Dream Debate

 B.I.R.T. the media is sensitive and responsible

Negative:  The media is insensitive and irresponsible

           Honorable Judges, Fellow classmates, Worthy Opponents. The resolution before us today, BIRT the media is sensitive and responsible is absolutely incorrect. We the negative team firmly believe this to be true, and plan to tell you why.

          If the media WAS sensitive and responsible, we would not be living in such a violent, crime-filled, immorality infested world as we do today!

          Violence in television programs and movies are harmful for many fundamental psychological reasons. The lack of responsibility on the part the broadcaster has a critical affect on society.

          As the years pass, the responsibility and sensibility of the media has rapidly declined. Television and radio twenty years ago was not nearly as bad as it is today. Over the past 10 years, there has been a significant increase in the amount of bad scenes on television.

• On a per-hour basis, sexual content more than tripled.

• Material in the sexual subcategories was more than seven times as frequent.

• Foul language was more than five and a half times as frequent

• And the most dramatic increase was in homosexual references, which were more than twenty-four times as common!

• One show, UPN's WWF Smackdown! - was responsible for more than 11 per cent of all the combined sex, cursing, and violence in 1999

          If this increase continues, the influence of media on the population will continue to do what it's done for the past century. There is only one direction this world will go in - Anarchy!

          Television, radio, the internet, and other forms of media were invented for a purpose. Their invention was to facilitate the transfer of information from one place to another. They were definitely NOT designed to change our moral values and replace them by promoting explicit scenes, violence, obscene language, nudity, homosexuality, materialism, and others still yet to come.

          Violence is what we thrive on. It is for this exact reason that media broadcasters show it! They know deep down inside we want to see it, so they'll make tons of money by showing it!

          Media coverage is really getting out of control. Live coverage of gruesome accidents and crime are not uncommon - even interrupting children's cartoons. Is showing violence to young minds sensitivity? Absolutely not.

          One of the local television news stations in Virginia chose to do a feature on the widespread crime of car jacking after a couple of cars supposedly were car jacked. In the report, the news anchor reported extensive details documenting how characters steal cars. The week after the story aired, the number of car jackings shot up in the area. Although the local television station was hoping to increase awareness of the problem, they, in fact, gave criminals a sure-fire recipe for success.

          So Since when is it responsibility to show this unnecessary coverage and damaging information? It is NOT responsibility to be dishonest when we sell a car, It is NOT responsibility to sell drugs on the street, and is NOT the media's responsibility to show garbage to the common people!

          The biggest stress of a news company is not to be careful of what they show, but what they can do to stay ahead of the competition and make the most money.

"Television can teach you many things"

          What can Television teach other than to hate, steal, kill people, swear and so on? The little that Television can teach you can easily be replaced by a good book. If you're saying that television is a teaching tool, then you're saying I'm uneducated. Trash on TV is one of the main reasons that my parents didn't let a TV into the house until I was ten years old! And do I miss it? No. In fact, I have no time for it because I spend that time doing more worthwhile things.

"The internet helps people"

          Indeed, the internet is a vast source for information. But is it really information that we need? Is it the result of a lack of information that parents will get divorced? Is it because of a lack of information that causes a building to burn down? No! of course it isn't. almost everything happens from judgements based on morality and wisdom, which is exactly what the media mocks! Perhaps we should consider that, in both society and schools, there is too much information. This does not promote pure knowledge, just confusion.

          The internet poses great changes on the real reason why school exists. School does not exist so we can cram as much information as possible into our brain for a knowledgeable future. School exists so that we may learn about responsibility, courage, leadership, friendship, wisdom, and countless others which the internet cannot give or teach whatsoever. Even though the internet may be good for chatting, the internet has been proven to be associated with symptoms of social isolation, such as depression and loneliness. This is because people will replace time normally spend with other living people, to type messages into a keyboard.

Newspapers are often as irresponsible as television broadcasters

          On the front page of the Washington Post, was an article about the drug Ritalin. You would expect the article to talk about the dangers of the drug but did it? No! Instead The article explicitly described the step-by-step process of how a kid could sell Ritalin to his classmates. The article told the reader, who could be a teen-age Ritalin user, all the places he could find the drug. The article even said those who never considered Ritalin may have a black market value, may realize the drug is in demand; and could help with their cash flow problems.

In conclusion, the mass-media of television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the internet are causing major damage and negative impacts on our fragile and toppling society. This can only lead us to understand that the media is indeed very insensitive and irresponsible. Thank-you.