Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news.

To start, I’ll first define the question in a way I understood it. Mass media is making up and modifying stories. Recent events mean happenings that have just occurred or is still occurring at this point of time and are reported from now back to a few years ago. I totally agree with the statement that mass media do not report news but make them.

Mass media includes television channels, radio station, newspaper, internet and even reporters. It plays an undeniable role in our daily life by broadcasting news and events that happens around the world to us. Millions of people depend on them for information, causing the influence of mass media becoming so huge that it now wields high powers over the way people think, behave and act on various events that happened around the globe. It affects the society mentally and physically, directly and indirectly. However, in these days, their role has slowly changed from reporting stories to making stories. Since increase profit is their primary goal, they modify and make-up news. It’s like putting the news in cute packages before putting up for sale. I will illustrate my points with some articles from recent events.

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/CNNs_Iraqi_Cover-Up.asp
Based on the article above, CNN’s chief news executive Eason Jordan admitted that for the past decades the network has systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities. Reports of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were covered up in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau. It is clearly shown that they do not report the truth which is unfavourable to them as it will lead to a loss in income. This implies that mass media’s motive of reporting news is not to report the truth but making profits.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/070417/1/47vx0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre#Inaccurate_media_reports

My point is also shown in another article which is about the mass killings in Virginia University in the United States last Monday. If the reporter did not include the number 33 in the headlines, will your reaction be the same when u read it? The number served as a purpose to portray a significant number of people who became the victim in that incident. The decision to air the videos and pictures by the killer is a bad one as the media should not publicize the wrong of the killer and indirectly make him famous but educate the society. The mass media make news without much consideration about the feelings of the family members but how to make their news sell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre#Inaccurate_media_reports

Besides that, in the incident on 16April which is the Virginia Tech massacre. Mass media in different country created their own killer’s identity to attract public’s attention and sell first hand news in order to make money. CNN broadcast the images, which it said provided a "powerful insight into the mind of a killer". Let me illustrate my point with an n example: In a media report, notably Chicago Sun-Times journalist Michael Sneed among others, have wrongly identified a Chinese American and a Chinese national as the suspected shooter. The news though only at guessing state was published even before the gunman was officially disclosed by Virginia Tech authorities.

Though it is undeniable that this probably is not true for all cases as there are some newspaper that are published based truly on facts and do not make-up their own news.

In conclusion, I personally agreed with the statement that mass media create their own story rather than reporting the truth.

1. “YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.” Do you agree?

I personally agree that YouTube has no ethics and it has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. YouTube is well known as an international video-sharing website with billions of viewers flood the website everyday. It has become a common avenue for people to share videos, providing viewers with visual and audio entertainment.
The creators of YouTube say that it is created for the sole purpose to let people share videos all around the world but too many incidents have happened recently which implied that YouTube are providing entertainment at the expenses of making fun of political figures of some country. Just recently, YouTube has a video that lasted forty-four seconds that depicts a feet being placed over the Thailand's king face. It may carry some forms of humour but it has also raised tension among people in Thailand. YouTube doesn’t really care about the video that people uploaded. This is obviously seen in the outrage caused by the 44-second film showing graffiti over the king's face. If only YouTube has screen-check the video being uploaded, the commotion over this issue would not exist at all. Besides that, people nowadays also upload popular drama series on YouTube to allow other people to enjoy them. Now, everyone can watch the video without having to pay for it or buy the dvd. This has violated the law on copyrights issue. YouTube has been so busy in making millions that it didn’t noticed that a large number of materials uploaded are copyrighted ones owned by companies. This leads to outburst like Viacom sued Google, the owner of YouTube. If YouTube really has ethnics, will it allowed these pirated video to be uploaded onto the website? The government is struggling to keep piracy at shore and yet YouTube allows them the freedom to break the law with ease. The information on YouTube also can’t be trusted 100%. This has been voiced out by Ted Gansler, the director of medical content at the American Cancer Society who found a clip attributing breast cancer to abortion. It serves as a reminder and proves to all that online video clips sometimes spread inaccurate information. You can’t deny the fact that YouTube was created in the first place for the sole purpose of generating income for its creator. I mean, how many cooperates are willing to work for nothing? I hereby strongly agree that YouTube has no ethics and it has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.

The teenage years are the best years of one’s life!!

Teenagers are people who are between 13 and 19 years old. When adults talk about teenagers, the first thing that pops into their head is, “Teenagers, they are so lucky!” As a teenager, you should wonder, what do they mean by ‘lucky’? Is it lucky to have to go to school everyday and listen to boring lectures? Is it lucky to have teachers chasing you for homework? Is it fun to have to fight against time and running around to tuition? Every sane teenager would have say no for sure. There’s a Chinese saying that goes ‘you are blessed but does not realize how blessed you are”. Turn away from all the extra classes and look at a brighter side. Teenage years is the time when you get a chance to hang out with your friends at the mall, make more new friends and have fun. They are times when we learnt from our mistakes. People start treating us like a young adult but when you made a mistake, they treat you like a child. It’s a good thing in a way that we in teenage years have the opportunity to make more mistakes and learn from mistakes. Teenage years is also the time when you start doing crazy stuff with your friends, making the first daring move in your life and experiencing many first times in your life. First time dying your hair, first time asking a girl out or maybe first time has a crush on someone. These years are so sweet and memorable that some people regard the age of sixteen as sweet sixteen. Besides that, teenager years are a part of growing up. During this specific period of time, teens will experience different types of emotions, feelings and dilemma. No doubt that they will definitely pass through angst and rebellious phase which occurs when they reach the point where they started to be curious about their identity and searching for the real them. Teens tend to be more sensitive within their teenage years and they pay full attention to critic as they were curious about how others think about them. Being the emotional ones, teens tend to do unpredictable things. It is quite common to hear people say that they doubt whether they are still the same person judging from what they have written in their diary. Looking back, teenage years are considerably fun and memorable. Most people will laugh at their silly mistakes or actions but no matter what silly mistakes or idiotic action they did in the past, it will always serve as a sweet memory. Teenage years are undeniably the best years of one’s life.