It is difficult to overestimate the importance and significance of news in our life. Media affects virtually all spheres of our life and helps one feel a part of a community. Following the news, one may get an insight into political, financial sphere, create an impression of what is happening in the world, and more importantly, in a community that one lives in.
How news is presented vary depending on the source. TV and periodicals may be more lenient to the Government whereas the Internet, Social Media, and online blogs are less biased and present the reader with issues to contemplate. It is up to a reader whether to obtain news from opinionated sources or objective publications which provide readers with nothing more than bare facts.
This paper will study the news presented in the frames of the Bennet News Model. The articles from the Gulf News Publication were selected as examples for discussion and critique of the theory. The Bennet News Model is based on the fact-oriented telling of the news where the role of the reporter and his opinion is minuscule. The Bennet News Model presents neutral coverage of events, and therefore, attracts a wider audience.
The news articles from the Gulf News elucidate on the life of a famous, Bollywood actor Salman Khan who has been in the media spotlight both for his career achievements as well as for the crimes he had been accused of, specifically the notorious hit-and-run case of 2002, when he allegedly drove over a man sleeping on the pavement, killing him and injured four others (Egbert, 2015).
One may think that stories dealing with crimes committed by celebrities are fertile ground for speculation and social analysis, however, the Gulf News chose a rather neutral and impersonal tone in reporting the story. Two articles are dealing with Arman Khan and his crime, the first one ‘Salman Khan cleared in deadly hit-and-run’ which is not an article per se, rather a bare interpretation of court sessions and proceedings, dates, etc. The second one ‘India’s love affair with Salman Khan continues’ which is almost entirely comprised of Salman Khan’s biography and cinematic achievements with only two small columns shedding light on the crime and the latest acquittal verdict.
It is not the crime itself that needs to be discussed, the issue behind it presents a wider spectrum of thoughts, one of which is India’s justice system. The article from the Gulf News and its narration style is in apparent contradiction of the same news presented in various social media sources. Many popular bloggers have spoken their minds regarding the issue, and Twitter exploded with tweets ridiculing the verdict (Pathak, 2015).
The social media response was far more heated. The articles dealing with celebrity crimes on the Internet present a completely different style. Bloggers blamed the Times of India newspaper for the biased depiction of Khan’s story by putting the details of court proceedings on the front page, while the names and reports of the victims involved were only on the second page (Pathak, 2015).
The Gulf News, in my opinion, not only used the Bennet News Model, but they also skillfully shifted public focus from the crime and the controversial verdict to Salman Khan’s life, involving his failed relationship and an assault on former Ms. World and Bollywood Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, his box-office success, appearance in commercials and other facts from his life which are in no way relevant to the notorious crime that is supposed to be the media focus.
Media attitude to celebrity life coverage has always been disproportional “media organizations scale back coverage of government and world events — even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — there seems no shortage of resources available for celebrity doings. Celebrity “news” magazine shows have sprouted like mushrooms after a rainstorm.” (Altman, 2005, p. 2).
Public infatuation with celebrities is so strong that when a crime involving a celebrity occurs, less attention is paid to the other party, who is not famous but has been involved in a crime. Researchers argue that people are more fixated on a celebrity, rather than on what is happening around them. Some people may even pay less attention to the government issues and the world around them and more to a celebrity’s life (Altman, 2005).
If Gulf News articles featuring Khan’s trial are based on the Bennet News Model which follows the principles of neutral, impersonal portrayal of events with an unbiased approach, the reader may be faced with an intriguing contradiction since the principles of objective news coverage are supposed to involve all of the parties equally in the news publication. The alleged crime claimed the life of one man and injured four others, although the authors of the article did not even bother to tell the reader the exact number of victims and their names, merely reporting that “several others were injured” (Egbert, 2015, p. 9). The reader is given zero information about the laborer Nurulah Mahbob Sharif, who lost his life as a result of the traffic accident. If the tone of the publication is unbiased, then all of the parties involved should at least have equal representation in the article. Dedicating zero words to describe Nurulah and telling the reader nothing about the family he might have had, his children and his background is in no way an objective portrayal of events.
That having been said, the authors of the article are not to blame as current media trends dictate commitment to readers’ interest. One may lament the fact that that the publication entirely lacked the information on the victims, however, current trends are such that even government affairs and important foreign events, let alone unknown victims, are often replaced with trivial celebrity gossip (Altman, 2005).
One needs to understand that media sources, whether print, Internet, or TV are primarily oriented towards public needs, and they publish the news that readers are interested in. Giving too much attention to unknown individuals may imply losing the audience. The media covers celebrities owing to increasing reader and viewer interest, although critics say that obsession with celebrity’s lives diverts attention from pressing social issues such as the health sector, parenting, religion and other important areas which are more relevant to one’s life than a celebrity’s wrongdoing (Altman, 2005).
In today’s multifaceted world with an abundance of information sources, it is becoming more difficult for the reader to navigate through an array of information sources, and spot a truly objective coverage of events. The articles from the Gulf News prove that, what at first might seem like an objective, impersonal report, is a one-sided presentation where only one party is fixated on, while the other, less important, is completely left out.
The news may be presented based on various models, and the reader needs to realize that media is primarily interested in appealing to the audience, and this sometimes compromises objectivity.
Reference List
Altman, H. (2005). Celebrity Culture Are Americans Too Focused on Celebrities? Web.
Egbert, C. (2015). Salman Khan cleared in deadly hit-and-run. Gulf News, p.9.
Egbert, C. (2015). India’s love affair with Salman Khan continues Gulf News, p.11.
Pathak, D. (2015). Celebrity Crimes: Understanding The Unspoken Power Of Conjecture & Conspiracy Over Facts. Web.