Faith Can be Reported in the Media

Media is the most important tool for people to communicate and plays a constructive role in knowing the world. It becomes humans’ ears and eyes. It also means that media possesses the power of shaping public opinion. Here the problem comes out. If the media report is so important, should some controversial topic like faith be reported? What should be clear here that faith cannot be stated unless it is directly relevant to the story. That is to say, media coverage should be established on a basis of facts of events.

For starters, media coverage will shape public opinion about issues. So there should be an acute awareness that media is responsible for what and how it reports. Therefore, faith should be covered if relevant to the story. However, some events that are deemed newsworthy are just editorializing something irrelevant to attract people’s attention. For example, some reporters write, “Christians gathered at a St. Mary's Church in honor of ... ”(Parchelo, 2011). This story is related to faith. Also, there exists such a report “group of Jewish kids were playing basketball on ... ”(Parchelo, 2011). It is normal that kids play baseball. Why should their faith be mentioned? Even some reporters will emphasize the criminal’s faith with ethnicity orientation.

Moreover, the media should avoid the bias against faith. There are the impressions for media that people with faith are worthy to be said. The media owes things to faith. If somebody with faith makes mistakes, the media will lead people to believe that faith causes the bad results and the person with faith will bear more blames. However, faith just cannot prevent his mistakes. There exist no direct links between them. On the other hand, if some leaders with faith make great contributions. The media will also attribute the contribution to faith. In brief, that is the tendency that no matter how bad or good the thing is, if somebody with faith does the things, the media will draw the conclusion that faith leads to the result. But the fact is that the thing is nothing with faith.

Last but not the least, the media should get thoughtful analysis and checked facts. The media report must pay attention to the facts of events. But the situation is that the story always strays from the fact. The media report on an individual where not only the faith of the persons identified but his/her entire faith community is associated with the report (Bulka, 2011). The Sikh community participates in every part of the country and makes their efforts for the development of the country. But all the good things happening in the community are often not reported and even when they are, can be overshadowed by a single negative story(Singh, 2011). So media should insist on fairness and thoughtful analysis. Otherwise, it will lead to trivializing the understanding of the world.

Faith can be reported in the media, but it is conditioned. The media should pay attention to its fairness because of its ability to shape public opinions. Moreover, the media coverage cannot involve bias against faith into the media report. The most important factor is that the media report should be based on thoughtful analysis and checked facts. The media as a role of influencing public opinions should take the responsibility for leading people to have a critical look at issues. It can not be regarded as a mere tool for entertainment rather than a tool knowing the world well.