The Church brings the Good News, the Press bears the bad news

One of the main reasons why media talks about religion very much is because people are interested in religion, on what religion says about morality, justice, etc. But how does media deal with religion especially when there are scandals?

Oftentimes, these scandals are exaggerated and blown out of proportion that the public seems to forget all the good things about a certain church or a religion. The media seizes all the opportunity to cover sex scandals, erring clergy, church conflicts over homosexuality and violence in the name of God. These are all legitimate news stories, but frequently missing are newsworthy stories on more admirable people and deeds in religion.

Since the public is so much interested about religion many times the media pretends to know everything about a certain scandal for example and gives the impression to the public that all that it says is already the entire story of that scandal while in fact it presents just a bit of what actually happened. Often those who are involved in smear tactics do some legitimate things. They tell a story, which the media are supposed to do, but they tell it in a way to suit themselves. It is absolutely amazing how the public is unprepared to think even for a moment that the media would not tell the truth.

I think the media has the right to present to the public that which interests them, religion for example, but they should see to it that their presentation of it should not be one sided only, that is, speaking only of scandals and ignoring the good things that can be found in religion. Media people should not think only of what suits them but first and foremost what the public wants to know - the truth. ®

The Champion of Stereotypes

Media is powerful when it comes to stereotyping. Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people – usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation. Media-generated stereotypes encourage the public to think about certain groups of people in ways that are simplistic, one-dimensional or sometimes disrespectful.

I would like to cite an example of how media works with stereotyping. In commercials and advertisements, models used are usually beautiful and good looking, meaning they have all the perfect physical features of an “ideal” man or woman. But where did we get this idea of perfect beauty?

Well, by the time people came in contact with media, this has been the way human beauty and perfection had been described or presented. That is why, beauty or perfection is usually equated with “harmony” or “proportion” of all the features of the human body. Moreover, media has presented the “western man” as the icon of perfect human beauty. Now that the mind of the audience has been formed by this mentality, the idea of what is beautiful and who is beautiful or handsome is already conditioned.

Although media has done something to overcome these “stereotypes”, still much more has to be done. For example, many commercials or advertisements already feature black people and people from different cultures as models but still the idea of perfect beauty as “western” lingers. Since media has been responsible for these kinds of stereotypes then it must also be responsible to do something to overcome them. Media has to consider that we cannot generalize everything because each individual is unique and that we cannot equate beauty only with external appearance. ®

Do you know Veronica Guerin?

Last year, I had the chance to watch the film entitled “Veronica Guerin”. This film is based on a true story about Veronica Guerin (played by Cate Blanchett), an Irish journalist and a reporter for The Sunday Independent, Ireland’s leading newspaper, who exposed some of Dublin's most powerful crime barons and drug lords in 1996. In that same year she was gunned down by assassins hired by the same criminal drug lords she exposed.

Veronica paid a very dear price for her passion for truth and liberty: her very own life. She was afraid because she knew the risks attached to her profession and she was well aware of the dangers not only of being hurt but also of being killed. She was terrified when one of the drug lords threatened her that he would abduct her son and kill her if she would press charges again him. In one of the scenes that she even threw up out of fear and told her husband not to tell anyone that she was actually afraid.

Veronica’s search for the truth was worthwhile because she was able to awaken the awareness of people to make a campaign against crime and drug addiction. At first, it seemed she was all alone in this battle but at the end everybody was crying out the same desire that she had.

One of the most interesting scenes in the film, journalistically speaking is when Veronica and an envoy of the drug lords were talking inside a bar where she was being bribed to stop the reports she was doing about the drug lords. Guerin told the envoy that she could not be paid and went away leaving him in the pub. Veronica, as a professional, was not afraid and not hesitant to say NO to the offer.

Her death was not in vain or useless because it served as a spark, a push to move the people to fight against crime and drug addiction maybe not only in Dublin but also all over Ireland. What she initiated was continued by the people who saw that Veronica Guerin died for a very good cause. ®