"Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news,they make the news." Discuss this with references to recent events.

To begin, below are the meanings of the individual words “recent” and ”events” obtained from the “Little Oxford Dictionary Thesaurus”:

-Recent --- (adj) happening in a time shortly before the present.
--- (adj) new, fresh, latest, modern, contemporary, current, up to date

-Event --- (n) something that happens; an organized social occasion; an item in a
sports programme
--- (n) occasion, affair, occurrence, happening, episode, circumstance,
phenomenon; Competition, content, fixture, game, tournament, race

From the above meanings, I define “recent events” as the latest occasions or up-to-date happenings that have been reported in the news and/or have attracted the public’s attention. I have included in my discussion a few examples of “recent events” as evidences of “the media make news and not report news”.

Last year, there were three journalists jailed over “fabricated” news: (http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=265633&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/)
In the later paragraphs of the article, it says, “The Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) protested the arrests, saying they were aimed at clamping down on press freedom.” This shows that the media cooks up news as they have a mentality that they should have the right and freedom to express their opinions, neglecting the fact that they are actually reporting news with false information that can lead to misunderstandings, regarding the issue, on the readers.

An example of a recent event that I am going to refer to is that regarding “Prince William breaks up with girlfriend”. There was a report on this issue on 15 April 2007 on CNN.com.: (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/14/britain.william.reut/index.html)
With reference to the report, there are quite a few assumptions made, where no justification was made by either Prince William or his girlfriend, Kate Middleton. Many of the information about the couple’s relationship were based on the Sun newspaper.
Eg. “The Sun said that their relationship had strained since William graduated from Sandhurst military ceremony attended by Middleton.”
Furthermore, as mentioned in the article, “last month the Sun published a photo of William with an 18-year old Brazilian student in a nightclub and said he had invited another girl back to his barracks for a nightcap.”
These are often misunderstandings caused by the media. They report according to what they see, which may not be true. This is an example of media making up news and not reporting news.
Another assumption, or rather personal opinion, that could mislead readers is the following from Judy Wade, royal correspondent for Hello magazine: “Maybe she realized the awful burden she would have been under. It’s a life sentence marrying a royal.” How reliable is this statement?

There are many other examples of the media ‘making news’ and not reporting news, such as the article on the “Fans cry foul over Fann’s hair” and “paternity tussle continues”, both from The Straits Times, April 4, 2007. I feel that these articles actually further increase the intensity of the issue, creating the unnecessary feelings among readers after reading the reports. This is something to be discouraged. The tone of the response given is a little too harsh, which may cause misunderstanding of what is actually being brought up.

In conclusion, I think media do sometimes tend to make news. Could it be because they find that they need to also express their views? They need to write about something “interesting” to bring life into the world? Anyway, I wouldn’t disagree that “media do not report news, They make news.”