Watching Late Night Talk Shows for News: Focus on The Colbert Report

Late night political talk shows have become a very widely excepted medium for news acquisition in recent years. Shows like the Colbert report, the Daily Show, the Tonight Show and Saturday Night live have huge fan bases now that rely on them primarily for news information. Some studies show that the majority of their viewers are between the ages of 18-34 so mostly these are the newest generation looking to them for news. With their increasing popularity the question becomes whether talk shows, primarily meant to be entertaining and funny, are good fountains for current news and information for what’s happening in our political landscape. For this reason I decided to watch for myself November 14^th’s episode of the Colbert report on Hulu and read up on how accurate, current and insightful the news it provided was.

The program headline topic was how the Republican run state governments will change the Affordable Health Care act now that they have the power to create change. Colbert opened up the topic with jokes like “now Republicans are going to do something about it by undoing something about it” and called it the Republican’s “Healthcare Reform, reform”. Colbert went on to mock how  one of the leading architects of Obamacare called US voters stupid in a press conference, and how Republicans make it sound like poor Americans don’t deserve healthcare even if they need it. Over all this topic seemed well explained with full coverage on both sides of the issue, even bringing in a political analyst to show her views on the story and why she believes Obamacare will not die anytime soon. Colbert does a good job of using sarcasm to make it hard to pinpoint where his bias lays usually, but in this episode it was clear he believed the exact opposite, that Obamacare was dead due to the new Republican plans and was happy about it.

At this point I did go ahead and do some research on the topic myself. Looking through articles on the topic by the Washington post and CNN, it seems like there wasn't very much of importance left out of this section of the news. Most the same information was shown on both newspapers and neither seem to get quite as good a job of getting both sides of the issue as Colbert did. Of course this section took up almost half the entire time of the show so it should have been well covered and surprisingly, it was.

Washington Post Article on Republican plans for Obamacare

CNN Article on Republican plans for Obamacare

After that, Colbert went on to his next to topic with the joke “A federal judge Man on Managed to spread gay marriage to my home state of South Carolina”. This lead to many jokes about how he sarcastically detested the idea of Gay Marriage going to South Carolina, such as this one referring to the South Carolina state flag as being  nicknamed the “stars and bars and not the stars and gay bars”. All this was done playfully though and it was clear he was either glad for the ruling or indifferent. This was a short segment of the program and only featured the information on the ruling and the name of the judge who passed the ruling but not much else. When I looked the topic up later on USA Today I found there wasn't much else said about it there than was said on the Colbert show, other than a few more details on how the court session went and such, leading me to believe it was a minor story used to fill up a slow news night.

USA Today Article on the ruling to allow gay marriage in South Carolina

After this the last part of the show was spent interviewing Jennifer Lawrence about the new Hunger Games movies which I hardly consider important news for America to know about so I didn’t think it was too important to include that here. In Conclusion though, at least for the Colbert Report, it seems these shows do a good job of getting the facts down people need to know about news topics and they do something other news mediums usually don’t, make the news interesting to watch. That being said I wouldn't say the Colbert report or any late night talk shows are good substitutes for real news shows and pages, as they’re limited time frame, and entertainment based theme makes it so not much news can be presented on each show. The Colbert Report in this episode was only able to cover 2 news topics in the entire show, there are a lot more than just two news stories going on even just here in America right now, let alone the rest of the world. So although they may be accurate and interesting, no I don’t think late night talk shows should be anyone’s only source for news, and if they are than yes I do believe either researching online or watching true news shows are very much worth the time to supplement what was said in the talk shows.

Framing in Today's News: Ethical or Not?

Today’s news stations always seem to have some side agenda to meet when reporting the news. It’s not always enough to just tell you what’s happening in the world, sometimes they have to try to give the viewer a subtle push in the right direction as to how they interpret the news we hear. This is called framing a story. Framing literally means, a structure or angle given to a news story that influences the readers understanding.  A good example of this could be the report titled, Order for millions of blank work permits, green cards raising amnesty concerns, posted on FOX news October 21st 2014. The link to the article and video report are below and I suggest watching it before continuing.

Order for millions of blank work permits, green cards raising amnesty concerns- FOX News

This report begins the framing process in the title with the use of the word amnesty. Amnesty means pardoning of someone who has caused a major political offense. This brings the idea to mind the image that the Hispanic migrants are a group of lawless thugs who could have already committed heinous crimes either in the states or out of them. It is true that entering the country illegally is considered against the law but this has been considered a minor misdemeanor for a long time up until recent years, and the way they are making it out to sound frames the migrants in the worst possible light from the very start.

