U.S. Media to American Citizens: You Can't Have the Truth

Americans as a whole have a lot of values and beliefs: freedom, equality, privacy and many more. One of the values most Americans hold is truth, and how important it is to be truthful. In America, lying is not illegal but it is immoral. Considering that this is such an important value to Americans, one would assume that the U.S. media would reflect the values of American society, but that is not the truth.

We are being fed false and misleading information, in matters big and small. It has come from trusted sources such as established newspapers, experienced journalists, Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel Peace Prize winners. It has been going on for a long time, sometimes by carelessness and sometimes by deliberate lying (Hoven).

The U.S. media lies to Americans everyday, in one way or another, and sometimes, most times, unbeknownst to them (the American citizens). It happens through advertisements, T.V. shows, and even the news. The media definitely does not reflect the American value of truth.

On T.V., the media depict American life a lot different than it really is. In the hit show Friends, none of the characters could have realistically afforded their apartments, with the possible exception of one character. In another hit show, Sex and the City, the main character Carrie Bradshaw writes a short weekly column for the tabloid New York Star but affords a large apartment and tens of thousands dollars worth of shoes and clothes. The media is responsible for putting this image out there to the American public. While both shows are entertaining to most, they are not realistic situations and are sending an untruthful message to their audiences. Many TV show characters are not realistically depicting what life would be like on their character's salary. As Laura Morsch, a writer for careerbuilder.com, put it "most of these characters would be solidly middle-class in the real world" (Morsch). The American public views these characters and their lifestyles as real, many American citizens can relate to the characters' emotions, but while the characters themselves may be realistic (sometimes) their lifestyle usually isn't. The media chooses to deceive the American public by showing these characters in these situations instead of putting them in more realistic, truthful situations.

Advertisements on television and in magazines and newspapers always make the product or service that they are trying to sell seem almost too good to be true, and sometimes they aren't (true). The goal of the advertisement is to make a consumer want that product or service, by whatever means necessary, even if the means are stretching or completely disregarding the truth. False advertising is when an advertisement gives untrue or misleading information about the product or service it is selling in order to get the consumer to purchase the product or service or visit their store (False). One popular service that often has untrue or misleading information in its advertisements is weight-loss pills or diets. In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission did a report on Weight-Loss Advertising, which concluded "that false or misleading claims, such as exaggerated weight loss without diet or exercise, are widespread in ads for weight-loss products, and appear to have increased over the last decade" (FTC). The FTC also reported that many marketers used "misleading consumer testimonials, and deceptive before-and-after photos to market their products" (FTC). Many of these advertisements, according to the report nearly 40 percent, appear in mainstream, national publications.

A very current advertising angle is "greenwashing" meaning the product is somehow environmentally friendly, although nothing is "green" about it and it is just a marketing scheme. According to David Linzer, member of the U.S. Green Building Council and senior kitchen and bath designer at Kitchens Baths and More, "Some manufacturers will employ pictures of nature to suggest they are green when, in fact, they haven't changed their product-just the marketing" (Linzer). Greenwashing has become more popular as the idea of becoming more environmentally friendly has become more widespread in American society. Another company doing this is Kraft's Post Selects Cereals, they claim to have "natural ingredients" although most of their ingredients, including their corn, are genetically engineered in a lab (Deen).

The news may be the most dishonest the most often and the most bluntly. Reporters have been known to make-up quotes, sources and even entire stories. Which are all sent to the public as the truth. One reporter who lied to the American public is Mike Barnicle. Barnicle made up several articles that ran in the Boston Globe over a period of 15 years, including a story he wrote in 1995 about two children, one black and one white, who had become friends after being hospitalized together with cancer (Mashberg).

"The veteran reporter was a favorite among journalism's old-boy network, as well as a major circulation draw, which is why the Globe continued to cut him slack for so long in the face of mounting evidence that he was a fabulist and plagiarist" (Mashberg).

Suggesting that even though the media, in this case the Boston Globe, knew of Barnicles deceit continued to run his stories in their publication for the American public to read.

Another reporter who is well-known for fabricating many of his stories and lying to the American public is Jayson Blair, who wrote for the respected New York Times. Blair mislead readers by fabricating comments, quotes, scenes and more (Barry). "The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper" (Barry). Readers of the Boston Globe and New York Times expected the truth and these reporters deliberately deceived them.

These examples show that even though truth and honest are core values of American society, it is often not the case for the media. The media will use different levels of deceit, from depicting TV characters unrealistically and stretching the truth about the life the characters have to advertisements conveying misleading information that will help their product sell to trusted news media sources flat-out lying. The media, in all forms, often does this to get the desirable reaction, whether that's tuning in, buying a product or reading a certain newspaper.

Works Cited

Barry, Dan; Barstow, David; Glater, Jonathan; Liptak, Adam; Steinberg, Jacques.

"CORRECTING THE RECORD; Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception." 11 May 2003. New York Times. 11 Nov. 2007.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9403E1DB123FF932A25756C0A9659C8B63

Deen, Shireen. "Don't Be Fooled: America's 10 Worst Greenwashers." 29 Aug. 2002.

AlterNet. 11 Nov. 2007. www.alternet.org/story/13984/?page=entire

False Advertising. False Advertising information sheet. Department of Consumer Affairs.

County of Los Angeles. 11 Nov. 2007.

http://dca.lacounty.gov/tsFalseAdvertising.htm

FTC Releases Report on Weight-Loss Advertising. 17 Sept. 2002. Federal Trade

Commission. 11 Nov. 2007. www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/09/weightlossrpt.shtm

Hoven, Randall. "Media Dishonesty Matters." 8 Oct. 2007. American Thinker. 11 Nov.

2007. www.americanthinker.com/2007/10/media_dishonesty_matters.html

Linzer, David. "False Advertising: Greenwashing can lead to less than green results."

1 Oct. 2007. Kitchen and Bath Business. 11 Nov. 2007. www.kitchen-bath.com/kbb/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003655822

Mashberg, Tom. "Repeat Offender." 20 Aug. 1998. Salon Media Circus. 11 Nov. 2007.

http://www.salon.com/media/1998/08/20media.html

Morsch, Laura. "Are TV Characters' Salaries Realistic?" 24 Sept. 2007.

MSN Careers. 11 Nov. 2007. http://msn.careerbuilder.com/custom/msn/careeradvice/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=623&SiteId=cbmsnhp623&sc_extcmp=JS_623_home1&cbRecursionCnt=2&cbsid=09fa9fa557fa41aca26fda2d1fc254de-248386387-VF-4