Lies & The Media

Nowadays, the world "lies" is greatly associated with the media. Nobody knows what to believe anymore. From fake news articles to cover ups for certain political agendas to fabricated film documentaries, we as members of the audience are bombarded with lies and falsehoods dressed up and presented as facts and truth everyday. This results in the importance of the representatives of the media industry to work harder and harder to gain credibility these days in order to gain the trust of their targeted audiences. That being said, the fact that a well-known television show, with a well-established TV presenter has been hit by a scandal that questions the content they have presented as facts certainly does not help the show's credibility and the presenter's image. At this point, it is not confirmed whether the allegations are true or not, but nevertheless, a scandal is never a good thing.

Assuming (and I stress on the word assuming) that the allegations are in fact true, a couple of things come to mind. When I first heard the story in class, I couldn't help but think something along the lines of "The STORIES the alleged 'prostitutes' presented could have actually been true and properly researched by interviewing real prostitutes, but maybe because the real prostitutes refused to appear on TV to share their stories (who would blame them?), actors were hired instead to give the story a more *real* feel to it, and attempt to give the audience a first-person point of view rather than just reciting stories of prostitution". Now, by looking at it from this perspective, one would understand why the TV show and its presenter would resort to such actions.

On the other hand, other people are more cynical and distrustful when it comes to media scandals (let's admit it, we all love to believe scandals as much as we love conspiracy theories), so probably not so many people would be giving the show the benefit of the doubt.

Taking advertisers and other competitive shows into consideration, it's a negative thing for the former, and a positive thing for the latter. Advertisers and sponsors wouldn't like their respective brands and companies to be associated with scandals, especially ones that are widely-broadcasted. As for competitors on the other hand, the image of one competitive outlet being tarnished is always a good thing.

Also, having some sort of organization and committee to handle these types of situations or prevent them from happening in the first place could be a good and bad thing at the same time. Good, as in the number of these scandals could decrease. Bad, as in, when industries have people with rules watching over them and giving them guidelines, there is less room for creativity on some level. One must weigh out the pros and cons to see what's best for both the media industry and the audiences as well.