The report itself also makes it sound like these migrants will be simply given a card and allowed to become citizens with no questions asked, when in reality there will be a long process to gaining citizenship and a green card. There will also be fees that must be paid, including any taxes the migrants who have been in the states for over a year have not yet paid. The report also omits the rules for keeping citizenship once granted to migrants, which will require migrants to keep a very clean police record if they are to keep their green card and citizenship status, otherwise if they break any laws they can lose this and be deported back to their country of origins. The omitting of all these important facts serves only to turn the audience against the migrants in this report.

Example of another news company known for framing its news every once in a while.

Finally they also include in the video itself a comment that is very important to notice. “So with millions of Americans still out of jobs, Obama’s plans will allow for employers to hire millions of foreigners…” They mention at the beginning that millions of Americans are out of work, right before saying how the plan will allow millions of migrants to be hired in the states. This is a gross slant saying that it is the fault of this plan and the migrants that these Americans are out of work and will stay out of work. There are no sources given to link the number of Americans out of work to this plan at all and again this is another act of framing to turn the viewer against the plan and the migrants.

In the end there were many more graceful ways this report could have been done. For one they could have actually gone into the details and restrictions about the plan and how these green cards would be given out and what would be needed to earn and then keep them. They also could have gone with a less aggressive title for the report itself. Whether you agree with the message this report portrays or not I feel that it should be understood that there is an ethical problem in the way it was structured. News should be as objective as possible so as to allow the viewer to make his own informed decision. This report, on the other hand, left out a lot of key information and added in opinions that had no place in an objective news report. Sadly this is only one example of the framing you can find on news sites right this second.

Music and the Transfer of Culture

              Music is an ancient and beautiful concept that has been around as long as humans have been able to communicate with each other. I feel that music is an odd and interesting art form with a very strong power to capture the attention and imagination of a listener when done correctly.  Therefore, it is no surprise that it is also something that can deeply imprint emotions, stories, and ideas in the listener. This is the true power that music holds, by simply listening to a song you are being shaped by the rhythm and lyrics that the artist creates. You might love the song and take its message to heart, in which case you have now absorbed a bit of the morals and ideals of that songs creator. On the other hand you might hate the song and reject everything it says, even then it transfers to you a stance on the issue that will shape your future perceptions, even if only a little. This has become increasingly true ever since radios first ancestor, the phonograph, was created by Thomas Edison in 1877. With each new evolution of sound transfer technology, music has become more mainstream and common in our lives and now a radio in the house or car is something almost anyone around the world has access to. Understanding this, how is it exactly that music transfers not only emotions and single ideals, but tastes of entire cultures to a new audience?

                There are two ways that I can see this happening, or two examples at least. The first is when “culture” is considered as something varying between people of different nationalities. In this case having a population that is becoming increasingly more diverse causes a melding of cultures. For example, in the past few years the Hispanic population has grown in the United States through immigration into the country. As that population grew, they brought with them music from their own respective countries. It’s true for a long time their music stayed isolated on the Spanish only radio stations but already now we see this cultures music permeating into American culture through music on hit music stations. Artists like Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, and Pit-bull have in recent years had their music blow up on American charts. Songs like “hips don’t lie” by Shakira, the many songs Pit-bull has been featured in with American artists like “Mmm Yeah” by Austin Mahone or Enrique’s current english radio hit “Bailando” have opened a window into Latin culture in this foreign land, and it has caused Americans to try a music type that was completely unknown to them 20 to 30 years ago. I believe as time goes on this music will slowly become more popular and will be seen as often on hit music stations as other genres like pop and rap, and with that we will see a successful cultural transmission and fusion.

                           Shakira- Hips Dont Lie

                           Enrique Iglesias - Bailando
 

Austin Mahone ft. Pit-Bull - Mmm Yeah

 

                The other example I can think of is within a group of people of the same nationality. Even in a group of same origin there will always be separate views and sub cultures brought on by the difference of opinions and experiences every person faces in their lives. With each sub culture I feel there is a type of music that they create that will for the most part represent that groups ideals. These ideals will vary as the population ages and soon a new generation will come of age and begin to form their own ideals. This is where music comes in, as even though the new generation will have their own thoughts and experiences, all of that will be shaped by the experiences of the prior generation, music being the main instrument for this. For example today in the US the current generation in the ages from 15-22 have their own music coming out that represents them and their generation’s thoughts and perceptions, but most of them know and have grown up listening to the music their parents enjoyed. We all know old artists like Elvis, the Beatles, or Tupac. We may not play them as often as the older generation did but we have heard them played by that generation and that music was the stepping stone our music came from. Their ideals, morals and stories are the beginnings of ours, therefore we see not only a transmission, but an evolution of culture as time goes on.