as possible. It’s not supposed to try to make the viewers believe one person over another or trust one person’s opinions above all the rest. That’s not news; that’s discussion about the news.

I feel as though America, today, is one of the most educated countries of the world. Assuming this is true, why would you even want to listen to someone else try to make you believe their opinions? Wouldn’t you, as an educated American citizen, want to draw your own conclusions about something, rather than be told what to think? Because that’s exactly what shows like Grace’s and O’Reilly’s are doing: telling us what to think rather than allowing us to think for ourselves. What is the point in even watching the news, then, if we are going to be told how we are supposed to feel and think about every subject? Furthermore, why is this one person’s opinion so much more highly touted than yours or mine? I mean, let’s be real; why couldn’t you or I sit in a comfy chair for an hour yelling our beliefs at the American general public?

I go back to the term I used earlier: the traditional news show. When I think of a traditional news show, I think of what is probably now only shown early in the morning. I think of a news set composed of two or three anchors that fit the persona of Walter Cronkite reporting information about events that have happened around us. While it may not be as entertaining or lively as Grace’s or O’Reilly’s show, it definitely gives the viewer the ability to think about the news for him or herself. All news shows, including traditional ones, are biased; it’s unavoidable. However, the degree to which Grace’s or O’Reilly’s shows are biased compared to traditional news programs is enormous. The traditional news show presents us predominantly with the cold, hard facts and allows us to formulate our own opinions. This allows us to have our own discussions about the news rather than watching someone on TV have one. In a few years we will be cast among that group of Americans aged 25 to 54, and do we really want to continue the trend of supporting shows like Grace’s and O’Reilly’s that don’t allow us to think for ourselves? Do we really want to support such biased, opinion based news programs? As we move on in our lives, graduate from college, get married, and hopefully get a job in this somewhat unstable time, it would be nice to know that there is still one thing that hasn’t changed; that there’s still one place we can go to get only the facts about what’s going on around us. Traditional news shows give us just that, allowing us to do what we want with the information at hand and interpret it however we may desire. Traditional news programs give us the freedom to think for ourselves and use the education we worked so hard for, rather than listen to someone else do the thinking for us.

The Ohio State University

Winter 2010