How Television Distorts Reality By Benjamin Radford Summary

Writing Project Two: Exploring the Perspectives of Others In Benjamin Radford’s essay “How Television Distorts Reality” the author contends that television newscasts distort reality by focusing on sensational events. Radford claims that news broadcasts devote inordinate amounts of air time to crime coverage, and avoid more critical subjects such as race relations and geopolitics. The mainstream media benefits from these divisive tactics due to the rationale that sensational headlines are much more attention-grabbing, and they believe that they are being “democratic” by offering the masses prepackaged information that can be easily consumed. In reality, the media is forcefully increasing the viewer’s feeling of vulnerability, leading them to

In Radford's essay, he describes “the media paradox” which is forged when “we misplace our fears due to our reliance on the mainstream media” (235). Radford describes how the vast majority of mainstream news is “market-driven” and often relies on sensationalized stories that the media projects as important. Radford points out that there’s a media bias that focuses on murder and violence, which leads the public to believe that the world is much more dangerous than it really is. Radford argues that homogenization of the news, in particular, can be especially damaging to our society, and he believes that the method of targeting singular demographics insults the intelligence of the

Television networks covered each and every chilling moment, providing the unbeknownst viewers a front row seat to witness an uncensored display of carnage. Radford points out that “the news media do their best to raise alarm, even when no alarm is needed ” (236). However, on September 11th, the media’s perpetual stream of updates was necessary, and even vital, to maintaining national security. Our fragile national psyche is still recovering from the ghastly acts of terror that took the lives of two thousand innocent people. Furthermore, the horrific act damaged America’s sense of normalcy by increasing our culture’s immunity to violent images. As a result, we have become apathetic towards the suffering of our fellow man, and many simply stay fearful of the unknown. I discussed this topic with my father. He explained that “stereotypes about good and evil were created to make the unfathomable more understandable.” My father said he was, “optimistic about the future,” but also expressed frustration with our generations lack of motivation. Overall, I would have to agree with the man that raised me, but I also believe that our generation’s lack of motivation was created by a culture saturated in