While reading my classmates’
blogs, most of which agreed that satirical news are equally as reliable as
legitimate news, I noticed a strong faulty trend that even I fell for when
writing last week’s post – there was a common misunderstanding of the definition
of “reliability”.
A majority of the class
agreed that they like satirical news reporting because it is humorous in how it
emphasizes the corruption and sometimes plain bigotry of power holders in our
society (corporate companies, politicians, governments, etc), which gives its
audience entertainment and awareness at the same time. However, this does not
necessarily identify the source as reliable; in fact, it may very well play the
opposite role.
Karandeep Dhillon backs up
my point by stating that “…[satirical news shows] raise points
regarding current situations which the general audience watches and is
interpolated to think in the same way. The use of satire can create biases in
audiences…” (http://jattinc.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/80/).
For the sake of the entertainment business, the humour these shows use has to
be somewhat controversial for an audience to be attracted to it. However,
controversial information can cause for a bias in opinion, especially for an
impressionable audience.
This
can cause a problem because, as Isaac Cowan puts it, “When you ask most teenagers
or people in their early 20s, do they prefer their news presented in a truthful
and funny way or truthful but boring and a slightly biased way? Arguably
speaking, most would say the first option…” (http://isaacc56.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news-2/).
Beneficially, these shows interest a younger audience, which gets that
demographic more interested in international issues, and ultimately, more
active in working towards a cause they believe in. However, because youth are
so impressionable, feeding them information that so strongly supports one
ideology can bias their overall opinion.
That
being said, satirical news shows should not be completely eliminated from the
public sphere – rather, just independent from legitimate news sources. While
their purpose is debatable, they do serve a good cause, as Jenny Tran proves in
her blog post: “Even
though some people do not like satirical news reporting such as The Daily Show
and The Rick Mercer Report, it starts debates. This makes people see other people’s point
of views…” (http://jt11mb.blogspot.ca/2013/11/is-fake-news-real-news.html).
With so much heated debate in our society between political parties and their
supporters, it is important to look at a situation from both perspectives to be
able to properly present a well-informed, unbiased opinion.
Satirical
news shows benefit our society in many other ways. As I discussed in my last
blog post, the hosts of these shows often live off of humourously criticizing politicians
and/or corporate companies and their faults. However, what some people see as
faults, others can see as a move in the right direction, meaning that these hosts
are presenting their own biased opinion. The benefit is that it raises
awareness to a large audience; by making the bold statements that they do, they
put a situation in a new perspective for people to rethink where they stand on
said issue. This does not play the full role of a news sources, though, which
is why I cannot define satirical news as reliable, but rather as beneficial.