http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100909/ap_on_re_us/us_muslim_college
Zaytuna College opened it’s doors this fall semester in Berkley, California for the first time. A college opening, so what? What’s the big deal? The controversy stems from the fact that this is an Islam faith based college. With all of the current cultural controversy involving the Muslim faith this opening has in turn been meet with negativity.
By reading the comments on this story you can tell that the media plays a definite and important part in shaping the opinions of the masses. Now that media is available online you get easy access to all the top stories and stories like this that are only covered online or in their perspective states. News is much more widespread because of the easy access to the internet. I feel however that this is not necessarily a good thing. Reporters are more interested in getting the story out then getting the facts straight. They write from their own opinion and don’t give both sides of the story thus swaying the opinions of those reading/watching their news stories. My father was a city attorney in California and I grew up listening to him comment on the wrong “facts” that were printed about a case he was working on. As an adult in a small town in Oklahoma my husband and I were involved in a minor car accident which somehow landed on the front page of the local paper with every fact wrong down to the spelling of our names. With the news being more fast paced and always available because of the internet I believe reporters don’t take time to check their facts and has a crippling affect on the way society thinks.
I enjoyed reading this article, I am glad you blogged about it otherwise I might not have heard about it. It would be interesting to see how other media sources report on this and to follow the story to see how it plays out. I have a feeling that if this college grows, it will cause even more controversy.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad, really, the conclusions we jump to based on the things we read. One can read a story like this or something similar about the Islam faith for example and have negatives feeling about it based on all of the stories, reports and opinions that are out there. I bet that if someone were to actually research and take a closer look at the religion as a whole, that they would be enlightened.
Journalists and public writers definitely play a role in how a reader perceives a topic and their opinion on the matter. It almost compares to watching different movies. Watching a comedy or love story can leave you feeling happy or uplifted while if you watch a drama or horror movie you might feel sad, scared or stressed. You would think the ethical goal of a journalist would be to provide facts and information to the public without interjecting their personal opinions and feelings, but it is probably hard to do so considering how much our emotions control us. Between this and being imperfect and sometimes careless, one should not read something and take it at face value without digging further.