On today's agenda...

As a journalist-in-training at Ithaca College you get pounded with the ideal of objectivity, which is, in fact, the complete opposite of agenda setting. But, after three and a half years or so, you face the fact that agenda setting and quietly-biased news is inevitable.

As much as I may not like it, no human being can be truly objective and it seems as though few journalists actually even try. So I’ve come to accept the fact that agenda setting exists.

What’s important now, is for media outlets to not deny their agendas. For Fox News to pretend to be objective and agenda free makes as much sense as The Village Voice claiming the same thing. Ideally, news outlets should aim for objectivity, which would in-and-of-itself do away with agenda setting practices.

Beyond the media, it is up to citizens not to rely entirely on one outlet for their information. It may take extra time and effort, but the only way to avoid being influenced by inevitable news agenda setting is to put an effort into forming your own opinions.

Recap: I don’t like news agenda setting but understand it is more of less inevitable. The media should work harder to not portray an agenda. Citizens should take it upon themselves to learn what’s happening from different sources in order to form the own opinions and thus avoid the negative effects of agendas.

Assignment 1 - News sources

Like most people in this class, I get my news mainly from The New York Times. I’m not a huge fan of the Times and most often, when I get the chance to pick up an actual printed paper, I go for something else. But every morning when I go online or when I have a quick minute I scan the headlines of nytimes.com.

I default to the Times Web site now because I’ve been going there for so long that I’ve become comfortable with its layout and can quickly find what I’m looking for. The New York Times has been required reading more or less since I came to Ithaca College so that’s where I get my news. Other than the Times, I look at the Dallas Morning News online to keep track of what’s going on at home, Reuters and occasionally BBC for world news, and USA Today if I can get my hands on a printed edition.

Time for CNN to grow up?

The senior vice president of NPR is becoming the managing editor at CNN, maybe now CNN will focus on real news instead of leading with celebrity deaths.

Here's the story:

http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/cnn-hires-managing-editor-from-npr/