Prompt: The popularity of news media often has been significantly influential in people's lives. Some people believe this to be a negative development. To what extent, do you agree or disagree with their opinion?

There is no doubt that the television is the most watched and influencing news' medium. With its increasing recognition, the impact it has on people is also rising. Although there are some benefits, I believe its disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. Ċ In the first place, the news has been changed from traditional hard hitting journalism to chasing the profit. This is mainly because the channels are more business-oriented, they have to promote their profit such as, advertisement fee to survive. For instance, what used to be the prime time slot, is now viral videos from social media shown to the public. Additionally, 50 years ago, you would have not imagined watching police car chase on the news. Consequently, people do not trust this medium anymore, and moving away to social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Ċ Secondly, With increased popularity, there are thousands of these channels. The competition is getting harder, they all try to cover the same story, which results in often lost facts and misleading information. In order to gain an edge over competitors, stories are often run with negligence and almost no fact checking. For example, Arushi murder case in New Delhi was covered by every channel for several months. In the end, everybody had a different viewpoint than the police. As a result, public's opinion about them have changed, they are now considered as an unauthentic source of information. Ċ To conclude, unless there are drastic changes in the rules governing news media, this problem will only escalate. Meanwhile, as responsible citizens, we should not consume any information blindly, and most importantly, we should not get influenced by them.