#NOTEPAD

During one of my classes on Media Content Analysis, our lecturer brought up a question that would change our perception of the media forever.

"By the way, what is objectivity in the media?" He asked.

As 200 level students, we all tried to define the word "objectivity" according to what we had learnt in the previous level, what we had heard of somewhere and what our mobile phone dictionary could provide.

After taking enough contributions from the class and explaining the concept of objectivity to a crystal clear state, he asked a second question.

"Can you point out any media house that practices 100% objectivity or is it even achievable at all?" With that, the whole class went silent. Everyone thinking without any positive response.

From that lecture session till this very minute, I have had more that enough reasons to say that objectivity in the media is unattainable. Believe it or not.

No media house in this world of human existence can boast of 100% objectivity in all its daily reportage. Not even the BBC that serves as a model to many other top media firms in the world.

The truth is that even in the apex of professionalism, every media house will only show you what it wants you to see and never the whole story.

The media is controlled by humans and until humanity losses all its strings of subjectivity which is almost impossible, the media will never be fully objective.

Wether you think it's true or false, every media firm has a name, person, movement and propaganda it protects and promotes and for no reason will it publish what threatens to tarnish the image of what it protects. And guess what? Under the guise of "agenda setting" and "framing" this is termed as PROFESSIONAL.

What you hear, see and read everyday on your radio, television, newspaper and the Internet is not the true appearance of news but a well sculpted and polished version of the reality that has been tailored to fit for the promotion of the media firms ideology.

It is dangerous, toxic and unhealthy to swallow whatever you see on the media hook, line and sinker because you are most likely to end up with a distorted image of reality.

In all your doings, never trust ONE media source for all your information but always try as much as possible to confirm and verify what you are getting from the media through comparison and personal research.

This is just the simple complexity of reality.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)