The Power of the Media

One aspect of The Foutainhead that I found interesting that we did not really get to disscuss in class was the portrayal of the media. I think that the way Ayn Rand portrays the media, even though exagerated, is very close to how the media works. The media in the book doesn't simply report stories, they go looking to create stories so they can report them. Wyand's reporters do not go through the book simply reporting stories they see, they go out and create stories of their own to report. There were people who just happened to be former Wyand employees who exposed horrbile working conditions after a few weeks in a shop. There were also the instances when Gail Wyand wanted to make himself look like the hero and went and delivered food to starving children and saved a shipwrecked crew. Gail Wyand knew the power his media posessed. When he decided he liked Howard Roark he said "I am going to make him famous."
The media in our world today has the same amount of power if not more and constantly makes their own stories. Think about the headlines you see in the news. Major news networks are on the swine flu by publishing, posting, or airing a story about the teen who died from getting the flu. They're not reporting the other cases of reported flus this year where the people have survived. Why not? They are also covering the on going debate about healthcare but not at all in a fair way. Networks who support the reform air footage of the outbursts from people who appose such reform to make the other side seem worse. The networks who side with the protestors are no better. They report on how the new plan calls for "death pannels." Even worse in my opinion are the networks like CNN who show veiwer comments the issues they are reporting on. The people that watch CNN probably agree with the opions they hear on air!!! Why would they sit and listen for hours and hours to people they do not agree with? And by showing this information on television CNN is influincing other people's opinions.
I think the media should do the right thing and give viewers all of the facts on the issues they report, not just the facts they want them to know. It's not fair to viewers that in order to get accurate information on any current event they have to go to many differnet sources. I know as a high school student I don't have time for that and the time available for that decreases in college, after getting a job, getting married or starting a family. We need informed people to make decisoions not people who adopt a certain media outlet's opinion because it's the only information they had acess to.